'Confessions II' is an epic aural odyssey that celebrates dance music’s history — and Madonna's own iconic career
Credit: Rafael Pavarotti
NEED TO KNOW
- Madonna released her 15th studio album, Confessions II, on Friday, July 3
- The long-anticipated album is a sequel to her Grammy-winning 2005 album Confessions on a Dance Floor
- In June, the icon released a star-studded short film — featuring cameos from collaborator Sabrina Carpenter, pal Debi Mazar, Benedict Cumberbatch and more — that teased six of the record’s tracks
The dance floor isn’t dead.
“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,” Queen Mother Madonna declares in the first 10 minutes of her long-awaited 15th album, Confessions II (out Friday, July 3). That spoken intro serves as the record’s ethos: Surrendering your body and inhibitions to a sweaty, pulsating crowd under a revolving mirror ball isn’t just about partying; it’s something much more spiritual and liberating.
A true visionary, Madonna delivers her best record in decades with this glorious return. A follow-up to 2005’s landmark Confessions on a Dancefloor, Madonna’s Confessions II somehow transcends its predecessor’s euphoric peaks.
Credit: Rafael Pavarotti
It’s an epic aural odyssey that celebrates dance music’s history — and her own iconic career — as she explores its subgenres and evokes her most seminal eras. All while remaining cohesive and innovative.
The album opens with “I Feel So Free,” a hypnotic, deep house hymn consecrating clubs and the comfort, community and escapism they can provide. That cut — and previously released tracks “Bring Your Love” with Sabrina Carpenter and “Love Sensation” — could already stand on their own but are only more satiating in the context of the full project’s sequencing and seamless transitions.
Credit: Rafael Pavarotti
On Confessions II, the Queen of Pop masterfully employs all the signatures (genre blending; wake-up-with-them-stuck-in-your-head hooks; sex; religious and celestial overtones) of a classic Madonna record.
It’s also unobtrusively meta. The self-referential nods are satisfying, never forced, like when she recounts her N.Y.C. club origin story on rapturous standout “Danceteria” (titled after the hotspot where she was discovered). Madonna teased that highlight and five other tracks in a short film released in June. And the full, 3:55 version of “Danceteria” does not disappoint, as she “Vogue”-style name-checks artists and disruptors (Basquiat to David Byrne and beyond) from her days hustling in New York City’s Lower East Side. It’s the most purely joyful song she’s released in years. It’s the most Madonna-Madonna song she’s released in years.
Elsewhere, she transforms her rage into a rave on the frenetic “Everything,” which wouldn’t sound particularly out of place on the OG Confessions, American Life or even Ray of Light.
On the Martin Garrix-assisted “Bizarre,” she seemingly takes aim at a blue-eyed Hollywood ex with an affinity for Shelby Cobras; its cinematic and driving beat is reminiscent of MDNA’s “Gang Bang,” long believed to be inspired by another blue-eyed Hollywood ex with an affinity for Shelby Cobras.
And “Love Without Words” thrillingly crescendos as she finds nirvana in the club — “a temple of sweat and surrender / Where rhythm replaces reason and movement when we dance,” she sings.
The album begins to wind down with “The Test,” a therapeutic, stunningly vulnerable mother-daughter conversation with her firstborn, Lola Leon (born Lourdes). “I know they tried to put us to the test / You're not to blame, but you need to be free now / You made me whole when I was broken too / And I hope and pray I can do the same for you,” they sing together on the chorus.
If Lola wasn’t a co-writer, “The Test” could easily be mistaken for a vault track from 1998’s Ray of Light, which was born of a creative reawakening following Lola’s birth. The track achieves a tender full-circle moment with the song’s opening lyrics: “Little Star,” also the title of a Ray of Light tune dedicated to, yes, Lola.
Credit: Rafael Pavarotti
The music legend gets ready to leave the club with the low-key “L.E.S. Girl,” a self-love letter to a young Michigan-transplant Madonna Ciccone, still cutting her teeth in gritty lower Manhattan. The lights are coming up as the song winds down with its wistful verses and acoustic guitar strums conjuring a melancholic, after-hours “Ray of Light.” “Lower East Side Girl / Lost in a fragile world / The night is kind / The day is blue / Everything fades away / Except for you,” she sings. Last call.
Madonna's Confessions II is out now.
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