album of the week

madonna

Madonna / Like A Prayer
[Sire Records: 1989]

Madonna’s 1989 release Like A Prayer is inarguably her greatest musical achievement and one of the most important pop albums of the 1980s. Love her or hate her, girlfriend has hit some pretty ridiculous milestones in a career spanning 25 years:

• 200 million records sold worldwide
  
• Inducted into the Rock n Roll hall of fame
  
• Pushing boundaries for minority groups including latinos, African Americans, gays and lesbians
  
• A Golden Globe award
  
• Being fitter at 50 than I’ll ever be in my entire life
  

This year is the 20th anniversary of Like A Prayer, so instead of doing a regular review we’ll dedicate seven words to each song on the album.

1. Like A Prayer – Catholics riot. Pope squirms. Everyone else? – Dance!
2. Express Yourself – Female empowerment track made shoulder pads sexy
3. Love Song (feat. Prince) – Dream collaboration. Only Prince could outsexify Madonna
4. Til Death Do Us Part – Confessional about Sean Penn being a prick
5. Promise To Try – Wrenching piano ballad with gorgeously honest vocal
6. Cherish – The Herb Ritts-directed video is totally whalesome
7. Dear Jessie – Disney-ish. A favourite when I was nine
8. Oh Father – Madonna’s bitch slap to her deadbeat dad
9. Keep It Together – Funking tribute to Sly and Family Stone
10. Spanish Eyes – Brave and honest song inspired by AIDS
11. Act of Contrition – a contrite Madonna gets rejected from heaven

Amazingly it still sounds as modern, as subversive and as captivating an album as it did when it was first released. Madonna and I may have drifted apart over the last few years, but we’ll always have Like A Prayer.




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