Updated 15.51 | Published 15.32
ALBUM After two decades, Madonna releases the sequel to “Confessions on a dance floor”, her latest artistic and commercial success.
“Confessions II” is her safest and best album in as long.
Madonna
Confessions II
Warner
POP 2005 released Madonna tenth album “Confessions on a dance floor”with it Abba-sampling the hit “Hung up” as the crowning glory.
Having hooked on contemporary trends such as edm, trap and latino pop mark “Confessions II” a return to the roots. It’s like that icon – after, among other things, surviving a life-threatening sepsis – decided to teach the young people about how it was done in the clubs of 80s New York.
The fifteenth album was born The “Celebration” tourin which Madonna looked back on her four-decade career. A greatest hits story that obviously made the artist reflect on his past.
The producer Stuart Price is the same as on the predecessor, but here there are also contributions from the avant-garde Arca and The Rolling Stones-related Andrew Watt.
“Confessions II” reminds, just like its first chapter, of a DJ mix where the tracks flow into each other. But the sequel is less about the disco-influenced dance music that characterized the first “Confessions” album, and more about house with its roots in Chicago and Detroit.
In it Donna Summer-scented opening “I feel so free” dreams one of the biggest in pop history, to a sampling of Lil Louis house classic “French kiss”, about being just a body on a dance floor.
It is fitting that the 67-year-old is going back to his roots right now. Her influence and relevance are in many ways greater than ever. Artists like Addison Rae and Zara Larsson used the album “Ray of light” as a mood board on their respective last year’s albums, and a pop star who Sabrina Carpenter would probably barely exist if it weren’t for The Queen Of Pop.
The already aired Carpenter duet “Bring your love” is a middle finger against both algorithms and moral panic surrounding the aesthetics of female pop stars. And a song like “Good for the soul” could be taken from Addison Rae’s debut album.
The music sounds exactly like that: like a lisa for the soul. “People think that dance music is superficial/But they’ve got it all wrong/The dance floor is not just a place, it’s a threshold/A ritualistic space where movement replaces language”Madonna sings in a lovely “One step away”.
The nostalgic “Danceteria” is a tribute to the New York club of the same name where Madonna began her career, as well as the DJ Mark Kamins who produced the debut single “Everybody”.
Not everything is incredible. After a flawless first half hour, a couple of intermediate tracks come, but then there is a shift where the music turns into something more personal. The beautiful rave ballad “Fragile”, for example, is a tribute to Madonna’s recent death Brother Christopher.
In the cautious finale “LES girl”, Madge sings lovingly and bittersweetly about herself as a young underdog on the Lower East Side. When she lived in an abandoned synagogue in Queens and fell in love with the city streets as much as that guy in the band. In the fragile finale, the queen of pop music touches the most.
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BONUS
BEST TRACKS: “LES girl”. By the way, Madonna broke up with that dude, because she wasn’t allowed to take over the mic in his band.
DID YOU KNOW THAT… the trip-hop-inspired “The test” is a duet with the daughter Lourdes Leon.
ALSO LISTEN TO: “Addison” with Addison Raye. Last year’s best pop album owes a lot to late 90s Madonna.
