331. Madonna, "Like a Prayer"

 


Short version: This album is fantastic.

Long version:

I've loved "pop music" as long as I can remember, even as I have long struggled to come up with a definition of "pop music" that can contain Big Star and Teenage Fanclub and Jellyfish and this album.  What I can say is that there are different flavors of pop, some that I like (power pop) more than others (whatever it is Mariah Carey does).  This album is surely pop, and it is not the kind of pop I normally gravitate towards, but it is absolutely incredible.  

First of all, there are a bunch of songs on here that you - and by "you" I mean "I" - already knew well, like the title track and "Cherish" and "Express Yourself," which are all certified bangers and I don't even think I was embarrassed for liking when they came out and my identity as a Replacements-loving torn-jeans indie-punk rejected anything high-gloss sheeny from LA or that appeared to be from Big Music, they were just that good and somehow seemed authentic enough to breach the cynical wall.  I specifically remember thinking "Express Yourself" was great because of the incredibly catchy verse melody, and which I still think is an absolute piece of pop gold.

But I had never gotten past the singles until this album came up on the list and I found that there are all kinds of amazing other tracks on here I had never heard.  "Till Death Do Us Part," for example, takes all the best elements of 80's synth-pop and runs with them.  "Love Song" was made with Prince and it sounds SO Prince, like in the best way possible.  But the one I really wish I had heard earlier was "Dear Jessie," a wild psych-pop candy-confected fantasia that sounds like the Beatles decided to let a shrooming teenage girl contribute a song to Yellow Submarine.  I didn't love the song "Pray for Spanish Eyes" but I loved the raspiness in her voice as she reaches for the high notes on the chorus.  It's not a tone you usually get from Madonna, who usually sings every line with absolute control of her voice.  It comes across as unusually vulnerable for her.

In a  confessional, self-revealing album, "Oh Father" is definitely a centerpiece, and it's arching, choir-like chorus sounds so far ahead of its time but at the same time like an old hymn.  Really beautiful melody writing.

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? Probably higher than 331.

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