“Frozen” by Madonna

"Frozen" was the first single from Ray of Light, Madonna's seventh studio album, sent out by Maverick and Warner Bros. on January 23, 1998, and it's slow, icy and steeped in electronics. She wrote it with Patrick Leonard, and the two produced it with William Orbit, layering synthesizers and strings into a downtempo ballad about a man too cold to feel anything. Craig Armstrong arranged it and Marius de Vries plays keyboards.

Critics swooned over its cinematic sweep. It stalled at number two in the US, her sixth single to peak there, but became her first to debut at number one in Britain. Chris Cunningham's video, shot at Cuddeback Lake in California, turns her into a witchy apparition who melts into a swarm of birds and then a black dog, and it won an MTV award for its special effects.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.