"What do you mean it's not in the computer!?" - Madonna - Like a Prayer POLL

"Like a Prayer" is the best song about cocksucking ever written. The only song that sucks cock is "Spanish Eyes." I'm tempted to throw "Till Death Do Us Part" or "Keep It Together" a vote.

'Till Death Do Us Part' is incredible, could have easily have been released as a single and become the zillionth hit from this thing. I don't mind 'Spanish Eyes', actually.

Such a strong LP from start to finish, this.

"keep it together" or "til death do us part" or "cherish," which i have only discovered in the past year is my favorite madonna song

"cherish"'s video is also perfect

'Cherish' never fails to bring me a huge feeling of joy whenever I'm listening to it!

Oh Father.

Christ, 'Promise to Try' is such a beautiful song too.

Also, 'Love Song' is tossed off Prince from the back end of his golden period when he could seemingly just whip up these great tracks in the time it took to blink his eyes. It's great, of course - and weirder than anything that's on his Batman soundtrack.

Apparently he and Madonna would sing and arrange and play their respective parts and Fed Ex the tape across the country. They weren't in the same room.

Cherish. (not sorry DJP)

xpost:

Yeah, I heard that too (or read it somewhere) and I'm not surprised. Prince would have wanted to work at his place and I'm not sure Madonna was too keen on going there? Still, his contributions to this album were pretty neat. That's his guitar playing on 'Act of Contrition' too, right?

Oh yeah! DJP doesn't like 'Cherish' ... I understand that even less than his hatred of 'Domino Dancing' ... I think he finds this album overrated in general, though? (I disagree, obviously)

This album is totally overrated and “Cherish” is a terrible song.

Voted “Keep It Together”, could have voted “Express Yourself”

In the nineties I'd have called LAP her best.

Now it's Erotica.

I still say that this is her best. Even the cloying "Dear Jesse" works in context.

Voted "Till Death Do Us Part," which I suspect I underrated a bit for years on the grounds that I always just thought of it as her finally getting the earlier, strained attempt at domestic melodrama "Love Don't Live Here Anymore" right this time. Now I think of it as one of her best songs, and certainly her greatest non-album single.

TDDUP

makes me go crazy every damn time

SHE TAKES THE KEY
HE BREAKS THE DOOR

For all those who think she does nothing to earn the co-producer credit, here's bassist Guy Pratt, who's worked with Bryan Ferry and David Gilmour:

Guy Pratt recalled that after the middle chorus was recorded, she notified the musicians of some changes in the production. "Jonathan, do less of the high-hat in the middle eight, and more of a fill towards the end. Guy, I want duck eggs [semibreves] on the end, and Chester, bring in your guitar on the second verse," she instructed

the chimes in "keep it together" are amazing

just a few notes, so sweet

gonna be hard not to vote for the sublime title track. also gonna be hard to resist voting for "dear jessie," "til death do us part" or "act of contrition." "love song" is good but probably in the bottom third of prince collabs of that era for me. "oh father" still surprises me every time i hear it. one of my all-time favorite album covers. one of my all-time favorite albums.

Aw man, I love 'Dear Jessie'!

In the nineties I'd have called LAP her best.

Now it's Erotica.

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, October 18, 2017 10:29 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I like Erotica, but not anywhere near as much as I love this. I find it a bit overlong and samey if I'm not in the mood for it - the highlights are still stunning, though!

Dear Jessie segue Oh Father.
Shame I can't vote for both songs.

In the past I would've said Cherish without hesitation but I'm leaning more towards Oh Father these days.

I voted for Dear Jessie but in an ideal world I'd vote for Dear Jessie/Oh Father

Dear Jessie is a song I am desperate for my 3yo to get into, but she is too busy obsessing over Joanna Newsom and Time After Time.

brothers and sisters

I wish all pop music was of the standard of the highlights of this album.

I love the way 'Dear Jessie' goes into waltz time for the middle 8.

The album version of "Express Yourself" is so much better than the more famous single remix. I feel the opposite about "Keep It Together". I might have voted for the single remix.

Agree on "Express Yourself." The only thing that keeps The Immaculate Collection from being less than immaculate, for me, is the use of the crap single remixes of it and "Like a Prayer."

I feel the opposite about "Keep It Together". I might have voted for the single remix.

OTM

Those mixes were all exclusively for The Immaculate Collection though, weren't they? There was actually no real difference between the album cut of 'Like a Prayer' and what came out as a single... the remix on The Immaculate Collection was something else entirely, and I hate that mix.

If so, I never knew that. I just assumed they grabbed the most popular single mixes for it.

All the songs on The Immaculate Collection, with the exception of the two new songs, were remixed by Shep Pettibone alongside Goh Hotoda and Michael Hutchinson and some were also edited down from their original lengths in order to decrease the overall running time. While all the vocals remain the same as in the original recordings, "Like a Prayer" and "Express Yourself" feature different music backing Madonna's vocals than their original album release. Pettibone commented,

"Well, actually some of the songs we changed up a bit, but most of the songs we kept in their original form. Like "Holiday", "Lucky Star", et cetera, et cetera, those were all the original productions. The remix was just really to create the Q Sound, and make the song kind of envelop you when you listened to it in a certain sweet spot in front of the speakers [...] That wasn't easy to do. But then again, that was one of those -- you know, "Hurry up, this has to be out last week". That was a rush rush job".

every time I see the thread title makes me think of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_o_O7v1ews

'Act of Contrition' is such a fucking great way to close the album... when I heard this album for the first time, I remember thinking "what the fuck is this!?" ... I just wasn't expecting it at all.

Can I just mention how much I love the little rasp that appears in her voice in the first four notes of the chorus of "Spanish Eyes"?

I got LaP for my 11th birthday, and I cannot honestly think of anything else that I would have heard at that time that was as weird as "Act of Contrition." Even "Computer Blue" eventually turns into a song...

Those mixes were all exclusively for The Immaculate Collection though, weren't they?

The Shep Pettibone remix of "Express Yourself" was the version they used in the video and that was played constantly on the radio. It came out at least a year and a half before The Immaculate Collection.

It's such a sometimes strange, constantly surprising album, especially for someone at the peak of their popularity (and following True Blue, which I like better, for sentimental reasons, but which is also more conventional). If it was released today it would probably be some sprawling 130 minute monster with skits, but she conveyed that same diversity and ambition in 51.

okay I don't think I'd ever actually heard "Act of Contrition" before

lol

i think my initial attraction to "act of contrition" was based on how prince's guitar reminded me of "when doves cry." that might still be the attraction. amazing album closer.

Does Madonna record ballads anymore? (I mean, does anyone?) Her voice always seemed well suited to slower stuff over piano or keyboard patches, but that seems antithetical to everything (however limited) I've heard from her in the past several years, which has tended more garish.

god i loved the patrick leonard era.

Yeah, some of her very best material came out of collaborating with Patrick Leonard, and it was a team that never lost its magic. I mean, 'Frozen'! Ray of Light could have benefitted from more of that.

Seriously. I totally forgot he came back for that. Did he contribute at all in the interim?

Nah. Erotica was mostly a collaboration with Shep Pettibone (clearly following the directions set out by 'Vogue' and 'Justify My Love') and Bedtime Stories featured a whole range of co-writers, but not Leonard.

She dumped Leonard in 1997 after she said his work was "too Peter Gabriel" (US-era presumably). She got a couple songs out of him for ROL.

Bowie-esque:

She'd start writing lyrics and oftentimes there was an implied melody. She would start with that and deviate from it. Or if there was nothing but a chord change, she'd make up a melody. But, a lot of the time in my writing there's a melody implied or I even have something in mind. But she certainly doesn't need that. [...] She would write the lyrics in an hour, the same amount of time it took me to write the music, and then she'd sing it. We'd do some harmonies, she'd sing some harmony parts, and usually by three or four in the afternoon, she was gone".

The bassline on 'Like a Prayer' rules so hard.

he dumped Leonard in 1997 after she said his work was "too Peter Gabriel" (US-era presumably). She got a couple songs out of him for ROL.

― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, October 20, 2017 10:59 PM (three days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I would have loved to have heard that direction! The material would have been great, too.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

i shed some tears for contrition, till death and jessie before finally going with my gut and voting for the sublime gospel cocksucking title track that cemented my love for her in the first place.

I love how 'Till Death Us Do Part' is a seemingly endless series of hooks.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

holy shit @ #2

(I voted for it)

Yessss

love the spread of votes across the album. am i wrong in thinking that if this poll had been done 20 years ago, the title song and "express yourself" would have run away with it?

'Promise to Try' deserved a vote or two - love her vocal on that. 'Till Death Us Do Part' rules, so not surprised to see it up there, I'm guessing it's now the go-to track on the album for those burnt out on the title track.

Blasting this again right now and it's sounding as fresh as it did when I first heard it.

got the album on vinyl the other day, listened to it on headphones this morning, and am reminded that I thought it was Tony Levin on this song when I heard it first in '89. But its Guy Pratt, surely playing a stick?

Prince is evidently playing guitar on that song and "keep it together," as well as doing all of "Love song" —maybe not what it could be, but it's still THOSE TWO. And of course that's him going bugshit on "Act on Contrition," but has that been confirmed anywhere?

I did cry listening to "Dear Jessie" for the first time in 30 years, being that I have a two year old girl. Does Outic count this song as toytown psych?

Pratt recalled that after the middle chorus was recorded, she notified the musicians of some changes in the production. "Jonathan, do less of the high-hat in the middle eight, and more of a fill towards the end. Guy, I want duck eggs [semibreves] on the end, and Chester, bring in your guitar on the second verse," she instructed.

This is from the last Madonna bio.

perfect top three imo

Still can't believe that 'Promise to Try' got 0 votes. It's beautiful.

They never laugh, not like before
She takes the keys, he breaks the door
She cannot stay here anymore
He's not in love with her anymore

He takes a drink, she goes inside
He starts to scream, the vases fly
He wishes that she wouldn't cry
He's not in love with her anymore

He makes demands, she draws the line
He starts to fight, she starts the lie
But what is truth when something dies
He's not in love with her anymore

My favorite Madonna track

Saw this tour, loved it; have still never heard this album (or any Madonna album) front to back.

Express Yourself was robbed

This album.

I Cherish it, especially that song.

I'm surprised there hasn't been a deluxe edition by now. (To be fair, plans for a series of album deluxe sets were announced a while ago, but still nothing.)