"Express Yourself" is a song by American singer-songwriter Madonna from her fourth studio album, Like a Prayer (1989). It was released as the second single from the album on May 9, 1989, by Sire Records. The song was included on the greatest hits compilation albums The Immaculate Collection (1990), Celebration (2009) and Finally Enough Love: 50 Number Ones (2022). "Express Yourself" was the first song that Madonna and co-producer Stephen Bray collaborated on for Like a Prayer. Written and produced by them, the song was a tribute to American funk and soul band Sly and the Family Stone. The main inspiration behind the song is female empowerment, urging women never to go for second-best and to urge their partners to express their inner feelings.
"Express Yourself" is an upbeat house song that features instrumentation from percussion, handclaps and drum beats, while the chorus is backed by the sound of a horn section. The lyrics talk about rejecting material pleasures and only accepting the best for oneself; subtexts are employed throughout the song. "Express Yourself" received positive reviews from critics, who applauded the gender equality message of the song and complimented the song for being a hymn to freedom and encouragement to women and all oppressed minorities. Commercially, the song peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and became Madonna's eighth number-one hit on the Eurochart Hot 100 Singles chart. It also reached the top of the singles charts in Canada and Switzerland, and the top five elsewhere.
The accompanying music video, directed by David Fincher, was inspired by the Fritz Lang classic film Metropolis (1927). It had a total budget of $5 million ($ million in dollars), which made it the most expensive music video made up to then, and currently the third most expensive of all time. The video portrayed a city full of tall skyscrapers and railway lines on a dark, stormy night. Madonna played the part of a glamorous lady and chained masochist, with muscular men acting as her workers. In the end, she picks one of them—played by model Cameron Alborzian—as her date. Critics noted the video's depiction of female sexuality and that Madonna's masculine image in the video was gender-bending.
"Express Yourself" has been performed on four of Madonna's world tours, and has been covered by the female leads of the Fox TV show Glee, who performed the song in the episode titled "The Power of Madonna". The song and the video are noted for their freedom expression and feminist aspects, and its postmodern nature entranced academics, by resisting definition. It has also left its mark on the work of subsequent pop acts, including the Spice Girls, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Lady Gaga.
Background
"Express Yourself" was released as the second single from her fourth studio album, Like a Prayer, on May 9, 1989, with "The Look of Love", from the 1987 film soundtrack Who's That Girl, on its B-side. When Madonna started work on Like a Prayer, she considered many options, and thought about the musical direction for it. She had certain matters on her mind, including her troubled relationship with her husband Sean Penn, her family, her lost mother and even her belief in God. Madonna thought about lyrical ideas for the songs on topics that, until then, were personal meditation, never to be shared with her public so openly and pointedly. She came to the realization that as she and her fans were growing up, and it was time for her to move away from the teen appeal to wider audiences, and en-cash on the longevity of the album market. Madonna wanted her new sound to be calculative and indicative of what was fashionable, and ride the changing trend of music.
As Madonna considered her alternatives, producers Patrick Leonard and Stephen Bray had individually begun to tinker with various instrumental tracks and musical ideas to present to her for consideration. "Express Yourself" was the first song that Madonna and Bray collaborated on for Like a Prayer, co-written and co-produced as a tribute to American funk and soul band Sly and the Family Stone. The main inspiration behind the song is female empowerment, urging women never to "go for second-best" and to put their love "to the test". Author Mick St. Michael quoted Madonna saying: "The ultimate thing behind the song is that if you don't express yourself, if you don't say what you want, then you're not going to get it. And in effect you are chained down by your inability to say what you feel or go after what you want."
Composition
"Express Yourself" begins with the sound of percussion instruments, as Madonna entreats the listener: "Come on girls, do you believe in love? 'Cause I got something to say about it, And it goes something like this." Handclaps and drum beats start as Madonna moves into the chorus of the song, with a thick vocal texture and high-pitched background singing. The chorus is aided by instrumentation from a saxophone and percussion. Madonna then sings the first verse of the song, as a violin sound is added after she finishes the bridge, "Make you feel like a queen on the throne, make you love it till you never come down", a male voice repeating the last line. A synthesizer is played after the second verse as Madonna continues chanting the words "Express yourself" with background vocals singing "Hey, hey, hey, hey" alongside her.
After a small saxophone interlude, a break-down comes with Madonna singing in a fuller voice, as horns and percussion beats continue. Madonna changes the lyrics at the end to "express himself", and after another repetition of the bridge and the intermediate verse, the chorus comes where she changes the lyrics back to the original title. The song ends with the words "respect yourself" fading out. Set within a simple song structure, "Express Yourself" plays with ambiguity through a subtle control of harmony and the avoidance of diatonic closure. The song appears to be in the key of G major but its actual composition seems to be written in the key of C major. But the first note of the melody, "don't" in B major, implies the G Dorian mode. This is also evident in Madonna's vocal nuance on the words "express yourself", which initially centers on G, before moving down a semitone to E minor, the raised 6th in G Dorian. Per the sheet music published by Alfred Publishing Co. Inc., "Express Yourself" is set in time signature of common time, with a tempo of 120 beats per minute. Madonna's voice range spans from G3 to C5 with a chord progression of G–F/G–C–G.
According to Rikky Rooksby, author of The Complete Guide to the Music of Madonna, the lyrics of "Express Yourself" make it a simple love song, with Madonna exhorting the women in her audience not to go for second-best, to express their feelings and get their men to express theirs. Lucy O'Brien, author of Madonna: Like an Icon, described them as a "feminist call-to-arms", with Madonna dismissing the satin sheets and gold baubles of material pleasures. According to Douglas Kellner, the phrase "a big strong hand, to lift you to your higher ground" is implied as one's own hand, and not the typical male helping hand. Santiago Fouz-Hernández believed that the lyrics created identification with the gay community, with the line "Come on girls, do you believe in love?" also addressing gay males.
Critical reception
"Express Yourself" received mainly positive reviews from critics. J. Randy Taraborrelli, author of Madonna: An Intimate Biography called the song a "funky dance anthem" and reacted positively to its message of a "female call-to-arms in communication and self-respect." Stephen Holden of The New York Times observed that Madonna repudiated the philosophy of her previous single "Material Girl" (1985) in "Express Yourself", which he described as "a 30-year-old's view of life unshadowed by rebellion and lingering lapsed Catholic pain." In another article from the same newspaper, Carn James declared it as one of her most exuberant songs. Santiago Fouz-Hernández and Freya Jarman-Ivens, authors of Madonna's Drowned Worlds, complimented the lyrics of the song, and added that it apparently espouses "gender fluidity as a road to gender equality." In his book Madonna As Postmodern Myth, journalist Georges Claude Guilbert described "Express Yourself" as a hymn to freedom, "an encouragement for all women and all oppressed minorities to resist, to express their ideas and their strength faced with tyranny."
Biographer Mary Cross noted in her book Madonna: A Biography, how the song paved the way for its music video and became a testament to freedom. Authors Allen Metz and Carol Benson noted in their essays on Madonna, how she decimated "patriarchal, racist and capitalist constructions", by the way she pronounced the word "self" in "Express Yourself". They added that the opening line "Don't go for second best, baby" transformed the song into a postmodernist anthem. Scholar Sheila Whiteley noted in her book Women and Popular Music: Sexuality, Identity, and Subjectivity, that Madonna's acknowledgment of the pastiche and of being capable of imitating musical style was interesting to her, but given Madonna's ability to manipulate image, the musical exuberance of "Express Yourself" did not appear surprising. Mark Bego, author of Madonna: Blond Ambition declared that "the song that most reflected the Madonna everyone had come to know and be shocked by was 'Express Yourself'." O'Brien was impressed with the song, and gave a detailed review: "Express Yourself" is a feminist call to arms, complete with muscular brass-playing and soulful voice. Here Madonna is the anti-materialism girl, exhorting her audience to respect themselves. That means having a man who loves your head and your heart. If he doesn't treat you right (and here's the revolutionary rhetoric) you're better off on your own. Like a female preacher, Madonna emphasizes each word of the chorus, invoking God and the power of orgasm. In parts Cosmo-woman, girl-talk, and swinging dance track, it presages the deliciously declarative stance of "Vogue" and shows Madonna moving from introspective to survivalist mode. Professor Maury Dean wrote in his book Rock 'n' Roll Gold Rush: A Singles Un-Cyclopedia, that the main appeal of "Express Yourself" lay in its teen appeal, although he understood that at its core, it was addressing a very important issue of female liberation. Kevin Phinney from Austin American-Statesman commented that with "Express Yourself", Madonna struck out her "Material Girl" persona, there by demonstrating once more that no image of hers is concrete. Based on the lyrics of the song, Ken Blakely of Philadelphia Daily News declared the song as a rare example of good taste and good advice from Like a Prayer. Andy Goldberg from The Jerusalem Post was impressed with Madonna's vocals on the song, complimenting the soul influences. Rolling Stones J. D. Considine called "Express Yourself" an unabashed groove tune and felt that it seemed "smart and sassy, right down to Madonna's soul-style testimony on the intro: 'Come on, girls, do you believe in love?" Don McCleese from Chicago Sun-Times declared the song as one of the highlights of the album, feeling that it would become anthemic. Sal Cinquemani from Slant Magazine while reviewing Like a Prayer, announced "Express Yourself" as the "most soulful performance" of Madonna's career. He added that the song "turned Madonna's 'Material Girl' image on its head, denouncing material things for a little r-e-s-p-e-c-t." Tom Doyle from Smash Hits named it Single of the Fortnight and "by far the most gutsy and brash record she's made" since "Papa Don't Preach". He concluded, "With its loud, parping horns and bouncy dancebeat, this is the sort of record that reminds you just how brilliant pop music can sometimes be." Stephen Thomas Erlewine from AllMusic wrote that the song consisted of "deep funk" music.
Chart performance