Song #688: "Like a Prayer" by Madonna

Date: Apr 22, 1989
Weeks: 3

The last Madonna song I reviewed did little to prove why Madonna is such a great and enduring artist. This one, on the other hand, is from roughly the peak of her career. It's a great example of what makes her so wonderful, and it's probably my favorite Madonna song.

The overall orchestration of the music is what makes this song for me. From the top down, every piece of this song just fits. Madonna's voice is perfect for this song, and she gives it everything she has. Her voice is a little sloppy and desperate to keep up with the song's pace, but that creates a very emotional performance that's perfectly matched to both the lyrics and the music. The gospel choir eventually became a trope that got overused in pop music, but it was a fairly new idea at the time. And when you consider the generally religious tone of both the lyrics and the video, the gospel choir is a perfect fit. The song wouldn't be half the song it is without the choir, and the lead singer of that choir also gives a wonderfully big performance.

Continuing from the top down, there's an organ that also conveys the religious theme. There's also a guitar and drum line that kind of fade into the background of the mix. They don't stick out, but the effect they create is a driving pace that helps keep the song well on the pop/rock spectrum. At the very bottom of the track is a bass line. I can't tell if the bass is a fat guitar or a synthesizer, but either way, it's a very appealing bass line and I think it makes the song for me. There's a lot of music happening in that bass line, and I think it's what makes the song so unique.

As for the lyrics, I feel under-qualified to really analyze them. Clearly this is a song that is conflating Madonna's love of God with her love of a man. It does so in a manner that is poetic, and yet clear enough that I was able to easily interpret it. I know the video is controversial for expounding on the same theme, but I think the video does a great job of telling the same music as the lyrics, while also adding an additional story on top of that, about Madonna's character witnessing a murder and overcoming her fear of the actual murderers to tell the police they've arrested the wrong man. And the video tackles the issue of racism on top of all of that. There's a lot going on here. This song, and especially the video, should be all the proof anyone needs of why Madonna is one of the great pop music artists of all time.

My verdict: Like it. This is definitely one of those songs that works because the whole is more than the sum of its parts. I can break it down and explain why I think each part of it works, but ultimately it comes down to each part complementing every other part until the whole just works and creates something wonderful.

Song #864: "Music" by Madonna

Date: Sept 16, 2000
Weeks: 4

How is that just like with Whitney Houston, my randomizer has me reviewing Madonna's last No. 1 hit first? It's really unfair to both of them to start this late in their careers, when perhaps the main thing putting these songs on the top of the charts is a strong dose of goodwill from the American public, rather than any actual quality.

I don't know what it was with Madonna in this era, but she seemed determined that what she wanted to do was make dance club hits. "Music" really strains under that effort. It feels overproduced, trying to hit every dance music trope of the time, and each one that comes up makes the song that much less fun to dance to. It feels heavy and dark, filled with squeally synthesizers that test the limit of your tolerance for squeally synthesizers. Compare this to her 1998 song "Ray of Light" or her 1999 cover of "American Pie." Those songs are both more natural and more fun to dance to, and come from roughly the same period in her career.

This song did kind of predict the shift in pop music to almost entirely dance club music in the late 2000s and early 2010s. I suppose Madonna deserves credit for being ahead of her time, not that it's been a change for the better.

It seems silly to even notice the lyrics in a song like this, but there was one that bugged me. "Music makes the people come together," is a decent enough sentiment. It puts the image in my head of people from all walks of life dancing and happy on the dance floor. And that's good, it seems like that's the point the (very few) lyrics are trying to make.

But then, "Music mix the bourgeoisie and the rebels." Way to undermine the previous line by elaborating too much. First of all, "bourgeoisie" is way too smart a word for a dance club song. That could be a clever way to write a dance song, full of political commentary, which is something Madonna, of all people, could totally do. But that's not what she did here. Putting that aside, how exactly does music mix the bourgeoisie with the rebels? Aren't these generally two groups of people who like radically different types of music? Rebels generally listen to music that is trying to be different, or stop listening to a particular type of music if it starts to gain the sort of mainstream appeal that leads to to being heard by anybody who might be called bourgeoisie. And this applies at all levels of the word "rebel", from the French Revolution to kids at the mall.

I intentionally didn't embed the music video because it does that thing I hate where people in the music video turn down the music and talk over it. And one of those people is a pre-Borat Sacha Baren Cohen. But I suppose it's interesting enough to partially account for the song's popularity. If you're interested, here it is.

My verdict: Don't like it. It feels like Madonna trying to match a popular sound that isn't her own, and it's kind of unpleasant as a result.