Madonna 2003–present: Commercial ups and downs
 Madonna's 1986 album True Blue prompted Rolling Stone to declare, singing better than ever, Madonna stakes her claim as the pop poet of lower-middle-class America. The album included the soulful ballad Live to Tell, which she wrote for the film At Close Range, starring then-husband Sean Penn. The album was also the first to credit her as producer.[citation needed] She collaborated with composer Patrick Leonard, who would become a long-time collaborator and friend. True Blue reached #1 in various countries and sold over 24 million copies worldwide. It spawned five successful singles, which all reached the top five on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart: “Live to Tell” (#1-U.S.), “Papa Don't Preach” (#1-U.S.), “Open Your Heart” (#1-U.S.), “True Blue” (#3-U.S.) and “La Isla Bonita” (#4-U.S.).
The music videos for the album displayed Madonna’s continued interest in pushing the boundaries of the video medium to a cinematic level, including elaborate art direction, cinematography, and film devices such as character and plot. Though Madonna had already made videos expressing her sexuality, she added religious iconography, gender archetypes, and social issues to her oeuvre, and these concepts would carry through her work for years to come. One notable example was the Open Your Heart video, her first collaboration with French photographer Jean-Baptiste Mondino.
In 1987, Madonna starred in Who's That Girl, and contributed four songs to its soundtrack, including the film's title track, which became Madonna's sixth #1 single in the U.S.[citation needed] The album's second single, Causing a Commotion peaked in the U.S. at #2 for 3 weeks.
Madonna embarked on the Who's That Girl World Tour the same year, at the time the highest-grossing tour in music history, beginning her long association with backing vocalists and dancers Donna DeLory and Niki Haris, and moving closer to the more elaborately staged theater-inspired concert tour. It also marked her first run-in with the Vatican, with Pope John Paul II urging fans not to attend her performances in Italy.Later that year, Madonna released a remix album of past hits, You Can Dance, which included one new song, Spotlight. The album sold over one million copies in the U.S. and 5 million worldwide. In 1988, city officials in the town of Pacentro, Italy, planned to construct a 13-foot statue of Madonna in a bustier. The statue was intended to commemorate the fact that some of Madonna's ancestors had lived in Pacentro.
Like a Prayer (1989) caused controversy as it was condemned by the Vatican for its 'blasphemous' mixture of Catholic symbolism and eroticism.Madonna's fourth album, Like a Prayer, released in 1989, was co-written and co-produced with Patrick Leonard and Stephen Bray[citation needed]. She teamed up with Prince on a duet, and he also played guitar on two songs. Like a Prayer garnered Madonna the strongest reviews of her career and attracted a more mature audience. All Music Guide described the album as her best and most consistent, while Rolling Stone hailed the album as ..as close to art as pop music gets. Like a Prayer peaked at number one on the US album chart and sold 17 million copies worldwide, with 4 million copies alone sold in the U.S. The album produced five hit singles: the title track, “Express Yourself (#2-U.S.), “Cherish (#2-U.S.), “Oh Father,” and “Keep It Together (#8-U.S.). “Like a Prayer” itself hit number one and became her seventh #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. However, Oh Father peaked at #20 in the U.S. and broke Madonna's string of 17 consecutive Top 10 hits from Borderline (1984) to Cherish (1989).
In early 1989, Madonna signed an endorsement deal with soft drink manufacturer Pepsi. She appeared and debuted her new song, “Like a Prayer,” in a Pepsi commercial and also made a separate music video which was not related to Pepsi. Although the commercial itself was not controversial, the video for “Like a Prayer” caused an uproar.[citation needed] The video premiered on MTV and featured many Catholic symbols, such as stigmata,. The video depicted a black man who comes to the aid of a white woman being murdered by white men and is falsely arrested for the crime. Madonna, who has witnessed the crime, secures his release. Although the video's intent was to denounce racism, Madonna was criticized for her use of burning crosses and making out with Jesus.[citation needed] Pepsi was bombarded with complaints and boycotts.[citation needed] Since the commercial and music video were nearly identical in visual terms, the soft drink manufacturer was unable to convince the public that their commercial actually had nothing that could be deemed inappropriate. Pepsi pulled the commercial but Madonna kept her five million dollar fee, as Pepsi had nullified the contract, not she.
In 1990, Madonna starred as Breathless Mahoney in a film adaptation of the popular comic book series Dick Tracy. To accompany the launching of the film, in May 1990 she released I'm Breathless, which included songs from and inspired by the film's 1930s setting. It featured her eighth U.S. #1 house music anthem Vogue[citation needed] (which was an homage to Hollywood stars), the Gershwin-esque Something to Remember, and three songs by Stephen Sondheim, including Sooner or Later, which won an Academy Award for 'Best Original Song', I'm Breathless was a success in Europe, Australia and the United States, and sold 7 million copies worldwide (2x platinum in the U.S.).
Madonna during her Blond Ambition tourFrom April until August 1990, Madonna toured Japan, North America, and Europe on her Blond Ambition World Tour[citation needed], which the singer likened to musical theatre. Featuring now familiar religious and sexual themes and symbolism, the tour drew controversy from Madonna's performance of Like a Virgin, during which two male dancers caressed her body before she simulated masturbation.
In November 1990, Madonna released her first greatest hits compilation album, The Immaculate Collection, which included two new songs: “Justify My Love” and “Rescue Me.” Considering that Madonna did not want to release Rescue Me as a single, it became the highest-debuting single by a female artist in U.S. chart history, entering the U.S. charts at number 15 and eventually peaking at #9. The music video for “Justify My Love,” again directed by Mondino, showed Madonna at the Royal Monceau Hotel in Paris, in suggestive scenes with her then-lover, model/actor Tony Ward, as well as scenes of S&M, bondage with gay and lesbian characters, and brief nudity. It was deemed too sexually explicit for MTV, and was subsequently banned from the station. Warner Bros Records released the video as a video single — the first of its kind — and it became the highest-selling video single of all time.[citation needed] Justify My Love curled the toes of U.S. radio stations so to speak and became her ninth #1 single in the U.S. The album went on to sell over 30 million copies worldwide.
In 1991, Madonna starred in her first documentary film, Truth or Dare (also known as In Bed with Madonna outside North America), which chronicled her successful 1990 Blond Ambition Tour, as well as her personal life. The following year, she appeared in the baseball film A League of Their Own with a mostly critically praised (one of her few film honors) portrayal of Italian American Mae Mordabito and recorded the film's theme song, This Used to Be My Playground, which became her tenth #1 single in the United States.
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