With her unparalleled ability to create controversy, Madonna scored her seventh #1 single on the Billboard Hot 100 on April 22, 1989 with "Like A Prayer."
I remember when the video first hit MTV the month before. The Catholic Church was not pleased. Stigmata! Burning crosses! Was Madonna kissing Black Jesus?! I was just as shocked when I saw it. Madonna with brown hair!
More importantly, The-Artist-Formerly-Known-As-Material-Girl had upgraded her mission from pop star to "serious artist." She was now 30 and felt she had to grow up with her audience. Her marriage to Sean Penn had just ended. Broadway critics panned her debut in "Speed-The-Plow." Her films "Shanghai Surprise" (missed that one) and "Who's That Girl" failed at the box office. She needed a change.
"Like A Prayer" signaled her new, more personal approach to songwriting, addressing her feelings about religion. She told Rolling Stone magazine: "Sometimes I'm wracked with guilt when I needn't be, and that, to me, is left over from my Catholic upbringing. Because in Catholicism you are born a sinner and you are a sinner all of your life. No matter how you try to get away from it, the sin is within you all the time."
The Vatican and the American Family Association promptly condemned the video for its bold religious imagery linked to lyrics that intertwined faith and sexuality. Madonna was causing a commotion (see what I did there?) while generating millions of dollars worth of free publicity for her new album of the same name. My PR idol.
As part of the global push for the album, Pepsi partnered with Madonna on a commercial she got to create. The spot, reflecting her playful childhood memories, premiered on The Grammy Awards, the day before "Like A Prayer" debuted on MTV. But the backlash against the music video was strong and swift, sweeping up Pepsi too. Religious groups called for a boycott of Pepsi and its subsidiaries including KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut. So Pepsi caved, cancelled the campaign, and let Madonna keep the $5 million sponsorship fee. If you haven't seen this in 30 years...
The song raced up the charts of course, launching an album that Rolling Stone called "As close to art as pop music gets."
It all seems quaint now after having watched Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion perform "WAP" on this year's Grammys, right?
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