More than 25 years after it was first whispered about in fan circles and record label hallways, the long-lost Veronica Electronica finally sees the light of day. A sister to Madonna’s groundbreaking 1998 album Ray of Light, this long-rumored collection pulls back the velvet curtain on a moment in pop history that was almost lost to time. Madonna, forever the shapeshifter and the Queen of Pop returns here not with something new, but with something rare: a portal into one of her boldest artistic phases. The album pulses with reimagined club remixes by dance music legends like Peter Rauhofer, William Orbit, Sasha, BT and Victor Calderone, each track a time capsule of late-90s euphoria, but polished and edited with fresh intention. And tucked among the throb and swirl of beats is “Gone, Gone, Gone”, an unreleased demo co-produced with Rick Nowels that feels like a handwritten letter from a past self finally sent.
The journey begins with the “Bucklodge Ashram New Edit” of “Drowned World/Substitute for Love”, a slow trance-laced reimagining from progressive house titans Sasha and BT. Originally tucked into a 12-inch single back in 1998, the track opens like a meditation spiraling inward: hypnotic loops, trembling synths, and percussion that feels like it’s trying to break free from its own pattern. It doesn’t aim to comfort, it beckons you to get lost. Then comes a harder, darker turn with “Ray of Light – Sasha Twilo Mix Edit”, where Sasha, one of Madonna’s most crucial collaborators during this era, lets the track stretch and shudder with heavyweight synths and a relentless rhythm. What’s striking isn’t just the shift from club-thumping intensity to emotional depth, it’s how that shift happens without warning. One moment you’re in the heart of the rave, the next you’re floating in memory. The transition is so seamless, it almost doesn’t register until you feel it.
Then comes “Skin”, a Peter & Victor’s Collaboration Remix Edit. This track walks in with a buoyant bassline that seems to lift you off the ground before letting loose with sharp, magnetic percussion. Madonna’s voice drifts in like smoke, barely there – “Do I know you from somewhere? / Why do you leave me wanting more?” – more spirit guide than frontwoman. It’s less a song than a séance of rhythm and mood, continuing the album’s early pattern of letting the producers do the speaking.
At this stage, Veronica Electronica starts to flirt with repetition. Like many remix compilations, some moments feel more obligatory than inspired. The Club 69 version of “Nothing Really Matters” and the rework of “Sky Fits Heaven” don’t quite lift off; they exist, they pulse, but they don’t haunt.
Then “Frozen” arrives, and suddenly, the album finds its heartbeat again. The remix blends pop, ambient, and something just left of tribal, blurring genre lines until they disappear. And “The Power of Good-Bye” is a quiet triumph. Where earlier tracks leaned on beats, this one leans into feeling, Madonna circling back to the emotional terrain she mapped on Ray of Light, but with new shades of grace, letting the song open up into something both intimate and cosmic.
Closing out the record is “Gone Gone Gone”, the long-lost demo that never made it onto Ray of Light, and in many ways, it feels like the emotional key that was missing all along. Stripped of grandeur and remixes, it’s Madonna at her most vulnerable: direct, unguarded, and finally speaking plainly after an album’s worth of echo and abstraction. It doesn’t reach for transcendence, it settles into truth. The lyrics don’t need to soar because the sentiment already does.
With this quiet, unfussy finale, Veronica Electronica gains a kind of closure. No, it doesn’t match the divine polish or emotional architecture of Ray of Light – few records ever have. But that’s not the point. This album isn’t about rewriting history; it’s about finishing a sentence left hanging for 25 years. It gives form to a forgotten chapter and lets a monumental era exhale one last time. In doing so, Madonna doesn’t just honor the past, she releases it.
