Like a Prayer

[laughs]

Um, let me also put out there, Madonna's Like a Prayer.

Count the hits.

Oh, yeah.

Kind of a duet.

It also has some lineage all the way back to Love Song from Like a Prayer, the duet with Prince, which is one of my favorite Madonna and Prince songs ever.

But yeah, it's also extremely Catholic, so... has that lineage of like a prayer erotica and then sort of like slightly american life i feel like there's like that sort of like existentialism to it but yeah as a longtime fan who was you know oh the other song in the lineage just like it or not sort of the kabbalah version of love song and uh well basically the whole erotica album Yeah, I love it.

This is one of my favorites.

I still don't have a 16 ranking.

I don't like to compare this album to confessions on a dance floor because I feel they each stand on their own.

However, I do feel this album is more confessional.

I, I have learned more about Madonna's inner life from this album than I have from anything since maybe like a prayer, you

Yeah.

I mean, Madonna and Justin should have done a whole album together, in my opinion.

Who's that girl? It's cute.

Rock with it.

Yeah.

So I, you know... that's like lower mid for me i think i'm gonna stop with that too

me too and you know we talked about this a little bit with that album but a lot of people who were not into madonna liked that album because of her maturity let's say but for me it's when she stopped becoming cool was with that right

and it wasn't really maturity it was just you know her music you know she became a mom and she made an album about sort of like spiritual contentment and peace and there's nothing immature about the music that she made before it was more not that it was more more or less mature it was just more conventional

As a result, the lyrical themes explored in Ray of Light include motherhood, fame and spirituality, which I feel is the core element that holds the whole album together.

There is introspection and self-reflection also present and the personal nature of the lyrics seems like a continuation from Like a Prayer in 1989 and nearly 10 years later Madonna would raise the bar even higher and deliver what most regard as a magnum opus.

Sonically, Madonna and her producers explore a wide variety of genres, including atmospheric ambient electronica, dance and techno pop.

There are also hints of indie rock and trip-hop.

Madonna also collaborated with Craig Armstrong, who provided string arrangements on two tracks, including the iconic strings from lead single Frozen.

Whereas Like A Prayer was dominated by live instrumentation, Ray Of Light still continues with the organic live elements, but this time the production is wrapped in some of the best electronica that I've ever heard on a pop record.

Ray of Light topped the charts in 17 countries and debuted at number two in the US Billboard 200.

She supported the record and follow-up music with the Drowned World Tour, Madonna's first tour in eight years and it was the first time that I saw Madonna at Earl's Court in London.

I've been looking forward to talking about this one.

We are, we've jumped three and a half years since Like a Prayer.

Mm-hmm.

We're into the '90s, October 1992, and, uh, yeah, she's decided, as if it wasn't already, that the '90s is gonna be her horny era.

And going more towards big radio pop hits-

Mm-hmm

... and rock, I guess, with Like a Prayer.

Yeah.

And you know, it was a volatile marriage.

right we'll quickly go through some of these other timeline notes of of her career uh so true blue comes out in 86 goes to number one um dedicated to sean penn uh the uh and and then like a prayer 89 now this is where she gets in some trouble for the video Mixing the Catholic imagery with the sexuality.

Pepsi pulls the sponsorship deal and the ad campaign after the Vatican complains.

Which is

My memory of that album, my primary memory of that album is working in a record store at the time that album came out and We go to play it and we're playing it.

And then there's one song called Shanti something, something.

And she's basically just saying like a prayer in like Sanskrit.

Right.

It, some of our more popular songs that are in the, in the zeitgeist right now were challenged by religious and government institutions.

Like, Like a Prayer, uh, by Madonna in, in 1989 was officially condemned by the Vatican, and although she had an, uh, she was endorsed by Pepsi at the time, they canceled their endorsement because of the negative press she got from the Vatican condemning it.

The pope even asked people to boycott her.

Um, I, though, what, you know, the topic of that song certainly makes sense as far as their reaction goes, though I think that a lot of these institutions when they, when they try to ban a song or try to encourage people not to listen to a song, that probably has that sort of Streisand effect to it.