Possibly the best pop album ever! (Like A Prayer - Madonna)

Member Name: josh_debbarman

Product:	Like A Prayer - Madonna
Date:	09/05/02 (550 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Madonna's voice has come on leaps and bounds, totally entrancing and gripping themes, Fantastic songwriting

Disadvantages: , NONE!

Spiritual, controversial and totally different from Madonna's previous works, the cathartic 'Like A Prayer' came in at a crossroads for Madonna. She was ending her marriage to Sean Penn, she was searching for a new identity, seeking to throw off the glamourous Marilyn Monroe look and glitzy singing style as she had thrown off the street urchin look and music years before. A HUGE success - critically and commercially - this album shows us just why Madonna was the top-selling artist of the 1980's.

Like A Prayer is a classy song, one of Madonna's most famous. The intro features a few seconds of heavy rock guitar (performed by Prince) which is cut off by a choir and an organ before Madonna, sings "Life is a mystery, everyone must stand alone, I hear you call my name, and it feels like home...". There follows a clattery rhythm track and the immortally catchy chorus "When you call my name, it's like a little prayer, I'm down on my knees, I want to take you there. In the midnight hour, I can feel your power, just like a prayer, I want to take you there..."; who she is talking to is not clear - God? Her father? A lover? All of them?? Madonna's earnest voice (sounding at times child-like, at other times fiery, seductive and pleading), the able backing of the gospel choir and Prince's inspired guitar (flickering silkily left and right with a bubbled sequence bass line) interact perfectly, producing one of the greatest songs ever. The great sense of drama and building atmosphere is heightened by interruption to the percussive rhythm and this is musically a far more complex song than anything she had ever done previous to this, though elements of her old sound are there too, resulting in a richer sound. The extremely controversial video, featuring burning crosses and her kissing a black saint, was a blow for racial equality, but ended in the Catholic Church and the Pope condemning her for sacrilage as they did no
t approve of the connection drawn by Madonna between the passion of sex with the passion of worship (nor, I suspect with the notion of a black saint!). The song is actually about the mystery, fear, oppressiveness, passion, discipline and obsession with guilt of Catholicism in a devotional way and how it profoundly affected Madonna's life. Safe in this knowledge and regardless of the fact that the Church did not get this song, she fearlessly reconfirmed she was a Catholic and continued undaunted, a typical 'Madonna'reaction.

If the video of Like A Prayer was partially about racial equality, then Express Yourself is all about sexual equality and self-empowerment. A typically upbeat number inspired by Sly and the Family Stone, where strong drumbeat is accompanied by guitar, bass and brass. She urges women not to "go for second best, baby, put your love to the test, you know, you know, you've got to...". She says that women shouldn't be bought with material gifts but must choose for themselves and have the right to do so. Crucially, while it is a feminist song, it is not aggressively so (and real feminists might have a problem with the notion of women being pampered by men!), as it exhorts women to get their men to express themselves too. Perhaps she is also trying to lay the ghost of Material Girl (which people didn't get as being a mickey-taking exercise against materialism) to rest. Even ignoring this message, this is still a real belter of a song, with powerful vocals which have a thicker texture.

Love Song is a duet between Madonna and Prince. The musical style is more Prince than Madonna, and the quirky feel is very different to the rest of the album, and provides interest. Madonna starts off the song by asking in French "I am ready, are you ready?". The idiosyncratic arrangement assembled from lots of little bits are Prince's trademark, and he supplies flickers of Jimmy Nolan funk guitar and fals
etto vocals - singing both in upper and lower registers with a laconic grace. The pair didn't even meet up for the recording - Madonna and Prince couldn't match their busy schedules, so they recorded separately and then the vocals were mixed. The theme is "are you wasting my time?". Though Prince vocally takes a back seat to Madonna, his vocal contributions are important to the feel of the song and are very distinctive, and the music is definitely his and this has the feeling of a melding of two colossal talents, a meeting of equal geniuses. This is a lazy, sexy song, though it ends with Madonna belting out a couple of edgier phrases.

Despite the breezy synth backing and fast tempo, Till Death Do Us Part is a startlingly honest song boasting a memorable chorus and plagent verse as Madonna charts the twists and turns of a slowly failing relationship - which is autobiographical song, her marriage to actor Sean Penn ending acrimoniously at the same time. It is a quite beautiful track with a slight rock feel. The song starts with some guitar playing with an echo delay sending the notes in the style pioneered by the Edge of U2. The chorus is a fast turnaround with a poignant melody over its minor chords. The nightmare is created by the continual onrush (signifying perhaps her helplessness) and the sequences where Madonna speaks and sings the same lines simultaneously. The lyrics are obviously written from the heart: "You need so much but not from me, turn your back in my hour of need. Well something's wrong, but you pretend you don't see. I think I interrupt your life, when you laugh it cuts me just like a knife - I'm not your friend, I'm just your little wife...". The conflict of being with someone who doesn't love themselves and doesn't love her and threatening violence is starkly played out here, and she doesn't even have the consolation of knowing that he's in love with someone else. The song has a
n appropriately claustrophobic carousel of a whirl, and it ends with a wah-wah guitar lick and a broken bottle, signifying a marriage in ruins. This jaw-droppingly personal song possibly has the title of the most underrated song by Madonna, not because it is criticised but because it is simply invisible when in truth it is the embodiment of truly great songwriting.

Promise To Try is another strongly autobiographical song. Madonna lost her mother to cancer when she was only six. Things get even more melancholy from the previous track with Madonna's voice almost trembling as she recounts all the things she remembers about her mother, and the promises she subsequently made to her father, and to herself. A sombre, moody piano introduction ushers in this ballad, which addresses Madonna as a child - the lyrics written as if written to a child ("I was afraid you'd go away too" instead of the stark, more adult "I was afraid that you'd die too"). The piano is supported by strings and the overall effect is like Elton John's songs, but with a tenderness that Elton John is not capable of. The bridge wanters into different tonal territory with a cello solo. The song is brought to a low key and appropriately short ending, with Madonna resisting the temptation to barnstorm a grand finale, which would have ruined the song. This understatement is the genius of this song. It is obviously sung from the heart in a totally unpretentious way, and it should bring a lump to the throat of the toughest man - if it doesn't, then you've got a heart of stone!

After the last two tracks, you almost need a rest to get over your emotions! But stick with the record, Cherish provides some real feel-good factor, which lifts the mood from the rather depressing previous track. Madonna tells her boy that she really cherishes his love and his strength. This is a tune of true devotion, told in a wonderfully sunny and romantic way. A fast danci
ng 12/8 beat with a great bouncy bass line and strings deftly sketch in the passing minor chords like the memory of a sadness that won't quite go away. The chorus is one of Madonna's finest, with a much faster rate of harmonic change. The bridge has a lovely sliding push rhythm before the harmonica solo adds its sweetness with a subliminial allusion to all those early Stevie Wonder Motown Sixties sides. Surprise is added when, instead of going back to a chorus, the song reverts to the bridge, a clever delaying tactic. In addition, there is a brief 'dub' section where Madonna's backing vocals are supported just by a brass line before the drums kick back in with an exhilarating re-entry. Finally, Madonna stuns with no less than three excellent counter-melodies in the closing section going on simultaneously! 'Cherish' contains generally some of the best songwriting and song structuring Madonna has ever managed. One line ends as another begins, all blending into one "so tired of broken hearts and losing at this game (before I start) this dance I'll take a chance in telling you I want more than just romance". Madonna's voice has never sounded like this before or since. Warm, girlish, gentle,and bright as a ray of sunshine. "Romeo and Juliette, they never felt this way I bet"...I think that communicates to us what sort of trip Madonna is on here.

Dear Jessie was written as a sing-song lullaby for collaborator Patrick Leonard's daughter Jessie (aged three at the time), as well as more obliquely for the child in Madonna's self. As such it is charming, but the bounciness of the song can be appreciated by adults too, despite the lyrics, which are obviously aimed at young children. Psychedelic in a way the Beatles (with 'Strawberry Fields Forever') and Queen would have appreciated. In an albums that often looks back to the hurt of childhood, this is a marvellous celebration of childhood's ima
gination and joy - a form of wonderland. As with the previous track, vocals are skilfully interwoven in the chorus. The song has a fast tempo of a Madonna song, but it also contains strummed acoustics, trumpet breaks (with a slightly Spanish feel) and glissando. The song fades with just the orchestra which is EQ'ed to make it thin and trebly as though coming out of a radio. Which leads into the next song as the strings turn 'sad' from their 'happy' sound in this song.

Madonna's relationship with her father was difficult and complex, and the revisitation of her childhood in Oh Father goes some way to explain this, explaining how much better she feels now she is no longer under her father's control and anger. The hurt from her father remarrying after her mother's death is quite evident here, and though the sound of the voice is mature, the wounded child in Madonna is plain to see. A classically beautiful stanza from the song, the vocal bridge asks the question, "Oh father, if you never wanted to live that way, if you never wanted to hurt me, why am I running away ?". Somewhat confusingly, and deliberately, Madonna sings "Oh father, I have sinned" which is an example of the play on words that Madonna loves. Is it her biological father she is addressing, or God (at a time when she was questioning the nature of Catholicism, the religion she was born and brought up in)? Or both? A strangely nostalgic feel counterbalances the criticism of her father, and shows what a complex relationship this is, and this is emphasised by a generous compassionate and conciliatory note near the end: "Maybe some day, when I look back I'll be able to say, 'You didn't mean to be cruel - somebody hurt you too.'", which is preceded by a very tasteful instrumental break. Again, Madonna uses contrasting timbre, with a smoother higher voice in a background with a more grainy deep voice as the main voice. As atmo
spheric as an old Simon and Garfunkel ballad, this haunting song has an ethereal quality and the chorus sees Madonnas voice as a ghost-like chime. This track becomes embellished with dramatic piano as it concludes and contains some nice usage of echoed slide guitar. A very conflicting, but immensely interesting and deeply personal song, it has been compared to Kate Bush's 'The Fog' and Tori Amos' 'Winter' in terms of the power of exploration of childhood. One of the most powerfully emotive songs of Madonna's career.

In Keep It Together, however, she credits her father with keeping the family together through difficult times. "Don't forget that your family is gold" Madonna admonishes, and the relationship between brothers and sisters is paramount, literalising the 'brothers and sisters' cliche of soul music. As for the song itself, the bouncy rhythm lifts the mood again from the previous track in a celebration of family values. There's a slap bass along with sequences synth bass. In this song, the individualist breaks out of the family and makes it big, but realises that things are not so good after all away from the family and that fame is not all it's cracked up to be. Surely not another autobiographical song?? The wah-wah synth echoes Sly and the Family Stone (e.g. 'It's a Family Affair'). There's some effective mixing towards the end of the song where the percussion is thinned out, cut with a live drummer and conga player. A great party singalong, though not a truly great song musically speaking.

Pray For Spanish Eyes is such a beautiful song, the music is quite sorrowfully enchanting, and Madonna's voice is filled with regret at the loss of her love, the 'Spanish Eyes' to war, emphasised by the catch in her voice that she does so well especially in the chorus, where there is a memory vocal harmony. The religious theme of the album is continued as Madonna ask
ed God why He allows such terrible things to happen. The rhythm is similar to the dances of mourning that was common in the South American countries, and the song has a very Latin feel, accentuated with castanets. The chorus is quite superb: "I light this candle and watch it throw tears on my pillow, and if there is a Christ, he'll come tonight, to pray for Spanish Eyes". There is a guitar solo in the middle which is reminiscent of Sting's 'Fragile'. The best thing is that the song builds in power and effect (especially the trumpet flourishes and the line "how many sons will they have to have to burn? Spanish Eyes, when will they ever learn?") as it goes on, and then ends before you expect it with wind-chimes, most effectively.

A most unconventional, yet fitting ending comes with Act Of Contrition, a crazy Prince guitar screeches wildly as the title track plays backward (try it, record it onto a wav file and reverse it, if you don't believe me). And there's Madonna making a mock-confession before roaring like the possessed woman from the Exorcist "whattya mean its not in the computer???!!!" once she realises that her place in heaven is not booked by a simple prayer... It's a gobsmacking end to what is perhaps the greatest pop/rock album ever made. By the way, don't bother looking for satanic messages in this, as some people have claimed - Madonna puts her subversive messages the right way around!

Madonna took her first extended break from the world for 15 months. When she emerged in the spring of 1989, the charts had become full of 'bubblegum' pop following her lead. Even soap stars had got in on the act in the UK, and teen queens joined in in the US (Debbie Gibson, Tiffany). Dance music had further developed and begun creeping up from the undergound into the nether regions of the charts. Though imitation is truly a form of flattery, the women who followed Madonna's lead ne
ver had much substance and it wasn't until Madonna herself returned that the public realised how much it missed her. But no one was quite prepared for what was to come with her new set, intriguingly entitled 'Like A Prayer' The fact that we dont see Madonna's face on this album cover (the ONLY Madonna album where you dont see her face) appears to support the view that Madonna had tired of showing her 'mask' and was now in the most contemplative and personal mood of her career thus far. Clearly the year off had been far from a 'holiday'. And so it proved as she delivered an album that, in one fail swoop, answered every single criticism thrown at her by her growing number of sceptics. Madonna for the first time, HAD to be recognised as the true artist that she was.

Spiritual in a way that the previous albums were not, this album was nonetheless misinterpreted by the Church as being anti-Christian and even satanic by the more rabid. Brutally honest and startlingly autobiographic, you see into the depths of Madonna's soul, as for once she bares it instead of parts of her body. Collaborator Patrick Leonard stated that Madonna is normally a fast worker, but this record took three or four times longer to write, partly because she kept breaking down due to the intensely personal nature of the material. Superb and iconic, this album is one of Madonna's most famous, and justly many people's favourite. Easily the best album Madonna wrote in the '80s and possibly the best pop/rock record ever.

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