the greatest Madonna songs. In 2014, LA Weekly placed the song at rank two on their list of "The 20 Best Pop Songs in History By Female Artists". Art Tavana from the publication opined that "'Like a Prayer' was the moment when Madonna went from being the voice of America's teenagers to the worldwide high priestess of pop." In their ranking of the best songs from the 1980s, Pitchfork listed "Like a Prayer" at number 50. In 2021, Rolling Stone listed "Like a Prayer" as one of the "500 Best Songs of All Time", at number 55. Campbell noted that the popularity and the media mayhem around the song and the video, helped introduce the concept of free publicity. "Like a Prayer"s impact was more evident on its parent studio album, which shot to the top of the charts once it was released in April 1989. The author further argued that the controversial clip was evidence of the emergence of the "video commodity as a different entity from the song that spawned it". As author Judith Marcus explained in her book, Surviving the Twentieth Century, Madonna used the church to make her own point on victimization. For Marcus the main impact lay in the fact that the clip ultimately portrayed an empowerment message, questioning and "attacking" the Church's male prejudice and continuous female subjugation throughout history. The song was noted by Campbell for the mix of choir and organ, which according to him paved the way for gospel music to be more mainstream than before. In 1999, the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance held a seminar on the different implications and metaphors present in the song; it was headed by professors Martin Katz, George Shirley and Michael Daugherty. The main topic discussed was the fact that there can be different metaphorical meanings of the song, as the word "like" can be taken in separate contexts. Taraborrelli commented that "in the end, the events surrounding 'Like a Prayer' only served to enhance Madonna's reputation as a shrewd businesswoman, someone who knows how to sell a concept." Before Madonna's deal with Pepsi, pop stars in general were not given much artistic freedom by sponsors. However, Madonna made it a point to have the commercial be dictated by her. While she said that it was never her intention for Pepsi to get entangled in the controversy of the music