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All rights reserved.Like a Prayer - Madonna (CD 1989)
Madonna's "Prayer" For Another Great Pop Album Was AnsweredReview created: 04/22/08
by: speeddemon531-- a member of Epinions and Advisor in Music
Pros:
Madonna's most musically diverse, experimental record...and most of the experiments work.
Madonna's most musically diverse, experimental record...and most of the experiments work.
Cons:
"Spanish Eyes" is terrible and the Prince duet is half-baked.
"Spanish Eyes" is terrible and the Prince duet is half-baked.
On her first three albums, Madonna seemed content to be frothy and lightweight. "Dance and sing, get up and do your thing" was the refrain of Everybody, her very first single, and it's safe to say that most folks who listened to Madonna's records for most of the Eighties did just that.
Of course, anyone even remotely aware of the history of pop artists and pop music knows that the "serious" album lurks somewhere in every musician's mind, and 1989 marked Madonna's first attempt to be taken seriously as an artist, Like a Prayer.
At the time this album was released, there weren't too many people who recognized Madonna as more than a disposable pop/dance singer, someone whose success was due more to her sex appeal than any sort of talent. Hell, there are plenty of people who still think that way (kids, it's impossible for someone to sustain a 25 year career of virtually uninterrupted success without SOME kind of talent). Like a Prayer was designed to shut those people up. The lyrical content was much darker, Madonna's voice sounded fuller, and the music was a bit more wide-ranging, combining elements of hooky pop with dramatic balladry, neo-psychedelia and bare-bones funk. It's a fairly diverse album that manages to hit more often than it misses.
What's funny is that the two major hit singles from Like a Prayer are among the least distinguished tracks on the album. While Express Yourself and the title track are among Madonna's best known songs, they're fairly average when you look at Madonna's overall body of work, not to mention the fact that the two songs sound very similar to one another. The gospel choir and some semi-buried guitar give the title track a hint of menace that elevates it slightly above the mundane, but the painfully literal lyrics of Express Yourself place it at #1 on my Most Overrated Madonna Songs list.
Thankfully, there's a handful of truly stellar material here. The frenetic Till Death Do Us Part is fairly unsettling once you listen to the lyrics. Madonna discusses a relationship fraught with tension, obviously referencing her doomed marriage to Sean Penn. It's an intense, claustrophobic track that ranks among her best work. Family life provides the framework for much of the good material here, as the dramatic ballad Oh Father and the joyously funky Keep it Together-the most R&B-sounding song she's ever recorded-are the highlights of the album. There's also the summery, girlish Cherish, a bouncy tune that manages to lighten the mood of this fairly dark album.
Like a Prayer also contains some of Madonna's most bizarre work. Her long-awaited duet with Prince, Love Song, is interesting. This skeletal funk tune sounds like much of Prince's "Lovesexy"-era work, but it also sounds a little unfinished. After nearly two decades, I'm still not sure whether I like this song or just think it's average. The other experiments work a little better, including the psychedelic hippie vibe of Dear Jessie or the truly strange album closer Act of Contrition. The song starts off sounding like a coda to the album's title track (complete with the choir on the original song singing backwards) but turns into Madonna screaming about having lost a restaurant reservation. Whether this was meant to show off Madonna's humorous side or has some completely hidden meaning, I'll never know.
Lots of people mention the Like a Prayer album as the moment when they started to take Madonna seriously. While I agree that the LP has more elements that would appeal to the "serious" (read: non-pop music loving) music fan, it's more or less on the same level as the three albums that preceded it. Aside from one completely awful song-Spanish Eyes features Madonna's most strained non-"Evita" vocal performance ever-it's a consistent, enjoyable slice of late Eighties pop that cemented Madonna's reputation as the most influential female musician of our time.
"Like a Prayer" by Madonna
Released 1989 on Sire Records
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Track Listing: Like a Prayer/Express Yourself/Love Song (with Prince)/Promise To Try/Till Death Do Us Part/Cherish/Dear Jessie/Oh Father/Keep It Together/Spanish Eyes/Act of Contrition
Of course, anyone even remotely aware of the history of pop artists and pop music knows that the "serious" album lurks somewhere in every musician's mind, and 1989 marked Madonna's first attempt to be taken seriously as an artist, Like a Prayer.
At the time this album was released, there weren't too many people who recognized Madonna as more than a disposable pop/dance singer, someone whose success was due more to her sex appeal than any sort of talent. Hell, there are plenty of people who still think that way (kids, it's impossible for someone to sustain a 25 year career of virtually uninterrupted success without SOME kind of talent). Like a Prayer was designed to shut those people up. The lyrical content was much darker, Madonna's voice sounded fuller, and the music was a bit more wide-ranging, combining elements of hooky pop with dramatic balladry, neo-psychedelia and bare-bones funk. It's a fairly diverse album that manages to hit more often than it misses.
What's funny is that the two major hit singles from Like a Prayer are among the least distinguished tracks on the album. While Express Yourself and the title track are among Madonna's best known songs, they're fairly average when you look at Madonna's overall body of work, not to mention the fact that the two songs sound very similar to one another. The gospel choir and some semi-buried guitar give the title track a hint of menace that elevates it slightly above the mundane, but the painfully literal lyrics of Express Yourself place it at #1 on my Most Overrated Madonna Songs list.
Thankfully, there's a handful of truly stellar material here. The frenetic Till Death Do Us Part is fairly unsettling once you listen to the lyrics. Madonna discusses a relationship fraught with tension, obviously referencing her doomed marriage to Sean Penn. It's an intense, claustrophobic track that ranks among her best work. Family life provides the framework for much of the good material here, as the dramatic ballad Oh Father and the joyously funky Keep it Together-the most R&B-sounding song she's ever recorded-are the highlights of the album. There's also the summery, girlish Cherish, a bouncy tune that manages to lighten the mood of this fairly dark album.
Like a Prayer also contains some of Madonna's most bizarre work. Her long-awaited duet with Prince, Love Song, is interesting. This skeletal funk tune sounds like much of Prince's "Lovesexy"-era work, but it also sounds a little unfinished. After nearly two decades, I'm still not sure whether I like this song or just think it's average. The other experiments work a little better, including the psychedelic hippie vibe of Dear Jessie or the truly strange album closer Act of Contrition. The song starts off sounding like a coda to the album's title track (complete with the choir on the original song singing backwards) but turns into Madonna screaming about having lost a restaurant reservation. Whether this was meant to show off Madonna's humorous side or has some completely hidden meaning, I'll never know.
Lots of people mention the Like a Prayer album as the moment when they started to take Madonna seriously. While I agree that the LP has more elements that would appeal to the "serious" (read: non-pop music loving) music fan, it's more or less on the same level as the three albums that preceded it. Aside from one completely awful song-Spanish Eyes features Madonna's most strained non-"Evita" vocal performance ever-it's a consistent, enjoyable slice of late Eighties pop that cemented Madonna's reputation as the most influential female musician of our time.
"Like a Prayer" by Madonna
Released 1989 on Sire Records
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Track Listing: Like a Prayer/Express Yourself/Love Song (with Prince)/Promise To Try/Till Death Do Us Part/Cherish/Dear Jessie/Oh Father/Keep It Together/Spanish Eyes/Act of Contrition
Review ID: 10000000006848851
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