Like a Prayer (album) furthered her creativity and became known as a leading figure in the format. The music video for "Like a Prayer" was a lightning rod for religious controversy, using Catholic iconography such as stigmata and burning crosses, and a dream about making love to a saint, leading the Vatican to condemn the video and causing Pepsi to cancel Madonna's sponsorship contract. The video for "Express Yourself" was the most expensive video at its release. "Like a Prayer" preceded Madonna's ground-breaking Blond Ambition World Tour. At the end of the 1980s, following the release of the album, Madonna was named "Artist of
Like a Prayer (song) 20 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop songs chart. "Like a Prayer" was ranked at number 25 on the 1989 Hot 100 year-end chart, and was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in May 1989, for shipment of a million copies of the single. According to Nielsen SoundScan, it has also sold 1.1 million digital downloads as of December 2016. In Canada, the song reached the top of the "RPM" Singles Chart in its ninth week. It was present on the chart for 16 weeks and was the top-selling single in Canada for 1989. In Australia, "Like a