Album Review: Madonna - Confessions on a Dance Floor

I’m just gonna say it right now. I think I’m outside the club when it comes to Confessions on a Dance Floor.

I absolutely get why so many people love this album, and deservedly so. I think a big part of me not holding this album in such high regard is that I didn’t think Madonna’s previous album American Life was the piece of shit that many thought it was. So when I listened to Confessions on a Dance Floor, I wasn’t overcome with this feeling of ‘OH MY GOD, MADONNA IS SO BACK’. Because whilst on the surface Confessions on a Dance Floor feels like this completely different album, it’s…not…really. Because once I got beyond the first 3 songs on the album, I realised ‘Oh, Madonna’s kinda-sorta done American Life again. But there’s a disco ball and a boombox this time’. And I was a little disappointed by that.

Madonna - Confessions on a Dance Floor | Warner Records

Confessions on a Dance Floor is not the complete pivot from American Life that the first 3 songs on the album would have you believe that it is. It just comes with more sugar to help the medicine go down that Madonna was trying to feed everybody on American Life. Half of Confessions on a Dance Floor has the same social commentary, stories of love, and narrative of ‘Lessons that I learned’ that American Life had — they just come with a higher BPM, and with basslines and melody lines that sound a lot like dance and disco classics you’ve heard before. And this isn’t a bad thing. The issue many had with American Life wasn’t necessarily the commentary, but that it was a bit too downtempo at a time when people wanted something fun they could dance to. Especially coming off the back of an album which had a lead single like “Music” — a song that I do not like, by the way.

Despite being known primarily for her more uptempo songs, Madonna likes a good ballad and midtempo groove. Her albums kinda stopped being wholly uptempo for a minute after Erotica. But she really said ‘Fuck the clubs’ on American Life, which was really light on songs you could throw your arms up to and dance. And even the songs which were uptempo featured really stuttered production, which made songs feel like they were stopping and starting — which made them difficult for you to [turns and looks into the camera] ✨get into the groove✨. And I imagine for fans who liked fun and clubby Madonna, that going from something that had fun and vibrancy like Music into something so sombre and depressing like American Life was a huge come down. So, I do get why Confessions on a Dance Floor is so adored. Also, the whole promo and rollout for it was great and put Madonna back in the spaces she needed to be — something I feel is what many like more than the album itself, but that’s a whole other post. Confessions on a Dance Floor came at the right time and felt like Madonna returning to her Saturn, or whatever the astrological term is.

Madonna had learned her lesson from American Life. So off came the Che Guevara beret and on came the hot-rollers and purple leotard. And instead of singing about the trappings of life and fame over a slow guitar, she chose to do it over four on the floor dance tracks. This goes to show how important branding and packaging really is — something which should be evident to all of us given the world we live in and what we’ve seen unfold in politics over the past decade. Madonna was kinda-sorta trying to talk about that on American Life, but people couldn’t dance to it, so they didn’t care.

Madonna - Confessions on a Dance Floor | Warner Records

So, the packaging. Let’s talk about it a little. Confessions on a Dance Floor is produced primarily by Stuart Price. With the odd song here and there produced by American Life collaborator Mirwais Ahmadzaï, and Bloodshy & Avant who most probably know as the producers of Britney Spears’ “Toxic”. Stuart Price was the musical director of two of Madonna’s tours — The Drowned World Tour and The Re-Invention Tour. And it’s interesting looking back at The Re-Invention Tour specifically, because you can see and hear elements of what would go on to shape Confessions on a Dance Floor. One of the cool things about the partnership of Madonna and Stuart for Confessions on a Dance Floor is that you can feel the trust between them in the music. They are both in this album having already built a relationship and intimacy with one another over the course of picking apart and reimagining songs from Madonna’s discography for 2 tours and a documentary film. It really is a shame that Madonna developed this habit of just moving onto new producers after one or two albums, especially when she’s done such good work with them. But that’s a whole other post.

The production on Confessions on a Dance Floor is super slick. Madonna albums have always featured slick and polished production, so this shouldn’t come as a surprise. But even so, the production and mixing on this album really do stand out to me. It’s pristine. There are so many cool creative choices that Stuart Price makes in the production and Mark “Spike” Stent makes in the mixing, which make some of the songs pop. The distorted bass during the bridge of “Hung Up” when the song starts to sound like it’s being played underwater. The repetition of ‘I’ve heard it all before’ becoming distorted and layered with the repetition of Madonna saying ‘Sorry’ during the breakdown. When the music cuts out on “Get Together” then comes back as Madonna’s vocals play reverbed in reverse. The songs on American Life and also the Mirwais Ahmadzaï’s productions on Music did a similar thing. But because of the linearity of the sound on American Life, it didn’t quite hit the same way it does on Confessions on a Dance Floor, where the production feels a bit bigger and there’s more in the way of sonics surrounding Madonna’s vocals. Compared to American Life where Mirwais centred Madonna’s vocals on every single song.

Speaking of Madonna’s vocals, they’re a mixed bag. And I do wonder how much of her vocal performances are determined by the production of each song or just how she feels on a given day — which is real and understandable. I’m not a huge fan of when Madonna sings super straight and monotone. I like when she reaches for notes and sings with some type of feeling. Even if she misses notes and sounds a bit iffy, I like hearing the life in her voice. It was the thing that coloured her songs from the 80s in addition to the production. So I do wish that Madonna gave a little more on some of these songs. But the production usually has enough going on that it’s able to deliver the energy and vibrancy that Madonna’s vocal may lack. “Get Together” and “Let It Will Be” being two such examples.

Madonna - Confessions on a Dance Floor | Warner Records

One of the coolest aspects of Confessions on a Dance Floor is that it’s a non-stop mix. Now. I’m an old bitch. So, I remember when this album was first released and hearing it back then. And only in the past few years did I realise that over time the non-stop mix version of the album was phased out over the course of the iTunes and streaming eras. Because whenever I choose to listen to “Hung Up”, “Get Together” and “Sorry”, I listen to them with gapless playback on my computer / mp3 player. And I even went as far as to make all 3 songs one track, because the gapless playback wasn’t gapless enough. So, there are generations who love Confessions on a Dance Floor, yet have never heard it as it was originally intended. And that is so wild to me, because the album being a non-stop mix is such a big part of the album and one of the coolest things about it. “Hung Up”, “Get Together” and “Sorry” are a package deal because of how they flow into one another and become one. And the transition from “Forbidden Love” into “Jump” is incredible. Confessions on a Dance Floor was the RGB (255, 255, 255) people’s Renaissance before Renaissance.

Madonna - Confessions on a Dance Floor | Warner Records

Confessions on a Dance Floor starts strong. Like…REALLY strong. I am hard-pressed to think of an album which opens as strong as this one. But there is a moment in the middle where the album REALLY dips. And to be honest, the album feels kinda shaky from the fourth track right to the end, because there is no hat-trick which compares to “Hung Up”, “Get Together” and “Sorry”. The album also begins to feel a bit different from track 4 onwards, and how it shifts is actually quite clever. Because of Confessions on a Dance Floor being put together as a non-stop mix, each of the songs flow seamlessly into one another, so the shift doesn’t feel like it comes out of nowhere. And the necessary song always comes at JUST the right time. “Future Lovers” and “I Love New York” are ‘skips’ as the kids say. But you’re not really fussed about this in the midst of listening to the album, because “Future Lovers” has you thinking ‘Oh, this is a homage to Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love”’. And which gay and person with taste doesn’t like a Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder homage!? And the shift to a slower tempo is a nice reprieve after the first 3 songs on the album making you sweat out your orange wig and pink leotard. But right as you might be able to question how good “I Love New York” is, in comes “Let It Will Be”. The moment in Confessions on a Dance Floor where it starts to get American Life-like with songs about social commentary as Madonna sees it. But you don’t really fixate on this, because you’re just grateful that the energy of the album has picked up again and that there’s another song which sounds a bit like “Sorry”.

“Forbidden Love” and “Jump” end up getting passes for a couple of reasons. The transitions into and out of “Forbidden Love” are two of the best transitions on the album. “Forbidden Love” is not a memorable song in and of itself. But that transition into “Jump” sure is memorable. And it’s the only thing stopping it from being a skip. Also, I can imagine that “Forbidden Love” and “Jump” hold a place in the hearts of those who are in the LGBTMDNA+ community. “Forbidden Love”...it’s right there in the title. And “Jump” is a song about being unafraid to take a leap of faith.

“How High” has Madonna back on her American Life shit. Another skip. And then comes “Isaac”, which is Madonna’s Kabbalah recruitment theme song. But the ‘Ugh, religion’ and ‘Ugh, indoctrination’ of it all become distant thoughts because the tempo is back up again, the beat is fire and you’re thinking about how it’s cool that Madonna gave us a little something with flecks of “Frozen”.

Madonna gives us another Kabbalah recruitment theme song with “Push”. Many probably thought the song was about her then husband Guy Ritchie, as I did initially. But no, bitch. It’s about numerous things and people. But mostly, Kabbalah. The song isn’t bad. The beat is super danceable. I just don’t like how Madonna sings the verses, because she doesn’t sound smooth. The rhythm of the verses requires something from Madonna that she’s not used to giving. Madonna is not a quick, staccato, in the pocket type of singer. So something about hearing doing this on “Push” feels jarring to me.

The album ends with “Like It or Not” which is a good song, but it’s such a strange and sombre note to end the album on. “Like It or Not” is the one song where you realise, ‘Oh, wait. This album became something different.’ Because it’s the most still and down-tempo song on the album AND the last song on the album, you really end up sitting in it in a way you don’t with any of the other songs. It’s such a bizarre choice of song to end the album on, and the moment when the disco balls retracts back into the ceiling and the tank rolls out onto the stage. Because this song is American Life as fuck. If you didn’t catch the American Life-nicity of the earlier songs, there is no missing it here. It’s a shame that “Fighting Spirit” was made a selected bonus track, because it would have ended Confessions on a Dance Floor on a much stronger note, brought back the dancefloor vibe and better connected the end of the album to the beginning. They even could have worked in a transition which makes the album loop.

Madonna - Confessions on a Dance Floor | Warner Records

It took me a while to figure out how much I liked Confessions on a Dance Floor, because the songs on it that I liked, I liked A LOT and I played them constantly. I was obsessed with “Hung Up”, “Get Together”, “Sorry”, “Let It Will Be” and “Jump” when the Confessions on a Dance Floor first released. Whenever I’d play the album from the top, I would just let it continue to run after “Sorry”, because I’d always think ‘I might as well’ — and I think this is an incredible feat in an industry which has always flip-flopped between the prioritisation of singles versus albums, and Madonna being an artist who has often done the same. It feels almost blasphemous to cherry pick songs from Confessions on a Dance Floor and not play them within the context of the album, when how they’re sequenced and connected to other songs is such a significant part of the magic of the album. But over time, I had to be real with myself. The sequencing and the transitions are cool. But there are points when I’m playing the album and it just becomes background noise instead of me actually taking in the songs and engaging with them, because half of the album is filler. Well produced filler. But still filler. The album loses a lot of steam in the middle and it never manages to pick itself back up again. The whole Confessions on a Dance Floor ‘concept’ is also not present throughout the entire album. The album starts as Confessions on a Dance Floor and then becomes American Life by the very end, which shatters the disco ball for me. “Let It Will Be”, “Isaac” and “Jump” manage to strike a good balance between Madonna being on her socially conscious schtick, whilst giving us something high energy that we can still dance to. But “Push” and “Like It Or Not” feel a little out of place, and both would have been much better fits on American Life. I think there could have been a narrative told across the album about superficiality and what’s left once you strip it away, which would explain the shift in tone which occurs. But I completely get why Madonna probably didn’t want to sit in that AGAIN for an entire album after American Life, and I bet Warner Music didn’t want her to either.

Madonna - Confessions on a Dance Floor | Warner Records

Confessions on a Dance Floor has some great songs on it and some stellar production. There are lots of cool references and easter eggs to dance classics that make the album sound both familiar and fresh. Confessions on a Dance Floor is an incredible showcase for Stuart Price and his ear for curation. But I don’t think the album itself is great, because it doesn’t fully commit to itself. When you look beneath the production and the transitions, you realise that Confessions on a Dance Floor still wants to be American Life, and I think this is what hurts it. Not because American Life is bad. But because ‘RING, RING, RING GOES THE TELEPHONE’ feels at odds with ‘The gates of heaven are always open, and there’s this God in the sky and the angels’ and there’s nothing lyrically of thematically which really connects these two ends of the album. Maybe I’m overthinking. But even so, even if I go by how the music makes me feel, Confessions on a Dance Floor does hit a point where it bores me. And my expectation was not for Madonna to give me an additional 3 sets of hat tricks to rival “Hung Up”, “Get Together” and “Sorry”. But they do unfortunately set an expectation for what’s to come and the album is never able to reach the high at which it started. And I know Madonna and Stuart Price had it in them to give us more than they did for the remaining songs.

Album Highlights:
■ Hung Up
■ Get Together 🥇
■ Sorry
■ Let It Will Be
■ Jump

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💿 Other Madonna album reviews: Hard Candy | Madame X