Madonna's Like A Prayer album was released on March 21, 1989 - fifteen years ago today.

Prince was involved in a few ways. As well as writing/working on the track Love Song (not a huge favorite of mine), he also co-created the final track, Act Of Contrition, which shows some blazing (and uncredited) guitar work by Prince played over the track Like A Prayer, supposedly played backwards by accident. I love this track - in fact I thought it was stunning before I even knew it was Prince (although now the guitar sound is unmistakable).

He also played an inspired guitar solo on the extended version of Like A Prayer, although I don't think you can hear him on the album (and radio) version - can anyone shed light on this? Did he play on the original version, or was his part recorded especially for the 12"? DavidEye?

Prince has also supposedly recorded his own version of the track Like A Prayer - I would love to hear it, although it's hard to see how he would add anything to Madonna's version...

Thoughts on any of these tracks or Prince's involvement with this album?

At the time it came out, I felt like it had to be prince influenced on Act of Contrition... and this was before Batman....

"Get It Together" raises other questions.

"Like A Prayer" (Club Mix?) has that classic Prince touch on the keys towards the end, along with guitar.

"Love Song" sounds like it was half as long originally and doubled-up with additional overdubs.

Love that "Sex" book and "Justify" sexed it further...

nayroo2002 said:

I forgot about that one. Madonna has said herself that Prince plays guitar on that one (strange, as it doesn't sound like Prince at all to my ears).

booyah said:

Do you mean "Keep" It Together?

SENSHY said:

Yes, he does (and I do too).

Wasn't Love Song originally a 'Camille'-type track (sped-up vocals)?

I read that recently here I think, which I didn't know before.

I think as a whole, 'Like a Prayer' is Madonna's most satisfying album. I still listen to it a lot. She was obviously heavily influenced by Prince' Lovesexy album/tour. I remember her Blonde Ambition tour 'borrowing' from Prince a bit. I was just thinking about P's version of 'Like a Prayer' the other day. I was trying to remember what source I heard about it from. It was probably from that Rolling Stone cover story from 1990 where he was talking about Graffiti Bridge and trash talking U2. I didn't know about his solo on the 12". Cool.
Lovesong still sounds very unique to me. I hope they decide to work together again.

all i know is that it IS PRINCE u hear playing guitar on MADONNA's LIKE A PRAYER. the guitar solo is being played BACKWARDS. listen closely. way back when, a friend of mine and I ran the song itself backwards so we could hear the guitar solo. it was pretty cool, of course. PRINCE is a master guitarist.

booyah said:

I'm pretty sure he only appears on the 12" version of "Like A Prayer".The album version doesn't feature any guitar solo,except for that brief bit at the beginning.

I wish they would remaster the 'Like A Prayer' CD.I consider it to be Madonna's first real masterpiece.