Madonna moved away from her dancey pop music into a more artistically daring form of pop, one that led critics to label it "as close to art as pop gets"
An album born from turmoil, Madonna was dealing with the Catholic guilt bred into her through her upbringing, coming close to the age her mother had been when she died, and having her tumultuous marriage to Sean Penn come to an end.
Madonna funnelled all of this into her work, with an album steeped in sex and God. As such, it wasn't exactly welcomed by the church. The Vatican condemned one of her music videos and Pepsi pulled out of promotional deal with her (apparently controversial religious overtones are not welcome, but shallow Kardashian trivialisation of important social movements is fine).
She had been working to develop a musical with Prince, that didn't end up eventuating, but the collaboration did result in him dueting with her on the song "Love Song" and contributed some guitar and production elsewhere on the album.
The album cemented Madonna's place as pop royalty and seemed to be her working out some residual catholic guilt, opening her up to more confronting projects such as her album "Erotica" and her book "Sex".
