Madonna - Confessions On A Dance Floor, Part II

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/8112RJ-5J6L._UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg

I figured it was worth making a thread for the new Madonna album, out on July 3, which is a sequel to her last truly great album, 2005'sConfessions on a Dance Floor! (Hard Candy and Madame X have their moments for sure but...). She has reunited with Stuart Price who is co-executive producing. The teaser single "I Feel So Free" appears to sample "French Kiss" by Lil Louis, recalling "Future Lovers" from the original COAD--it is quite good as a teaser I think! Hoping the album explores more contemporary dance music sounds rather than retro nostalgia---there's a slight Jersey club vibe to the drums at certain parts of "I Feel So Free" that seem to indicate that it's not going to be a simple rehash of the original's sonic palette...

the real question is will this have anything as inspired as "god control"?

sabrina carpenter brought her out at coachella and she spent a good chunk of that appearance rambling about astrology so i'm taking that as a good sign for this album being ridiculous

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx83eVfP64A

I was expecting to be underwhelmed by this because I've just not been excited by anything since Confessions, but I really like this. It feels a little slight for a lead single but I'm a big fan of her spoken-word parts on it.

madame x wasn't exactly good overall but it absolutely was exciting

"i feel free" would have been a solid album cut, no idea why it's the single though

Oh this is very Future Lovers. More discrete with the sample though - couldn't hear it at all until the hi-hats towards the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5v9r2vlfrY

the way the sample appeared reminded me of the way it sneaks in on this

It's good, better than the new Robyn, would make a good Kylie track.

Hard not to think of this whole project as an implicit admission that Madonna can’t really carry a song anymore so she may as well trade on dancefloor vibes, but I guess we might still get a “Get Together” out of it.

New track is nice.

Wild that her biggest Spotify track BY FAR is "Popular" with The Weeknd and Playboi Carti.

That's how a lot of artist pages on streaming look in my experience - recent collabs with a lot of different fanbases getting their hand on the ball outperforming more "tenured" catalog tracks when it comes to pure numbers.

Probably would have guessed this was Kylie if given a blind test.

Only the spoken bits give it away.

Kylie comparisons have me questioning reality, are you guys fucking with me

love the posters for this ive seen around london. its more or less this image:
https://images.genius.com/b671cb0bcf4ada7b95c8d6709ee9e781.1000x1000x1.png

The official first single, "Bring Your Love" featuring Sabrina Carpenter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HTJmYFnPI0

Samples "Good Life" by Inner City... I prefer "I Feel So Free" but this one is good too

can’t stop singing “Disturbia” over this new single

anyway both new tracks seem kinda perfunctory, coasting off the reputation of the original album

that's the same melody from Level 42 "starchild" that was used in lady gaga "abracadabra" and troye sivan's "Rush"

big moment for those of us who grew up on tommy boy perfect beat comps....

The Mirror got an early listen to Confessions II — and was blown away.

The Mirror got an early listen to Confessions II — and was blown away.

Tom Bryant was among the first journalists in the world to hear tracks from the album. His conclusion: some of the best music of her entire career. Dark, house-oriented, filthy basslines, built for dancing… pic.twitter.com/X4yqn25FrD

— DrownedMadonna (@DrownedMadonna) May 14, 2026

EXCLUSIVE: First listen of Madonna's new Confessions II album - 'dark with filthy basslines'
https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/first-listen-madonnas-new-confessions-37156521

#CONFESSIONSII TRACKLIST REVEALED

#CONFESSIONSII TRACKLIST REVEALED !

SIDE 1
I Feel So Free
Good for the Soul
One Step Away
Bring Your Love
Danceteria
Read My Lips

SIDE 2
Every Thing
Love Without Words
Bizarre
School
Fragile
My Sins Are My Savior pic.twitter.com/yaGjEpeXG8

— Madonna Ultimate - BRING YOUR LOVE (@MadonnaUltimate) May 14, 2026

SIDE 1
I Feel So Free
Good for the Soul
One Step Away
Bring Your Love
Danceteria
Read My Lips

SIDE 2
Every Thing
Love Without Words
Bizarre
School
Fragile
My Sins Are My Savior

Peggy Gou Energy Remix of I Feel So Free, released today

.@Madonna's 'I Feel So Free (Peggy Gou Energy Mix)' has been released on to all Digital platforms.
Streams and Downloads!!! pic.twitter.com/a4axPHrN90

— Madonna Records (@MadonnaRecords) May 15, 2026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDTazIuuDPY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJtckcMHM2g

"Danceteria" and "One Step Away" sound amazing

Loved the visuals, I think she really crushed it! Like it feels like she’s doing something she cares really deeply about again

listening through rn, maybe bc it wasn't hot as balls outside when I first heard it, but I'm liking the singles a lot more rn

this album specifically designed to drive Terre Thaemlitz insane

I'm not hearing the banger Madonna includes even on meh albums.

"School" on repeat

assuming that's a supertramp cover. hope she's kept the killer piano break

enjoying “love without words” and “school”. for an album that seems to have been designed as nostalgia bait for Grindr Xtra users, i think it’s about the best result one could’ve hoped for

Well-written Pitchfork review: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/madonna-confessions-ii/

"Fragile," the song (I think) about her brother, is her best ballad in, what, two decades?

This goddamn heatwave needs to end so I can properly listen to this on a dog walk.

"Bizarre" is the one with the best, most old-fashioned hook because, after all, that's what this album demands.

This will sound rockist of me, but Madonna cowriting with her producer and the occasional co-vocalist and no one else for about half the album brings something out of her singing and melodies.

"Read My Lips" track that reggaeton producer Tainy worked on with Madonna and Stuart Price , also has a World Cup version with Colombian vocalist Feid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ejwv_JyVo34

This will be getting some burn from me

this is the record that should've been called mdna

I'm only about halfway through it and I'm not loving it as much as I loved the original (which I heard for the first time less than a week ago). This feels like a pop album disguised as a dance album (Sabrina Carpenter? Really?) and it's not as weird/arty as the first one.

Madonna IS pop idk why you are baffled by this

Anyway I fucking love this
It’s been a while (for me) since Madge had a no skips album. it flows so well.

"Bizarre" is my jam.

lmao hate to break it to you but the original Confessions is also a pop album

L.E.S. Girl kinda floors me; there’s something so special in the rarity of her looking backwards! I love that she did this. Also it made me cry a little @ the “everything fades away/except for you”

Gonna listen to this album 17 more times

"L.E.S. Girl" and "Fragile" are great ballads.

Fragile is really something, kinda heartbreaking to hear her sing about Christopher

without making any grand pronouncements uhhh idk the production on this is significantly more aligned with my taste than confessions i (which i love ofc). "school" is insane, "fragile" manages to float some ray of light feeling into this... really just can't believe what i'm hearing lmao

yeah this is much better than I anticipated it would be. "fragile", "l.e.s. girl," "my sins are my savior," "school," "danceteria".... still processing but this feels like a perfect encapsulation of her career in a sense.

madonna fans openly target and harass people with disabilities.

?

"L.E.S. Girl" rather remarkable.

this is so much better than it has any right to be, i'm kinda annoyed

i do miss the batshit nature of madame x but you can't have everything

"fragile" is excellent yeah

I have fond memories of Madame X's bat shit moments.

Well-written Pitchfork review:

surprised get Madonna to topline them didn't raise your hackles!

The Satie interpolation in "Betrayal" reminds me of "Waiting" and other Andre Betts productions on Erotica.

i really like how dense with ideas some of these songs are, it's constantly evolving in a really fun way

idk i'm tempted to say 'best since ray of light' which i never thought was on the table

idk i'm tempted to say 'best since ray of light' which i never thought was on the table

― ufo

I'd agree with this, but I never loved the first Confessions as much as everyone else seemed to. It was decent fun album, but this one is much more varied and her personality comes through a bit more. Music is a half great album. I don't rate anything else she's done since then beyond the odd song.

Don't know if this needed to lean on the Confessions title in such an obvious way but this is difficult to listen to other than one long continous mix.

Hadn’t heard any of the singles or anything until now, and am loving taking it on a walk. There’s just a consistent sense of place to it, that’s what I’d say makes it a “dance record” (made for communal dancing) instead of a “pop record” (from the studio to people’s cars). Would love it if a club near me was playing this beginning to end.

Yeah it definitely works as intended as a 1-hour set

i went back to confessions i and it's still good but yeah the sequel's better. confessions i has a great run of singles at the start that confessions ii can't match but confessions ii is stronger overall

One Step Away my current fave, I also am loving Bizarre & School is a bit of a sneaky fave

I was thinking about “Fragile” on my walk today- does anyone else wonder at the “nervous breakdown” line?

It stood out to me as either a) how Madge chooses to interpret their falling out or b) code for “bitch lost his damn mind” or
C) secret third thing

Then again sometimes it’s as simple as the words fit the song so maybe I’m over analyzing

i do wish it wasn't just called confessions ii

but it is a sequel in the best way where it's a successful return to the vague concept of confessions i but it's very much its own thing instead of the shallow pastiche i was worried about

this album is very similar in spirit to rochelle jordan's through the wall and that's really everything i could ask for from a dance pop album

her singing during the verses on "Everything" is very.... Björkian

i went back to confessions i and it's still good but yeah the sequel's better. confessions i has a great run of singles at the start that confessions ii can't match but confessions ii is stronger overall

― ufo, Saturday, July 4, 2026 8:07 PM

I will not put up with Confessions dismissal, especially the section between "Let It Will Be" and "Jump," plus "Isaac" and "Push."

i'm not hating on confessions, it's still a strong album but "push" is probably my least favourite on it

surprised CII wasn't released ahead of the Pride season, it'd be all over the place
(i'm sure it will be at Vancouver Pride, ours is at the end of july)

I really like this record, never listened to ConF1 other than the epochal "Hung up" and I guess I will soon. But I must say that I'm surprised that Madonna likes Enigma "Sadeness" enough to use it as a template for "My Sins are my Savior": a really dumb title for the only song that I don't like on this record. If anyone has the warm and fuzzies for Enigma project, "Sadeness" (in my view, the only good aspect of the song is that it was used at the very beginning of Tropic Thunder) and the unspeakable "Return to the Innocence," please enlighten us. I guess madonna and Stuart Price must have some fondness as such.

i think it's "army of lovers" that that track samples

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0BbPNqKxRQ

Has she ever recorded something that indicated she liked VU? Cuz "L.E.S. Girl" sounds like she wanted to do something that feels like "Sunday Morning."

based on the "Ray of Light" chord sequence

"danceteria" clearly indicates she likes lou reed at least given that she sings a bit of "walk on the wild side" and gave reed a writing credit for it

Glowing review from a former ILXer: https://www.slantmagazine.com/music/madonna-confessions-ii-album-review/

i had the same thought re: "one step away" and "labyrinth", it's always welcome to be reminded of that

i'm still just kinda taken aback by how great this is. where has this madonna been for the last 20 years???

Making albums that even she didn't like (according to P4k's review of the new one).

'new label forced her to try the songwriter camp creative process which she hated' explains mdna & rebel heart but doesn't explain hard candy (just unusually behind the curve instead of ahead of it?) or madame x (which is bonkers, equal parts fantastic and terrible, i think mirwais consistently brings out her weirdest instincts for better and worse)

I have the same response, ufo. Madame X has bat-shit moments.

Even Rebel Heart has stuff like "Joan of Arc," self-pitying goop with a strong hook.

"god control" is one of my favourite things she's ever done, a genuinely great disco banger that also makes you wonder if you're having a stroke with how odd it is

fav on first pass so far is 'my sins are my savior'

^^ the first track I played on Thursday.

I love when Madonna gets into Catholic mode; like I get Veronica Moser’s comments upthread about it sort of giving Enigma cosplay but that’s what makes me love it! It’s very theatrical & performative but it’s almost all one of her presets or factory settings now, I get a bit of a nerdy thrill whenever she does it.

Also I am feeling “Betrayal” a lot now for similar theatrics reasons

But I must say that I'm surprised that Madonna likes Enigma "Sadeness" enough to use it as a template for "My Sins are my Savior":

no
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8MQ8tJhxU8

the first 11 songs of this go so fucking hard. 12-16 is patchier, occasionally slips into dull midtempo R&B though there still some strong moments.

no way are you saying "fragile" is one of the weaker tracks

the only two that are weaker imo are "betrayal" and "the test", but they're not bad or anything

I understand her intentions about including Lourdes on "The Test." But Lourdes sings like a mummy.

oh i love "the test"

I like it too.

I’m at the point now where -any- mention of almost any track has me immediately singing the chorus & wanting to listen to it.

I cannot believe we are eating this good!

Playing this for the first time on a decent system, “I Feel So Free” sounds absolutely filthy. How is she so back?

JLC.jpg

if she had to make a deliberate sequel album i'm really glad it was a sequel to confessions, i don't think a direct sequel to any of her other albums would work this well

Form Eric Henderson's Slant review:

Taken together, these sister albums argue that house music was always Madonna’s true home address, and that everything leading up to and including 1989’s Like a Prayer was, in practice, a temporary detour built to shore up her pop credentials. It wasn’t until “Vogue” and 1992’s Erotica that she arrived at her actual musical mission.

this feels true, and yet bizarre for how much she defined an eighties zeitgeist, and even inhabited my dreams in that decade.

After a week of playing it a couple times a day, I'm ready to call it one of her good to great albums.

:D

Good interview w Stuart Price in Attitude magazine from last week

https://www.attitude.co.uk/culture/stuart-price-on-madonna-and-making-confessions-ii-527550/

If anyone has the warm and fuzzies for Enigma

i do, probably because i was very young and it represented the world of my older sisters

agree with best since Ray of Light, listening to this on the trip home on Sunday was such a good time. last few songs was the most exciting part actually, kept surprising where i thought it might start spinning its wheels.

this album inspired me to listen to every madonna dance remix from erotica to confessions i. surprised to have so few keepers from this era, but i guess there's a redundancy in dancifying an era already immersed in the constantly-shifting waters of dance music in the '90s and '00s. after the thirtieth hard techno banger remix, the jlc remix of "hollywood" was like breathing air that wasn't full of club smoke, so i guess kudos are always due to stuart price

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DW3xPQMqRko

my favorite discovery by far was this extremely weird digifucked luke slater remix of "power of good-bye," excited to throw it in a dj set soon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsTlDDMKpbw

oh fuck yes -- I've loved that JLC remix for twenty years. My intro to JLC iirc.

Irl Confession: I only learned last week that Jacques Le Conte = Stuart Price & I felt very dumb.

I hope this is a safe space for this, my dancefloor confession.

Man With Guitar Remix of “Sorry” forever and ever. Has to be one of JLC’s top five moments - he even turns “sorry” into a fetish-word à la “control”, as if he’s paying tribute to himself.

otm

I was recently explaining to a slightly younger friend about the golden age of JLC remixes, and was thinking… well, mostly I was thinking that I felt like Abe Simpson sitting on a tree stump explaining things to kids, but I was also thinking “we need a 33 and a 1/3 series for remixers”

my JLC treasure is the "Mr. Brightside" remix

Well yeah, and that, and “Just Let Go”, and the Confessions Tour version of “Erotica”, and “The Conductor” and “Lose Control” and…. But I’m allowing myself to get derailed here

The “Erotica” version really presages Confessions II in a lot of ways actually

Ivy what did you think of “Up Down Suite” from the Rain single?

oh "up down suite" is the GREATEST

Oh good I was worried for a second

gwen stefani and aloud are my fav jlc remixes other than sorry

some of those he did under Thin White Duke, right? the JLC/TWD ones are pretty similar but he kind of segregates the other aliases by style

britney spears "breathe on me (jacques lu cont mix)" is perfection. also depeche mode "pain that I'm used to (jacques lu cont dub)". prefer the thin white duke mix of "get together" to the "sorry" remix

james holden remix of "get together" which i've never heard before: omg

other discoveries: really like sasha's remixes of both "ray of light" and "sky fits heaven" (but in general feel like i have to remix "sky fits heaven" myself to really turn it inside out in the way i believe it can be). all of david morales' remixes of "deeper and deeper" are amazing but of course they are

Thin White Duke remixes were definitely a consistent style tag, but at peak TWD-era many JLC mixes had similar approaches bcz that’s where his ears were at. Like Lose Control has the sense of leisurely structure of a Thin White Duke version, but doesn’t have the amount of space in the mix…

Always loved how he used all of his remix aliases across the original Confessions mixes

Plz all listen to the live “Erotica” and report back:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtMjolbPwas

I forgot Stuart Price is Jacques Lu Cont. I'm no scholar of this stuff (and a lot of it is not for me), but any excuse to post this. I understand he was involved and it's the peak of dance music for me, mostly unknown but has never been matched.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aytKbIC3zU

lenny kravitz remix of madonna is fire

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWZMvP6YeYM

Don’t forget the William Orbit and Andre Betts’ remixes on that EP, as well as the further Shep Pettibone remix of “Express Yourself”.

Throw in the cover image and it’s probably Madonna’s best single (considered as a full release as opposed to just thinking about the A-side), and also acts as a Rosetta Stone for everything else she did in the 90s, Evita aside.

WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME CONFESSIONS ON A DANCE FLOOR WAS SO FUCKING GOOD

“Forbidden Love” quotes The Cure’s “Just One Kiss” lyrically and musically!

JLc <3 I mean the man made friggin Starsailor sound emotionally moving

One favorite that I think came out after Confessions was his remix of Texas’s “what about us”. Icy stomping drama

JLC is also Paper Faces who remixed Let It Will Be (and Chromeo “needy girl”, but his version of this seems to have vanished from the internet, despite being excellent)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmTQJnQl38E

Lyrics are a bit sus but the production - especially the breakdown - is so good

robert hood remix of "love sensation" is pretty massive:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZL6cCXGUDg

So “Let It Will Be” has some
DNA from Will Oldham’s “O Let It Be” I assume? Wondering if Price was fooling around with the chords as an origin for the song.

Now I can tell you
tell you
tell you
tell you

Yeah the floorplan remix of “love sensation” is a total banger, though I get the impression Hood and daughter don’t particularly like the original track.