Like a Prayer was released on March 21st, 1989, it’s the 4th studio album by the queen of pop, Madonna. It spent six consecutive weeks on the top of the Billboard 200 album charts, it went 4x Platinum in the UK, 5x Platinum in Canada, and 4x Platinum in the US. Six singles were released from the album, only the title track reached number one while “Express Yourself” and “Cherish” went to number two.
Track listing: Like a Prayer
1- “Like a Prayer”
The first single from this album, “Like a Prayer” is a turning point in Madonna’s musical career. It’s not a simple dance-pop anymore, the music is richer, the instruments are real, the lyrics are complex, mixing sexuality and religion in a provocative way.
The song features a full gospel choir, reinforcing the religious aspect of the song and adding dynamics to an arrangement that already plays on the contrasts in intensity. The quiet, drum-less verses explode into the loud and rhythmic choruses, creating an engaging experience.
A rarity for a pop song, “Like a Prayer” has a B section after the second chorus. It has a great chord progression that was used only in the intro, with the greatest melody line of the song. Here the choir is used perfectly, the song is reaching its climax, this is a breathless outro to an amazing pop song.
2- “Express Yourself”
This upbeat dance-pop song was written as a tribute to the band Sly and the Family Stone. It’s one of the funkiest arrangement on a Madonna track to date, with heavy use of a brass section (in the album version, not the popular remix that was done on the 1990 Immaculate Collection album).
It’s definitely the brightest song on the album, less introspective in the lyrics. It’s a hymn to freedom and encouragement to women and all oppressed minorities. It also had the most expensive video made at that time with a budget of 5 million. It was directed by David Fincher and inspired by the classic film Metropolis.
The song aged really well, it’s not stuck in the 80’s with its funk influences, although it was released at the very end of the decade. Most of the radio stations will play the 1990 remix though, same thing with Like a Prayer, which are good but inferior to the originals, and they sound more dated with the early 90’s dance sound.
3- “Love Song”
Although this is a collaboration with the Queen of pop and Prince, this song is the weakest track on the album. It’s more like an oddity to remind us that these two once collaborated on a song.
4- “Till Death Do Us Part”
Musically it’s the most 80’s sounding song on the album, full of synths and reverb guitars, but it’s really not a bad thing. On the surface, it’s not really evident, but it’s a really dark song about a breakup, probably inspired by the real-life divorce with Sean Penn.
It’s really a masterpiece of melody writing, shifting smoothly between sadness, fear, and melancholy. Madonna’s strength on this album and on this particular song is that, without possessing a voice like Whitney Houston, she can convey emotions with a simple but great melody.
5- “Promise to Try”
A simple ballad with piano and strings, no rhythm section, this is a tear-jerker. Sung as a point of view of older Madonna singing to herself as a little girl, it’s about her mother’s death which happened when she was a child.
Again the melody is simple, but the way Madonna sings it, sometimes close to breaking up in tears, is just perfect.
6- “Cherish”
After two darker songs, Cherish is like a breath of fresh air. It’s the most uplifting song on the album with Express Yourself, it’s really sounds of its time, the end of the 80’s, maybe the most ‘commercial’ song on Like a Prayer.
As with most of the songs, the strength is the melody. This one is surprisingly complex, rhythmically dynamic, we can even hear Madonna sing in falsetto. It’s also a rare song by her where the rhythm is a shuffle, lyrically and rhythmically it’s reminiscent of the song True Blue from the previous album.
7- “Dear Jessie”
Dear Jessie is an interesting song, it sounds more like a lullaby than a pop song. The instrumentation is reminiscent of the Beatles psychedelic era, something that would’ve fit on Yellow Submarine. It has two distinct sections with different instrumentations and time signature, the first with string instruments, really joyful, and the other with acoustic guitar and echo, more dreamy. It segues well into the darker Oh Father.
8- “Oh Father”
One of the strongest songs on the album, also one of the best ballads and vocal performances by Madonna. Oh Father is the artist at her most raw and open state emotionally, something she didn’t really do before, except maybe Live to Tell.
The song is very interesting musically, not the typical ballad to slow-dance to. This is described as baroque pop, a mix of pop with classical instruments, there is a piano and a great string arrangement on the verses, while the drums enter on the choruses with an unusual rhythmic pattern. The single didn’t reach the top of the charts at the time, but it’s definitely one of the greatest Madonna songs.
9- “Keep It Together”
Keep It Together is one of the ‘funkiest’ songs ever recorded by Madonna, it’s a mix of the pop-funk style of Sly and the Family Stone with the inspiration from Sister Sledge “We Are Family”. It shows a wide variety in styles on the album, even though it feels a little out of place between the emotionally charged “Oh Father” and the Latin ballad “Spanish Eyes”. But it’s a strong song on itself, it didn’t chart very well, it was probably a little ahead of its time in 1989 as it sounds more like an early 90’s RnB hit.
10- “Spanish Eyes”
Spanish Eyes is another song in the ‘Latin’ style after the hit La Isla Bonita on the True Blue album. It’s a gem that was never released as a single, maybe less commercial and a bit adventurous musically (although Dear Jessie was a single, but only in the UK). It features acoustic guitar and trumpet, reminiscent of a corrida, and a challenging melody to sing, as Madonna’s voice is close to breaking at some point. It adds to the emotion of the song, she never had the range some divas had, but she used what she had really well.
11- “Act of Contrition”
Not really a song, more a prayer recital to reversed samples of drums and choirs from Like a Prayer and distorted guitars, I suspect played by none other than Prince. It’s a fun and interesting way to end the album, it fits well in the theme of religion, ending with a prayer. At the same time, the album wouldn’t lack anything if it wasn’t there.
Final thoughts
Personally, I think it’s the best album throughout Madonna’s long and acclaimed career. It’s also one of the best pop albums of all time and a classic from the 80’s, even though it was released in 1989 and it’s not really a defining album of the decade. I think that Like a Virgin and True Blue are more ’80s’ defined in terms of sound and cultural impact, while Like a Prayer is timeless and superior in quality. It’s also the album that made Madonna an artist, not just a pop star, and that’s the reason she survived the end of the 80’s, going on to have one of the most consistent runs in music history.
