When you include the dissolution of her marriage to Sean Penn, this would be enough to send anyone into distress. Music, being the only distraction she had, was where she was able to put all of her thoughts and feelings into order and lay them to rest. It was in this time that she came to the realization that both she and her fans were growing up, and it was the need for something different that helped push Madonna to make music for a wider audience. Her new sound would encapsulate what she thought could be popular in the music world. She had an instinct with regards to the changing pop trends, and knew she had to adapt and grow to stay on top. Taking a more adult and sophisticated approach, the topics that she chose to address had, up until then, been ones kept hidden away in her personal journals and diaries, ones she thought would never be shared with the general public. She conveys her feelings of uncertainty towards her father, is brutally blatant about the divorce, and open to the topic of losing her mother. Considering how personal the topics explored in the album are, they are enough to touch any listener and allow them to connect with Madonna.
Being dubbed as one of the most quintessential pop albums of all time, Like A Prayer was released in the spring of 1989 by Sire Records. In this album she pushes herself vocally, becoming more comfortable connecting to the emotional content of the lyrics. It was her first truly substantial record that defined the dividing line between her chirpy club-kid days and the mature sounds and themes that increasingly marked her '90s work (Zaleski, 2014). This album finds Madonna paying respect to her early musical influences such as The Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel and Sly & the Family Stone. She created a mix of confessional numbers and exemplary pop songs, while maintaining this masterful sense of balance throughout the album. Madonna chose to work with live musicians on this album and declined to polish many of the vocal tracks.