Ray of Light turned 25 this February, an article from the 20th of anniversary on The Quietus had me going down memory lane. I recall at the time, the collaboration with William Orbit and the Sasha remixes got a lot praise in the music press. Of the remixes, I bought a copy of Drowned World (Substitute For Love) on vinyl at the time which I really liked. The Sasha & BT remix was akin to Sasha’s Belfunk with its interesting bassline, going through peaks and troughs as Madonna sings on.
On the flip side of my copy, there was a Sasha remix edit of Sky Fits Heaven running at just over 4 minutes, alongside another version of Substitute For Love on the same side, but I can’t recall if it’s the original mix or Victor Calderone’s. I was really into the last ~30 seconds of the Sky Fits Heaven edit, with the chopped up vocals, thinking it would be a great set finale.
Roll on 25 years and I learn that the edit is of a much longer Sasha remix (sometimes call the Sasha’s The Drug Fits Face Mix depending on the release) coming in at over 7 minutes and the original mix is pretty good too. 🙂
I didn’t pay much attention to the Ray of Light remixes at the time and was only turned on to Sasha’s Twilo remix of Ray of Light a few years ago. Following the anniversary, the Ray of Light remixes have been re-released digitally and the Twilo remix is available if you purchase the full remix set.
The last few weeks I’ve been listening to these tracks quite a lot, especially the original, Sasha & BT Buck Lodge, William Orbit’s A Reverie mixes of Drowned World (Substitute For Love).
