'Like A Prayer'

Boy, nothing was more taboo, risque, intriguing and polarizing than Madonna in 1989 when she released this album.

As a nine-year-old boy, I didn't know what to think. I wasn't particularly interested in her music. Oddly, I was very interested in pop music and I sincerely can't remember a single song from this album on the radio. Maybe I just ignored it. Maybe I didn't know any better. Nonetheless, the only time I heard a Madonna song was through a music video or from my sister's CDs.

My youngest sister actually owned this album and no other mesmerized me like this one. I thought it was porn before I knew was porn really was. I knew it was taboo. I didn't think I'd be able to touch or look at it. I sort of felt that if I listened to Madonna's music, I'd turn into a sex freak.

Madonna at the time, as much as people wanted to stop her influence, was the most popular thing going. She was given $5 million to be a spokeswoman for Pepsi. She lost that gig once the "Like A Prayer" music video came out and she pissed off the Catholic Church after she showed burning crosses, stigmatas and other religious imagery.

Now, I don't know how much pull the Catholic Church would have if someone really wanted to piss the moral majority off. The evangelicals have taken over. It was not very long at all that the Catholics snapped their fingers and people jumped.

Listening to the record again, 23 years after the fact, it's still not music that exactly grips me. In fact, almost all Madonna music does not appeal to me and it's something that I can't imagine being appealing to others. I don't get Madonna I guess. At least, I don't get her as a musical artist. I don't get her outside anything other than a spectacle.