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‘Aask yourself this – what are you doing? / Are they yours? Is it for them?” thinking Madonna on Bring Your Love, a collaboration with Sabrina Carpenter from Confessions II. It’s a question you might ask about his decision to release the results of 2005’s Confessions on the Dance Floor at 21 years old.
The official line is, of course, that it belongs to him. Confessions II was inspired by Madonna’s 2023 Festivals tour, which took place in her back catalog of old movie clips including Don’t Tell Me and Human Nature – apparently it got the singer thinking about the past. Indeed, Confessions II contains many of Madonna’s signature pieces, not just a song that borrows its title and structure from the original, a series of house-influenced tracks that blend into each other like a DJ mix. There’s also the Madonna-led Bedtime Stories tour (the album ends with a bunch of low-key, edgy material); Madonna, who first rose to fame in 1982 with her debut single Everybody, is a standout vocalist; and mother, the spiritual Madonna of the Ray of Light. The Test, a duet with his daughter Lourdes, is an old, clever track that follows the album’s Little Star-like vocals, which are mentioned in its opening lines.
Likewise, the most dubious voices can claim Confessions II as theirs – those are the fans who have bailed on Madonna over the past two decades. By common consent, Confessions on the Dance Floor was his final triumph. Every album he has released has sold half of what his predecessor did: 2019’s Madame X, moved half a million copies compared to Confessions on the Dance Floor’s 10m. Here, the title of Confessions II seems to say clearly, it’s Madonna you love; trying to expel refugees.
There’s no doubt some truth there – but Confessions II doesn’t feel very ambitious. His sound allows for a high level of development in dance music rather than the tried and tested material. There’s an odd sense of UK garage – a clear jump to the tracks of both punk and Good for the Soul – a whisper of EDM in Everything’s heavy bassline, and Euro pop-dance in Read My Lips’ cocktail of pacy beat, Spanish guitar and batucada drums. But more often than not, his first influences are defiantly old school: I Feel So Free is based on Lil Louis’ old Chicago classic French Kiss; Bring Your Love from the Inner City’s Good Life; an acid line explodes in the middle of Wordless Love; there’s a lovely, earthy piano on One Step Away that recalls the deep house of Mr Fingers. Similarly, the downtempo music has a 90s Mo’ Wax mood: breakbeats, misty atmospherics, crackling vinyl, static orchestrations, spoken word from Belgian rapper Stromae and an interpretation from Erik Satie’s Gnossienne No 1. randomly thrown in the middle of Dark Ballet of 2019).
These are songs that Madonna – and producer Stuart Price – know very well: they seem more at home than when she incorporated the trap of Rebel Heart or chatted with Maluma in Madame X’s attempt to please a Latin American celebrity. Confidence is palpable in the album’s willingness to let Madonna’s instrumental passages run as long as the 12in remix and, most impressively, in the vocals. She’s clearly comfortable with being vulnerable: there’s a standard Bitch-I’m-Madonna story, but for the most part her character is pretty, even if stoic and brooding.
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The vignettes of his life in early 80s New York are great. Danceteria creates a familiar image of the titular club, mentioning not only the artists Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring but the door of Haoui Montaug; it quotes Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side, effectively connecting the demimondes of Manhattan. The vintage drum-driven LES Girl recalls a bohemian guitar-playing ex-boyfriend, who – not unexpectedly – took a hit with the heave-ho when it became clear he didn’t want to share it. The most touching song would be Fragile, a heavy guitar tribute to her late brother Christopher, with whom Madonna had a difficult relationship – “we shared a fragile bond…
It’s not all good news. Confessions II is almost 10 minutes longer than the original, and it doesn’t need to be: you can throw in a few house songs, Love and School among them. It doesn’t have the undeniable, solid golden sound of Hung Up, although the bright disco house of Danceteria – one of two songs written and produced by Andrew Watt and Cirkut – comes close. But if it’s not as good as Confessions on the Dance Floor, it’s Madonna’s best song. since Confessions on the Dance Floor, which you think will be enough for his fans, and can attract other converts: a place with a past that shows his future.
This week Alexis listened
Weak Little Horse – Purchase
Looking at the shoes, but more difficult than the label suggests, Shopping is poppy, noisy and dangerous: “Can you be angry with these shoes? I want to look like you.”
