Madonna Speaks About Album Producer Orbit

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Fifteen years after her debut, is Madonna still relevant?

The numerous radio and Internet leaks of "Frozen," the lead single from her forthcoming Maverick/Warner Bros. album, Ray Of Light, implies audiences think so.

The set, slated for worldwide release March 3, shows the pop chameleon sewing intense words into edgy electronic backdrops and jagged guitar grooves. More than half of the disc's songs were written with William Orbit, a pioneering techno producer. "I've always found something melancholy about his music," Madonna says of Orbit. "Since I'm attracted to that sound, and since I tend to write a lot ofsad songs, we seemed like a good match."

Orbit is equally pleased with the set's results, primarily because Madonna "insisted upon the purity of [his] arrangements, which worked astonishingly well with her pop songs."

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Song Stories

“Everyday People”

Sly and the Family Stone | 1968

"Everyday People" managed to trailblaze in two different ways -- it was one of the first pop hits to deal with the subject of racial harmony, and it utilized Larry Graham's "slap" technique on the bass guitar, which would soon be copied by countless other bassists. Graham once said about his pulsating style, "I'd never done that before … that's where the freedom of creativity came in for the band, that we'd be allowed to do that." In 1978, the song's line "Different strokes for different folks" would be borrowed for the title of the hit television show Diff'rent Strokes.

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