Madonna "Like A Prayer"

Like a Prayer is the fourth studio album by American singer Madonna. It was released on March 21, 1989 by Sire Records, nearly three years after her previous studio effort True Blue. Madonna worked with Stephen Bray, Patrick Leonard, and Prince on the album while co-writing and co-producing all the songs. As Madonna's most introspective release at the time, Like a Prayer has been described as a confessional record. She described the album as a collection of songs "about my mother, my father, and bonds with my family." The album was dedicated to Madonna's mother, who died when she was young.

The album uses live instrumentation and incorporates elements of dance, funk, gospel, and soul into a more general pop style. Madonna drew from her Catholic upbringing, as seen in the album's title track and lead single "Like a Prayer". The lyrics deal with themes from Madonna's childhood and adolescence, such as the death of her mother in "Promise to Try", the importance of family in "Keep It Together", and her relationship with her father in "Oh Father". Madonna also preaches female empowerment in "Express Yourself". Like a Prayer received critical acclaim, with Rolling Stone hailing it as "...as close to art as pop music gets." Commercially, the album was an international success, reaching the top of the charts in multiple territories. The album was certified quadruple platinum in the United States by the Recording Industry Association of America. Six singles were released from the album: "Like a Prayer", "Express Yourself", "Cherish", "Oh Father", "Dear Jessie", and "Keep It Together". "Like a Prayer" became Madonna's seventh number-one on the Billboard Hot 100, while "Express Yourself" and "Cherish" peaked at number-two and "Keep It Together" became a top 10 hit. Worldwide, the album has sold over 15 million copies.

With the singles' accompanying music videos, Madonna furthered her creativity and became known as a leading figure in the format. The music video for "Like a Prayer" was a lightning rod for religious controversy, using Catholic iconography such as stigmata and burning crosses, and a dream about making love to a saint, leading the Vatican to condemn the video and causing Pepsi to cancel Madonna's sponsorship contract. The music video for "Express Yourself" was the most expensive video at its release. Like a Prayer preceded Madonna's ground-breaking Blond Ambition World Tour. At the end of the 1980s, following the release of Like a Prayer, Madonna was named "Artist of the Decade" by several publications.

1988 was a quiet year on the recording front for Madonna. Following the lack of critical and commercial success of her 1987 film Who's That Girl, she acted in the Broadway production Speed-the-Plow. However, unfavorable reviews once again caused her discomfort. Her marriage to actor Sean Penn ended and the couple filed for divorce in January 1989. Madonna had also turned 30, the age at which her mother had died, and thus the singer experienced more emotional turmoil. She commented for the May 1989 issue of Interview that her Catholic upbringing struck a feeling of guilt in her all the time:

Because in Catholicism you are a born sinner and you're a sinner all your life. No matter how you try to get away from it, the sin is within you all the time. It was this fear that haunted me; it taunted and pained me every moment. My music was probably the only distraction I had.


She came to the realisation that as she and her fans were growing up, it was time for her to move away from the teen appeal to wider audiences, and en-cash on the longevity of the album market. Feeling the need to attempt something different, Madonna wanted the sound of her new album to indicate what could be popular in the music world. For lyrical ideas of the title track, she chose topics that until then had been personal meditations never to be shared with the general public; she told SongTalk magazine "In the past I wrote a lot of songs that [revealed my inner self], but I felt they were too honest or too frightening or too scary and I decided not to record them". She decided to take a more adult, sophisticated approach; thoughtfully, she sifted through her personal journals and diaries, and began considering her options. She recalled, "What was it I wanted to say? I wanted the album and the song to speak to things on my mind. It was a complex time in my life." She had certain matters on her mind, including her troubled relationship with her husband, actor Sean Penn, her family, her lost mother and even her belief in God.