TS: Madonna's "Like A Prayer" vs "Erotica"

Which is a pity if you think about good lap songs and their contexts.

Suffice to say you are so perfectly *right* about "Like a Prayer" (the song, as I'm less familiar with the album) that it almost ends all debate. In retrospect, the whole 89 to 92 time period intrigues me in that it seems almost out of time rather than of it.

And it's the time when so many impossible, hopeless claims were made about Madonna (Paglia, et al) that "Like A Prayer" stands as a jump-the-shark moment. She would go on to make several great singles and some very good albums, but her Relevance As Cultural Force vanished, anan artist/multimedia phenom like Madonna (like Bowie) requires the projections of fans and crtics in order to keep her engines stoked.

As for the larger questions here, Tim Finney, O'so/Nicole and Ally to thread!

that's kind of the story of her career, isn't it? she had a decade-plus run in which she seemed to release albums and singles nearly nonstop (she was way more prolific than the average superstar), and the quality almost never flagged. she managed this with a revolving door of collaborators, and just about the only thing that connects the dots through her catalog is her own credit. i don't recall patrick leonard doing anything with any other artist. i don't recall shep pettibone continuing to write, or co-write, great songs after he and madge split. and yet the men get all the credit.

sexism blah blah blah. anti-popism blah blah blah. i've always assumed there was something more to it than easy answers like that, but i could never put my finger on it. though maybe it has something to do with my own reaction to the way she's always presented herself in public, to her almost pathologically cold, stiff persona. i can't stand her. love her records, though. and admire the hell out of her work ethic and consistency. and think she's a hell of a songwriter.

fave song on like a prayer: "dear jessie."

Madonna = not rock.

(don't want to see your butt kevin, no offense)

What people? I've never heard anyone rep for it. In order of frequency of mention: Like a Prayer, The Immaculate Collection, Erotica.

http://www.the-top-tens.com/lists/best-madonna-albums.asp
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=10584534401&topic=7853
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x2555983
http://www.rankopedia.com/ZoneID=3/2566/Best-Madonna-album/Step1/1016.htm

None, Madonna sucks (8 votes, 50%)

the 21 million ppl that bought like a virgin as opposed to 5 mil that bought erotica?

also, i looked at erotica's tracklist and can't even recognize or think of one song on it besides the title track.

"Deeper and Deeper"?

honestly doesn't ring a bell.

but according to yr polls maybe it's actually "ray of light"

"It can't be this popular! I haven't heard it!"

"deeper and deeper"? "bad girl"? those were both biggish, both great too. i could have sworn "justify my love" is on it too, but i guess not.

anyway, erotica looks to be the muso choice but no it is not the global consensus pick by any means

xps

ok so we're really gonna sit her and pretend that "deeper and deeper" and "erotic" are as well known as "like a virgin" "express yourself" "cherish" "material girl" "like a prayer" etc etc?

You seriously don't know this song?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc_42BbKqU4&feature=player_embedded

I actually was going to say Ray of Light but was wondering if Google would turn up enough data points to back me up; funnily enough, the other album that gets mentioned a lot is... Confessions of a Dancefloor.

(xpost, justify my love is on "it takes a nation of millions to hold us back" actually)

(xxpost) ah yeah okay i remember it now

critics /= "people," btw

I mean seriously, it's not like ppl are going "WTF you've never heard 'Rain' before?????????"

i'm not talking about rock critics, i'm talking about actual human beings!

i was about to say, what about "rain"? :-/

i bet when those songs aren't in the big karaoke catalog.

haha I should have gone with "Fever" since that was a big club hit but didn't do anything on the pop chart

LAP, too easily.

(also "Erotica" hit #3 so I'm betting a ton of ppl do actually remember it)

Can we call Erotica a critical fave (perhaps noting that Madonna signifies most as a singles artist [if even that, really]) and then get back to dancing/our better butts?

Kevin John Bozelka's butt is NOT canon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_singles_discography

wau Canada

Kevin John Bozelka's butt is NOT canon

Uh oh. Is that Hi Dere's new login name (or whatever those things are called)?

haha no, I only pick on Mondays

I don't think any of Madonna's albums are particularly well-remembered by people generally, outside of the singles - Matt do "the people" whose opinion you want to put forward here remember any tracks from Like A Virgin outside its two big hits (and "Angel" at a stretch)? Like A Virgin is possibly Madonna's least talked-about album-qua-album.

Like A Prayer probably would rate best in terms of "songs people remember" but only because, like, over half the tracks were released as singles and all had reasonably strong promo push.

But in general what "the people" remember is The Immaculate Collection.

Anyway you should go and listen to Erotica, it's fantastic. A bit sad though: a friend pointed out to me recently that "Words" has really good lyrics, and I immediately thought to myself "yeah I like it too, but isn't that supposed to be the worst song on the album lyrically?", and then I realised she was comparing it to recent Madonna lyrics.

But in general what "the people" remember is The Immaculate Collection.

i would absolutely agree w/this and it's the only madonna i will ever need

but there's nothing from erotica on it. :(

surely people remember true blue as an album, given how many of its songs were singles? and standards, at that.

always got the impression that like a prayer was the consensus ::canon:: favourite, with a smaller but significant minority of critics/fans (most of whom are pretty hardcore madonna fans) repping for erotica.

(the erotica backers are, of course, correct.)

Singles to album track ratio of True Blue: 5/0
Like a Prayer: 6/11

er, 5/9

haha i was gonna say true blue is like rift in the space time continuum!

Then Play Long writes a little letter to Madonna: http://nobilliards.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/madonna-like-prayer.html

til death do us part is my favorite madonna song at this point. It's just utterly irresistible. That dry-ass chicken clucking against the liquid guitar splashes and that melllooodyyyy, oh heavens help me.

Every time I play LAP all the way through I like it more and more as an album too. Might be my favorite Madonna album as a whole now.

SHE'S NOT IN LOVE WITH HIM ANYMORE

i listened to this album yesterday and 1. i don't think i voted for "cherish" in the madonna poll 2. i think it's my favorite madonna song now? 3. it's at least the closest she came to recording a scritti politti song. that instrumentation!

Why did we both listen to this album yesterday? ~mysteries~

'Till Death Do Us Part' is perfection, one of my Top 4 tracks on the LP along with the title track, 'Dear Jessie' and 'Oh Father' ... I've been listening to Like a Prayer a lot recently. Excellently produced, almost every song is fantastic and it has Prince on it!

WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S NOT IN THE COMPUTER!?

Wait, how come Erotica has been polled twice and Like a Prayer hasn't been polled at all?

(Not counting the artist poll, of course)

"Keep It Together" rules

going to guess DJP went apoplectic when he read this in the Pitchfork review re: Express Yourself:

Though it’s worth noting that the version on Like a Prayer sounds anemic compared to the utterly superior Shep Pettibone single remix, which foregrounds the cowbell and makes the bouncing-ball bassline a go-on-girl counterpoint to Madonna’s message.

Re: "Express Yourself," I got confused by which mix is which - fortunately I found this handy post from another forum:

There is always so much confusion over the different mixes of the "Express Yourself" single and video. I'll try to explain...

First I'll start with the US promo CD. It has four tracks on it:

1. (7" Remix) 4:30
2. (Remix/Edit) 4:50
3. (Non-Stop Express Mix) 7:54
4. (Local Mix) 6:20

7" Remix is the version that was released on 7" vinyl and cassette single in the US. It sounds similar to the Like A Prayer album version, but was remixed by Shep Pettibone and includes more overdubs of synths, horns and string sections.

Remix/Edit is Shep Pettibone's dance remix of the song which is a totally reworked house version (some of the same synth & string parts that were added to his 7" Remix are also included in this mix.

Non-Stop Express Mix is Shep Pettibone's extended dance version of his (Remix/Edit).

and Local Mix is Shep's extended remix version of his 7" Remix.

A dub version of his dance remix version was also released on the "Express Yourself" 12" single, Stop & Go Dubs 10:50, but it wasn't included on the promo CD.

As for the video, there were two mixes released. Version 1 uses (Remix/Edit) as the soundtrack, but the intro is replaced with the intro from the Local Mix but with additional echo added to the line "do you believe love." Version 2 uses 7" Remix as the soundtrack, and the intro is also replaced with the intro from the Local Mix, but this time they left the audio as it appears on the Local Mix, without additional echo on the line "do you believe in love," and since the 7" Remix is shorter and fades out, the second video ends earlier with the soundtrack cutting to the ending from the Local Mix of the song.

Version 1 was officially released on the Celebration DVD and Version 2 was officially released on The Immaculate Collection VHS and DVD.

In 1990, Shep Pettibone remixed the song again (based off of his dance remix version) for The Immaculate Collection album. The new 4:02 Q-Sound version appears on the album and also on the B-side of the "Justify My Love" single. He also made an extended 9:30 Q-Sound version called "Express Yourself (Shep's 'Spressin' Himself Re-Remix)" which appears on the "Justify My Love" maxi-single.

Then in 2009, another version was released on her Celebration compilation album. This 4:00 version is basically an attempt to recreate the 1990 Immaculate Collection length edit, but using the (Local Mix) intro and the Remix/Edit. It's missing the additional echo on "do you believe in love" so it does not include the same audio as the Version 1 video which means you can only get that intro on the Celebration DVD.

And I called it an "attempt" to recreate The Immaculate Collection edit, cuz after the 3rd chorus they end up cutting further than they should to the wrong part of the song (they cut to the second time she sings "and when you're gone he might regret it," instead of the first time she sings it) and then they give up editing the rest of the song cuz it ends up being 4:00 after their strange edit.

I never ever heard the album version when it became a radio hit. And the single version rules.

...of "Keep It Together," that is.