Lord, please don’t let me have to ever hear this song again! Amen!
It’s time to help you get over that virtual hump that someone put in the middle of the week by exposing another beloved song for the aural atrocity it really is. That’s what we do each week in The Nest’s Top 30 Iconic Songs I Can’t Stand countdown! We’re on the verge of entering the gates of the unholy Top 10… but first, we have to meet the gatekeeper song that wasn’t quite bad enough to sink to the occasion. But make no mistake, today’s song is still a real piece of flaming shit…
#11. “Like A Prayer” – Madonna
If you’re a millennial reading this blog (assuming Google can translate it into texting acronyms and emojis for you), you probably think that artists like Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, and Slimy Miley Cyrus are like, the shit when it comes to pop divas turning the world on its ear by stirring the shitpot of controversy. But in the much more uptight 80’s, Madonna was blazing the trail for the showboating female star of today by doing such unmentionable things as slinking around on the stage in a wedding dress, kissing a young boy on the lips, and grabbing her nonexistent crotch while wearing Annie Lennox’s business suit. In the era of Dan Quayle’s family values, nobody told Madonna what the fuck to do…
Must have lost a really desperate game of Truth or Dare…
Madonna’s rather sketchy behavior in the 90’s was jump started in 1989 when she released the album Like A Prayer. The title track from that album seems innocuous enough (If you don’t read too closely into the words). The music video for that song was anything but…
Madonna only took on the time honored institutions of Christianity and racial injustice in the South in the video for “Like A Prayer.” Today, that would probably get her a lifetime pass to the Grammys and a ranty tweet from the Asshat in Chief… but in 1989, it got Madonna in a whole toilet full of shit from “religious” and “family” groups who didn’t want their children to have to listen to such blasphemy, and who never envisioned that almost 30 years later this song would become elevator muzak…
Attention K-Mart shoppers! We have a blue light special in the lighter fluid aisle!
Yes, it really has. One of the most controversial songs of the 80’s has now become one of the 2010’s most overplayed and extremely annoying earworms. Madonna’s prodigious career hasn’t exactly been whittled down to just this song yet… but it sometimes seems like it given how often I have to hear this garbage play. It’s hard to find a hit Madonna had in my decade that I don’t at least like, if not outright love. But this goddamned song makes me want to barf out of my ears. It’s not one of Madonna’s better pop efforts, and the gospel singing that dominates the second half torpedoes whatever value it may have originally had. If I am ticketed for hell because my ears refuse to tolerate shitty-ass fucking gospel music, well, then forget the stupid handbasket. Just strap me to the back of a flaming demon unicorn instead and send me on my way…
Let’s ride, motherfucker!!!
We’ll enter the cursed sanctuary of the Top 10 on Valentine’s Day next week! And I assure you there will be no fucking roses for these songs…
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
I never was a fan of Madonna, but I remember the collective outcry… some hardliners even wanted that she changes her name in Ma-lucifer or something like that…
She became such a bad girl back then… but had it been today’s world, she’d probably have been on Sesame Street dancing around in her cone bra.
ody N biskit….never reel lee listened much ta madonna round heer; if her song waz on de ray dee oh…oh kay, if knot, we never gave her music much thought !! 🙂 ♥
I remember when I was a kid one of our city’s classic rock stations started playing Madonna to bandwagon off her popularity in the 80’s. That didn’t earn them the best of reputations with the rock crowd… and unsurprisingly, they were soon out of business.
Point, set, game. Definitely not one of her better songs. And like much of her stuff, much better when just listened to and not seen. Madonna set the stage when it came to outrageous. Maybe the Clown in Chief got his ideas from her? 😱
Donald Trump in a cone bra. My mind just exploded…
Aayyyeeeee!
Okay, I’m going to ‘fess up. I loved this song when it came out. I hope I can be forgiven since I was a very stupid 19-year-old at the time and it grates on my nerves something terrible now. But perhaps not as much as anything by those current day pop divas you mentioned. ((Shudder)) Just thinking about them makes me want to barf out of my ears and my eyes!
I wouldn’t care if you said you still love it…. after all, some people out there must still love it since all of the variety and “oldies” stations play it all the time. Like Madonna, I actually do like some of the songs from the current pop divas, but their antics are a bit icky. Put some damn clothes on, Miley!
I don’t think I could ever like anything Miley did because I can never unsee her writhing around on stage, mostly naked with bunny ears on, doing the stupid tongue thing. I’ve never wanted eye bleach so bad! My reasons for rejecting the other two are even less fair and objective. I think Lady Gaga’s name is stupid. They’re celebrities. Millennials like them. They look weird. It’s probably exactly how my parents felt about Madonna back in the day!
Okie dokie. I listened to a minute of that and my head started to hurt. I keep remember WHY this whole decade was my least favorite musically speaking. I didn’t like the movies, either.
It’s very possible I wouldn’t have liked the 80’s had I not grew up in them… but then again, I did a lot of growing up in the 90’s as well, and consider it to be the worst decade musically…
A truly ridiculous video…….no redeeming qualities I’m afraid at least for me……..as for the song – I have heard it screeching over in-store speakers in a couple of places but I just try and tune it out as much as possible. Can you tell I’m not a fan??????
Pam
Of all her songs to become “that one” that gets played all the time now that she’s considered to be a retro artist… I don’t know why it was picked. Like A Virgin (Which is why I made the simile reference, then conveniently forgot to mention it in the post!) caused a stir to, and is much better and very ironically more representative of her 80’s image!
I’m with you – I HATE that song. I’m not too keen on Madonna either.
Given the comments today, you are in good company…
I hate that song. The problem with any of her songs is that she never wrote anything because of what she really believed. It was all for pure shock value and nothing else. It was just a “look at ME” thing for her. And it is all so annoying. Change the lyrics to something about an idilic life on a farm and it would still sound awful. I’d rather hear cats fight, or Marie Osmond singing Paper Roses (and you know how gosh awful THAT is.)
Listening to ANYTHING from Madonna makes me WANT to go straight to Hell just to escape her voice and horrible lyrics. And yes, as a MOM I refused to let my child read any of the children’s books she wrote. And you know I’m no prude. Just looking at her picture makes me feel like I’m going to get a nasty rash. You can put all of her songs on your overrated shit list as far as I’m concerned.
I had no idea Madonna wrote children’s books….. ick! Good call on her being a blatant attention ho. I still like listening to most of her music, but perfectly understand why others dislike the entire package (kinda like me with Prince)…
I wouldn’t go out of my way to listen to Madonna, but I think I might of gotten drunk one night and possibly “Vogued” back then, lol.. Being drunk was no excuse!
20 yrs sober and I just shake my head at some of that crap music I actually thought I liked! Can’t wait till next weeks!
There are some big names coming up… the next four songs all belong to R&R Hall of Famers, I think… with two more in the Top 6. I’m taking on the big boys!
Can’t wait to tear them apart! lol..
aarrgghh – I posted a reply yesterday but it doesn’t look like it took – the computer gremlins took it away! Madonna is neither yay/nay here at the Hotel Thompson. Mom/dad don’t stop everything to listen to her. She’s probably one of the last artists they would for some reason. Sometimes her voice is like fingernails on a chalkboard… shivers. XOXO – Bacon
Madonna’s people must have intercepted your comment. She is such a diva, nobody can criticize her…
Snorts and rolls with piggy laughter. You may be right! XOXO – Bacon
I must be one of the weird ones, because I quite like this one, and have sung it at kariokee in the past… But I do agree that she did mostly write stuff for the shock value which is rather sad really.
Aha! Having just come from your Monday post, I was right. I love this song! Woohoo!
It figures! We would wear Alexa out trying to constantly change each other’s music…
Not a fan of that song either.