Sex. Religion. Death. Conical bras.

Site da NME traz uma matéria sobre os trinta anos do álbum Like a Prayer

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https://www.nme.com/features/sex-religion-death-conical-bras-madonnas-like-prayer-blond-ambition-tour-30-2463908  

Provocative and – at the time – shocking, Madonna's fourth album 'Like A Prayer' rocked the establishment, and set a new template for self-empowered women in pop. The Blond Ambition world tour that followed, meanwhile, changed the face of live music forever. On the 30th anniversary of the album's release, El Hunt tells the story

Some albums are worth judging by their cover. With two thumbs poked defiantly into a denim waistband – like a bedazzled answer to Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the USA’ – the artwork for ‘Like A Prayer’ is the perfect visual for Madonna’s audacious, unflinching fourth record. Released on March 21, 1989, this daring exploration of catholicism, desire, bereavement, superstardom and pleasure is an unparalleled totem of pop music 30 years on.

Arriving three years after ‘True Blue‘, a record of bright, loved-up bubblegum pop gold, ‘Like A Prayer’ is abrasive and raw. Moving the focus away from presenting a collection of immediate wall-to-wall bangers, Madonna’s 1989 release feels more concerned with exploration instead. Hulking great ballad ‘Oh Father’ cleverly alludes to her fractured relationship with her father and god at the same time; not your typical album fodder. ‘’Till Death Do Us Part’ also nods toward her split from her then-husband. “I’m not your friend, I’m just your little wife,” Madonna sings, atop jaunty, fidgeting melodies

While ‘True Blue’ talked vaguely about lust – the “desire burning inside of me” on ‘Open Your Heart’ – here the door is flung overtly off its hinges. Madonna was brought up a Catholic, and ‘Like A Prayer’ unpacks how self-pleasure and sex can stack up next to devout faith. In Madonna’s world, desire is holy.

“In Catholicism you are a born sinner and you’re a sinner all your life,” Madonna told Interview Magazine in 1989. “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.”

In the tabloids, Madonna was treated like music’s most sinful villain. A copy of The Sun, from November 1989, derides the singer for having a “whore’s foul mouth” (charming!) and takes great pleasure in tearing apart her revealing outfits. The gossip papers rabidly followed her every move; reporting joyously on the breakdown of her marriage to Sean Penn, and gleefully branding her movie project Who’s That Girl a ‘flop’.

continua em https://www.nme.com/features/sex-religion-death-conical-bras-madonnas-like-prayer-blond-ambition-tour-30-2463908