For the fourth installment in our Women Behaving Boldly mini-series, we spin the clock back to an episode we first aired a year ago: Ann Powers, talking about Madonna’s Like a Prayer from 1989. From the beginning, we knew this episode in particular would make a perfect fit with the WBB series. After all, few pop artists, female or male, have done more to transform the pop landscape since the 1980s than Madonna, often times inviting scrutiny and criticism in the process for pushing the proverbial envelope on what people found acceptable by musical artists in that era. And to have Ann Powers, one of the country’s premier music critics, here to break down Madonna’s import was a gift unto itself. If you missed this the first time, we’re excited for you to hear it now. And if you heard it before, revisit this gem from our vaults.

The album: Madonna: Like a Prayer (Sire, 1989)

This week, Morgan and Oliver are joined by Ann Powers of NPR Music and author of the new book, Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black and White, Body and Soul in American Music. Together, the three dug into Like a Prayer, Madonna's critical breakout album form 1989. As Ann lays out, Madonna had already established herself as an MTV-era mega-star with her previous albums but Like a Prayer, with its then-controversial sexual politics and surprising personal candor, marked a new level of artistic ambition.

More on Madonna and Like a Prayer

• The "Like a Prayer" video
• NPR Music's review of Like a Prayer for their "150 Greatest Albums Made by Women" list.

More on Ann Powers:

• Ann Powers @ NPR Music
• Ann on All Things Considered, talking about Good Booty
• Her Twitter

Tracklisting (all songs from Like a Prayer unless indicated otherwise):

• Like a Prayer
• Madonna: Like a Virgin
• Till Death Do Us Part
• Express Yourself
• Act of Contrition
• Love Song
• Cherish
• Keep it Together
• Like a Prayer

Here is the Spotify playlist of as many songs as we can find on there
If you're not already subscribed to Heat Rocks in Apple Podcasts, do it here!

The Albums:

• Aretha Franklin: Young, Gifted, and Black (1974)
• Aretha Franklin: Jazz to Soul (1994)
• Aretha Franklin: Rare & Unreleased Recordings from the Golden Reign of the Queen of Soul (2007)

Heat Rocks had always planned to sit down with DJ Lynnée Denise, an LA-based DJ and music scholar, but when Aretha Franklin passed on August 16th, we invited her to come talk with us about the Queen's life and legacy as part two of our series Women Behaving Boldly.

What a fantastic decision!

Admittedly, Queen Aretha's discography is too vast and too fire to be discussed on just one show so we cherry picked our favorite heat rocks: Oliver (The Queen in Waiting - The Columbia Years), Morgan (Rare & Unreleased Recordings from the Golden Reign of the Queen of Soul) and DJ Lynnée Denise (Young, Gifted and Black).

The three of us, brought together by a shared love and reverence for the Queen talked about her incredible voice and gift of interpretation and DJ Lynnée unpacked the Aretha's relationship with the church, with Detroit, with her instrument(s), with black folks and of course, her place in the canon of music.

Heat Rocks is thankful for an opportunity to spend an hour talking about the undisputed Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin, with DJ Lynnée Denise who dropped some nuggets of wisdom on us.

More on Lynnée Denise

• The Afro-Digital Migration: A DJ's Journey from Hip-Hop to House Music
• Website

Our favorite Aretha performances

• Soul Train (1973)
• Blues Brothers (1980)
• The 1998 Grammys

More on Aretha

• Aretha's Wikipedia Entry
• "At Aretha Franklin's Funeral, Gospel was the Heart - and Backbone" (NPR)
• "Soul Survivor: The Revival and Hidden Treasure of Aretha Franklin"

Additional Aretha Links

• Aretha Franklin in Pictures (CBS News)
• With George Michael "I Knew You Were Waiting for Me"
• Freeway of Love

Show Tracklisting (all songs by Aretha Franklin unless indicated otherwise):

• I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)
• Rock Steady
• EPMD: I'm Housin'
• Rock Steady
• Young, Gifted and Black
• Soulville
• Border Song (Holy Moses)
• The Long and Winding Road
• At Last (Let Me In Your Life Outtake)
• Nina Simone: To Be Young, Gifted and Black
• Young, Gifted and Black
• Elton John: Young, Gifted and Black
• The Heptones: Young, Gifted and Black
• Bob and Marcia: To Be Young Gifted and Black
• I've Been Loving You Too Long
• Day Dreaming
• Just for a Thrill
• Drinking Again
• This Bitter Earth
• Jump To It
• One Step Ahead
• Mos Def: Ms. Fat Booty
• Ain't But the One
• I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You) [Demo]
• At Last (Let Me In Your Life Outtake)
• So Soon
• Rock Steady (Alternate Mix)
• Are You Leaving Me [Demo]

Here is the Spotify playlist of as many songs as we can find on there.
If you're not already subscribed to Heat Rocks in Apple Podcasts, do it here!

The Album: The Rolling Stones: Exile On Main Street (1972)

In 1972, The Rolling Stones were at the peak of their success...and excess. In order to flee British tax collectors, Keith, Mick and the crew fled to France where, over the course of many months - and a ton of drugs - the group pieced together what would become an epic double album. It would take Mick dragging the tapes to Hollywood to complete production but once finished, Exile On Main Street would become embrace as one of the group's greatest albums and for some, it marked the end of the group's "golden era," in terms of how it blended together rock, soul, and blues together in a mish-mash of styles that still invoke awe - and controversy - today.

The album pick came to us via Chris Ryan, executive editor at The Ringer, where he contributes or hosts a number of podcasts himself, including the pop culture show, The Watch, and the site's movie discussion show, The Rewatchables. Before that, Chris was a long-time music writer, based out of New York, and one of the funniest and smartest critics Oliver's ever met.

More on Chris Ryan

• The Watch podcast
• The Rewatchables podcast
• Author Page on The Ringer | Twitter | Blog

More on Exile On Main Street

• "How Exile On Main Street Killed the Rolling Stones" (The Atlantic)
• "The Stones and the true story of Exile on Main St" (The Guardian)
• "Trying to Make a Record in the Führerbunker: Mick Jagger and Keith Richards on Exile on Main St" (GQ)

Show Tracklisting (all songs from Exile On Main Street unless indicated otherwise):

• Rocks Off
• Casino Boogie
• Ventilator Blues
• Sweet Black Angel
• Shake Your Hips
• Sweet Virginia
• Tumbling Dice
• Turd on the Run
• Rocks Off
• Happy
• The Rolling Stones: Miss You

Here is the Spotify playlist of as many songs as we can find on there
If you're not already subscribed to Heat Rocks in Apple Podcasts, do it here!

The Album: Minor Threat: Minor Threat (1984)

In 2003, James Spooner released Afropunk, a personal love letter/manifesto dedicated to people like him: punk fans of a different shade whose acceptance in the scene was often hard-fought and tenuous. That became a movement, with annual afropunk festivals becoming entities unto themselves, across the world. Spooner is now a tattoo artist and graphic novelist, living in Los Angeles.

For our episode, Spooner joined us to talk about Minor Threat's self-titled compilation of their early singles, one through which he discovered the ethos of straight-edge (no drugs, drinking, etc.) and a wider world of possibilities within punk rock. Minor Threat, the short-lived but heavily-influential group out of Washington D.C., fronted by Ian MacKaye is legendary and this compilation was one of the first ways in which listeners could discover the group, their sound and their philosophy.  During our episode, we discussed how what about straight-edge appealed to him, the racial politics of punk and how a kid from the high desert of California came across this music and culture to begin with.

More on James Spooner

• "The True Story Of How Afropunk Turned A Message Board Into A Movement" (Vice)

• Interview with James Spooner (Live from Planet Earth)

• Monocle Tattoo Website | Instagram

More on Minor Threat

• Review in Sputnik Music
• 1982 interview

• "Straight Edge Religion: Hardcore Punk and the Sober Revolution" (Marginalia)

Show Tracklisting (all songs from Minor Threat unless indicated otherwise):

• Minor Threat
• Straight Edge
• Screaming at the Wall
• Guilty of Being White
• Black Flag: White Minority
• Patti Smith: Rock N Roll N--
• The Monkees: (I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone
• Steppin' Stone
• Bottled Violence
• I Don't Wanna Hear It
• The Murder City Devils: Boom Swagger Boom

Here is the Spotify playlist of as many songs as we can find on there.
If you're not already subscribed to Heat Rocks in Apple Podcasts, do it here!