60 albums
1989 - Madonna - Like a Prayer

There was quite a lot of music that was beyond my usual comfort zone that I had a fondness for, and late 80s/early 90s Madonna fits into that, partly becuase I picked up a couple of her early singles at a sale, and partly because of Desperately Seeking Susan, and then… Hazel, who was a fan and brought into our relationship more Madonna.

Madonna - Like a Prayer (1989)

I used to buy quite a lot of records at a local St John’s Ambulance sale in Cobham, I think a DJ must have lived locally because a lot of, clearly unplayed, promo singles would turn up. It’s how I first heard REM, and The Long Ryders, and also how I had in my collection two Madonna singles - Lucky Star and Borderline and I liked them both enough not to return them to the next sale.

However Hazel’s albums never really got dug out despite that. I was more likely to dig out The Immaculate Collection than any of the LPs Hazel had.

Despite that Like a Prayer has had quite an imapct on me over the years because Hazel’s copy is one that has been scented with pathcouli oil and 35 years on it still gives a lovely waft everytime you flip past it in the shelves.

Patchouli oil however doesn’t make me think of Madonna, it makes me think of Vivienne Barnes, a sweet hippie who was in the year below me at George Abbot who I had an immense crush on, but never got further than an occasional passing discussion on the merits of Hawkwind. Fairly sure she was completely unaware of my feelings. I left school in the summer of 1982, and in November I saw Hawkwind at The Guildford Civic Hall, Vivienne was there but I never got up the nerve to say ‘hi’. And that was the last I saw or heard of Vivienne, but every time I’m in the Ms in our record collection I think of her.

Like a Prayer is a good, and a quite familiar album - three tracks are on The Immaculate Collection, and a couple of others I seem to know better than I expected to.

Woah! Act of Contrition, that caught me off-guard as I headed to lift the needle! That just made a good album better!

If I’d been smarter I’d have picked an album with a Dean Wareham / A Head Full of Wishes connection but I didn’t, but my blog, so…

Cagney & Lacee - Borderline

Source: Borderline by Madonna (covered by Cagney & Lacee)

I Deserve It - Dean & Britta

Source: I Deserve It by Madonna (covered by Dean & Britta)