Albums: Like a Prayer (1989), The Immaculate Collection (1990), Celebration (2009)
Songwriters/producers: Madonna/Stephen Bray

N.W.A., the seminal hip-hop act and pioneers of gangsta rap outrage, have a lot more in common with Madonna than you’d think… that is, besides both having classic 1989 singles called Express Yourself. When N.W.A.’s version called for rappers not to hold back, to forget the censorship pop music demands, they might as well have been rapping about Madonna - for who else could successfully funnel counterculture and controversy into the confines of a #1 single? Her take on Express Yourself is an insistent denial to anyone who ever took her mock-Material Girl image at face value, and one of the clearest, most inclusive feminist messages ever put to song.

Madonna’s brand of sex-positive feminism is true equality in that it acknowledges men - with no possible accusations of man-hating, any objections can be blamed on the insecurities of domineering macho types. Though she uses every bit of her iconic status to call on women to “make him express himself”, the song’s title, Express Yourself, is also an appeal to male listeners to prove they deserve the women they’re with. “Long-stemmed roses are the way to your heart, but he needs to start with your head” - not the other-way-around double entendre, for material gifts are one thing, but intelligence and empathy go a long way. It perfectly reinforces Madonna’s oft-misinterpreted sexual politics - firstly, that to be desired is empowering, and secondly, that a visible, free-spirited sexuality can be for one’s own sake, and not imply a come-on to any man that’ll have her. As she’d soon whisper on Justify My Love, “poor is the man whose pleasures depend on the permission of another” - and of course, the same goes for women. The heart of the song isn’t a series of demands towards men, but a celebration of womanhood - beautiful, empowered, self-sufficient, but partial to a partner who really can “lift you to your higher ground”… mutually.

Madonna’s original roots may have been in disco, an essentially black form of music, but Express Yourself turns time back to the late ’60s, a perfectly authentic tribute to soul if there ever was one. The album version’s horn section, effortlessly bouncy bassline and generous backing vocals make it a Respect-level anthem for the 1980s, with the difference that Express Yourself (despite having some of Madonna’s strongest vocals) could actually be sung along to. However, Shep Pettibone’s 7” remix was released as the single and video, and included on both The Immaculate Collection and Celebration. With most of the band replaced with synthesisers and house beats - the kind that’d be explored more fully the subsequent year on Vogue - it lacks the album version’s depth, though it’s a little more danceable, more commercial and still excellent nonetheless.

The video for Express Yourself is really the start of Madonna’s Blond Ambition phase - the queen taking place on her throne, revelling in the attention, but always shining the light back onto her subjects. Ever since Material Girl, her ability to pay tribute to the icons before her time and not steal from, but reinterpret them, was much of what cemented her own timelessness. Express Yourself effectively takes the surreal industrial imagery of Fritz Lang’s classic film Metropolis and spins it into something else altogether. It puts Madonna at the top, the epitome of the successful career woman - stunningly beautiful, totally feminine, but also able to dominate in traditionally male roles - as shown by the contrast between her usually curvy appearance and that tense dance in an oversized tuxedo. She oversees a bunch of almost-as-beautiful male factory workers, but while they work, exercise and engage in the traditional competitive male form of conflict resolution - fighting - one man aspires to a little more. Instead of taking part in the macho cockfighting, he looks after Madonna’s adventurous black cat, giving him the balls to take the elevator straight to her bedroom and seduce her. The way I see it, his disregarding of “traditional” masculinity, and his empathy symbolised by the cat are proof of his worth as a lover, a partner - and perhaps Madonna’s crawling to lap up a bowl of milk shows that she is the cat? Throw into the mix a creepy suited observer (her husband? the boss?) and his wind-up horn section and you have a work of art every bit as metaphorically complex as Like a Prayer. And you have to give her credit for gender equality, as always - rather than reducing the female sexuality on show, getting half-naked male models to work out on MTV was a pretty effective way to even out all the eye candy on display. A classic in every sense of the word.