Madonna - Confessions on a Dancefloor (what a shite title!)

http://s41.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3DYDWVWWO1URB16KCRP46WVWUS

http://s41.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1N77V7JXMZH4N1VOZAQMIX0U9Q

"BAM!"

It doesn't really. Plus, as I keep telling people, "What You Waiting For" is a rip off of "Travel Girl" by Hitch Hike anyway.

But we haven't talked about the ABBA sample!

JLC's mixes always irk me slightly because I can hear people who are afraid of pop but want to like it with coquettish distance using them as a crutch - "Oh, god, that Gwen Stefani is crap, but MAN that JLC remix owns".

And I think Confessions on a Dancefloor is a GRATE title.

Edward you've said this before but I think it's a bit of a strawman - who are you thinking of when you say this? The only song which I've seen many people claim to hate but love JLC's remix of is "Four To The Floor"... which is, erm, fair enough (it's also indie so it doesn't count!).

I actually don't think JLC offers any distance from pop, his remixes are mostly so blatantly commercial!

"The Viola In Madonna's Life" is all about negating a good time straight through and non-stop," says America's ultimate Dancing Queen, saxophonist Charles Gayle.

That's the point - his remixes are no different as regards commerciality from the source material - except perhaps the Starsailor one - but there are people on this very board who have said statements like the one I'm describing - OH I HATE THIS, EXCEPT THIS REMIX WHICH IS VERY MUCH IN THE SAME VEIN IS K-GREAT.

Exaggeration. FWIW, I don't think any of JLC's remixes improve that much on the source material. I'll take the original versions of WYWF, "Mr Brightside", "Danger High Voltage" any day.

ANYWAY. This new Madonna single is good. Hooray.

Edward you appear to be implying that if they were distinguishing on the basis of commercialism or lack thereof it would be more legitimate... I know I prefer his mixes in pretty much all the mentioned cases except "Danger! High Voltage!" (and even there it's quite good) - but that's not out of Gwen antipathy. "Cool" is one of my top five favourite songs of the year. I like "What You Waitin' For" but I can pretty easily see how people might hate it.

(Me, I reckon JLC will never top the LRD song "Sometimes", but that's just me). Partially, I'm just railing futilely against a bit of a trend. The point is, if I went on a thread about non-commercial non-pop music and made the sort of uninformed statements that get bandied about on the ever-dwindling number of actual pop threads on ILM, I'd be considered a troll.

This frustration, sadly, cause sme to make uninformed, occasionally inaccurate and exaggerated statements. But there's a kernel of truth.

Remember, this is pop, not Hurricane Katrina.

Early recordings of the then up-and-coming "No Wave" drummer in a rare concert appearance with John and the boys in front of an audience which showed its appreciation in its dozen. Includes specially commissioned sleevenotes by Fred Frith.

The first is the opinion that Madonna's latest (or the 30 sec we have anyway) sounds a little like Gwen. It's true that this is in some cases a lazy opinion, but I do think there is some validity in the comparison and doesn't necessarily come out of being uninformed about pop. (This is especially the case when the "sounds-like-Gwen" comment isn't meant as a put-down.)

The second has to do with JLC, and his status as a kind of dance figure that even indie kids can love. I do think the phenomenon exists, but I'm not sure JLC is the best example of such a figure (although he is at least a better example -- ie a little more tolerated by hipsters -- than someone like Junior Vasquez or other housier remixers). If Luomo remixed Jessica Simpson, then you will probably see the trend more clearly.

I see you there... NIK KERSHAW FAN!!

'course I might be wrong on that.

Oh I've been stepped on...

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000002BVN.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

you'll DO WHAT mate??

http://www.popjustice.co.uk/images/madgesleeve.jpg

From Matt's mouth to your ears:

The entire album was recorded in the home studio of his London flat, including the vocals. He said his studio is as small as the stage he was sitting on -- and a lot warmer.

He apparently has a female neighbor who just cries throughout the day, and that you can actually hear her faintly in the background on some parts of the album.

Madonna knew from the beginning that she wanted to do a high-energy dance album. She said, "It’s gotta start at 120bpm and only go up."

The album’s 12 songs are continuously mixed, by Stuart, like a DJ set.

A full track listing is now available, as well as the cover art, at Madonna.com. But he mentioned the last song, "Like It Or Not," and said it was the perfect way to end the album – it’s a song that basically says, "This is who I am, this is what I do. Take it or leave it."

He chose the Jacques Lu Cont moniker for DJ and production work because it sounds like lump, and he just wanted to hear someone on BBC get all tripped up while saying it, which apparently happens frequently.

Even after winning a Grammy earlier this year for his remix of No Doubt’s “It’s My Life,” working on two tours with Madonna (as Musical Director of Reinvention and keyboardist for both it and Drowned World), he still lives in the same flat in London.

He says Confessions is “where pop meets dance” and blurs the line between the two. But it is also very soulful as opposed to techno or minimalist.

Madonna’s publicist, Liz Rosenberg, was also in the audience. Even though she helped bring Stuart to the Summit, she said she had a few questions of her own. She started out by saying, “I thought I knew everything about Madonna, but…” She and Stuart basically talked about how Madonna has a DJ’s ear and “she knew what she wanted to dance to,” so it really was the perfect record for her to make."

No one *anywhere* remembers that "Tick Tock" song.

Oldfrapp

And this post wins.

Tic Toc
Hands on the clock
Time to make my body rock
Move with me, you get me
So hot that I can't stop
Tic Toc
You got the spot
Here I come ready or not
Move with me, you get me
So hot that I can't stop
Tic Toc Tic Toc baby
Tic Toc Tic Toc baby

You opened up my world to
paradise, so nice
Feels so good my body
liquefies
When you touch me I lose
control and start to shake
Your love is so good I ain't
gotta fake
Cuz everything you do is
everything I like
The plot thickens, time's tick'n,
you're my toy tonight

Chorus

Tic Toc the clock keeps
on tick'n
Hurry up before it gets too late
Tic Toc the clock keeps on
tick'n
Hurry up before it gets too late

A little to the left
A little to the right
A little bit longer
All the way tonight
I close my eyes, my body
tenses
Boy your touch hits all my
senses
Don't stop
Come on
I'm almost there
In the middle of the night
Reality stops
And I'm suspended
In your arms
As I melt from your touch

Chorus

Tic Toc
Hands on the clock
Time to make my body rock
Move with me, you get me
So hot that I can't stop
Tic Toc
You got the spot
Here I come ready or not
Move with me, you get me
So hot that I can't stop
Tic Toc Tic Toc baby
Tic Toc Tic Toc baby

You opened up my world to
paradise, so nice
Feels so good my body
liquefies
When you touch me I lose
control and start to shake
Your love is so good I ain't
gotta fake
Cuz everything you do is
everything I like
The plot thickens, time's tick'n,
you're my toy tonight

Chorus

Tic Toc the clock keeps
on tick'n
Hurry up before it gets too late
Tic Toc the clock keeps on
tick'n
Hurry up before it gets too late

A little to the left
A little to the right
A little bit longer
All the way tonight
I close my eyes, my body
tenses
Boy your touch hits all my
senses
Don't stop
Come on
I'm almost there
In the middle of the night
Reality stops
And I'm suspended
In your arms
As I melt from your touch

Chorus

westendboy(at)gmail(dot)com

And y'know what? I doubt a CD-quality rip would make it more listenable, anyway.

"Isaac" = "Cotton Eye Joe" after circumcision.

Uh oh.

gopher33@gmail.com

thanks!

But so far sort of undifferentiated except for 'Hung Up' (which makes sense if you think about JLC's remixes, but not if you think of 'Darkdancer'); but there are some high points and good, if relatively unspectacular, composition.

I really like "Get Together," with its cheeky steal of Stardust-which was-stolen-from-Holiday bassline and the nod to the SOS Band.

I think when Popjustice said that "Jump" referenced the PSB, they must just mean that the bassline is very West End Girls.

But, yeah, I think the first three songs are ace. For me, "Future Lovers" isn't great -- it relies a little too much on the Moroder bassline and its hook isn't that...hooky. "I Love NY" is giddy and fun, but definitely minor. But then the album picks up again with "Let It Will Be," so all's well!

"Isaac" is a fucking monster. The most sonically exciting song she's done... well, ever, maybe? I love the mmmms that nod back to "Frozen", especially. Fine line, yes, but she's on the right side on this one. And she's really not on it that much! I really have awful fears that she's going to release "I Love New York" as the third single ("Sorry", an excellent choice, is pencilled in as the second) instead of the much more suitable "Let It Will Be" or "How High".

If "I Love NY" is chosen as a single, then Madonna should record a cover of the late 80s Blue Mercedes song "I Hate NY" for the b-side. For the balance, you see. (You may have just witnessed the only time Blue Mercedes has been, or will ever be mentioned on ILM.)

But I agree that "Let It Will Be" would be a good 3rd single, especially if she wants to slow it down a little. I'm not a huge fan of "How High" -- the best thing about it is the way it follows "Jump" on the album. (Should we consider this a tribute to Debbie Gibson? "If you say 'jump!' I'll say 'how high?" Uh, probably not.) The only song I'm sort of hating on at this moment is "Push."

Actually, I meant "Jump" as a single instead of "How High". Stupid me. But, god, "Isaac", yes, she could edit it down a bit to emphasise her bits, and it would be a massive club-burner with the right remix.

And of course, you can never have too many references to Debbie Gibson, especially "We Could Be Together".

The album might be the best sequenced Madonna album ever. She's usually hopeless at that sort of thing, but not here. Maybe it's the continuous mixing, but the album does have a great flow. Perhaps "Side B" needs more of a monster stomper (when you get down to it, surely all the songs on Side B are slower than 120 bpm?), but aside from that, it's pretty coherent as an album. No doubt it's her personal campaign against the iPod shuffle.

Q: Let's talk 'music'! The two Pet Shop Boys references on the album are amazing. Do you hold your hands up to loving the Boys?

A:I do, yes. I mean, who can not love the Pet Shop Boys? That's the thing. They were the first ever pop act I ever listened to. All of Chris Lowe's parts… When I very first sat there with 'My First Keyboard' I was trying to work out how they did it, how they made those rhythms, how they got those sounds. I love the 'Disco' album with all the 12" mixes and I suppose it's not surprising fifteen years later that when it all pops up on the record I think 'oh, this sounds like the Pet Shop Boys.' I'm not going to try and disguise that, they're a big influence.

Q:So it's fair to say that Madonna wouldn't be where she is today without the Pet Shop Boys?

A:She really loves them as well. Because they worked with Bobby Orlando in New York really early on, and I'm guessing she would've been around there at that same period. So I think there's a huge kind of cross-over there. It's funny because when we were doing 'Jump' I didn't think she'd know who the Pet Shop Boys were but she was the one who was screaming 'Pet Shop Boys! I fucking love them!'

i mean there's the obvious WEST END GIRLS bit on JUMP but...where's this much hyped Paninaro steal?

I'm interested why you all hate I Love New York so much tho. No one has actually explained.

w00t!

"hung up", meanwhile = "586" by new order.

Can someone tell me what the hell this means??

Its pretty good. Edward O is closest. Why has no one mentioned "Forbidden Love" which is great?

"I Love New York" would be a good "I Wanna Be Your Dog" rip if it wasn't for the tremendously awful lyrics.

Production is pretty uniformly excellent, I'd say the only drawbacks are the occasionally horrendous lyrics. Madonna could deal to be a little ... sparser? in her vocal performance. But also someone else writing lyrics would be nice.

Of course I'm the closest, deej.

I'm kidding...of course that doesnt account for my own fave M studio albums, the two that preceded Ray of Light, wherein Mr. Leonard was absent. But she's usually only as good lyrically as the "co-writer" (ahem), and Mr. Ahmadzai is hardly a poet dans Anglais, w/ Mr. Lu Cont remaining more DJ than wordsmith. I've only heard "Hung Up" so far, but everything about this album's "feel" so far: packaging, cover art, marketing, etc even the cheesy, krumping-biting video - is a vast improvement over whatever shite she'd stumbled into after the 90s. This is the one that's probably more "back to basics," than the vocoder-loaded and aptly bland Music.

I just _hate_ the title, which is cringeworthy, and strangely something a failed pop-tart like Samantha Fox would name her entire hopeful-hit _complation._ What could La Ciccone possibly have left to confess about? I Love New York But Ride Horses in Scotland and Am Richer and Spiritualer and Kabbahlier than You Plebes

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B000BRD6GC/ref=dp_product-image-only_0/002-9070362-1443248?%5Fencoding=UTF8&n=507846&s=music

watching her "perfect" thighs doing the ballet in that video though...it was kind of freaky, i can't pinpoint it. of course many yoga practitioners stay remarkably nimble and agile well into their 60s and even beyond, but there's just something so artificial, or artificial-looking either about her or her body while doing all that, that still strikes me the wrong way. i'd rather see her don a grotesque afro-wig and dance as in D&D, then show off her latest ashtanga moves to mtv when she has such a poppy single. but not much about her her has made sense since Evita anyway...just enjoy it from now on when it's not total trashy, i say, as you missthe days when she really was trashy. and genuinely fun.

That blinking boombox = the luckiest boombox ever?

The lyric is a little awful, though. It's very high school diary.

'isaac' is a load of balls BUT i dearly hope its the nxt single cos i want to see mad mike go crypto-batshit again at another ridic 'knights of the jaguar' ripoff

All songs produced by Madonna and Stuart Price except "Future Lovers" (Madonna and Mirwais Ahmadzai), "How High" (Madonna and Bloodshy & Avant, co-produced by Stuart Price) and "Like it or Not" (Madonna and Bloodshy & Avant). All songs recorded by Stuart Price. All songs mixed by Mark "Spike" Stent except "Forbidden Love" (Stuart Price).

haha

My point exactly! :)

i love the way that every time madge threatens to attempt to Make A Point About Fame, jlc smothers her in gorgeous synths. 'push' is SO GOOD!

Right, no Gusto's "Disco Revenge" (or Harvey Mason's "Groovin' You") and if there's the same chord progression as the Jacksons' "Can You Feel It," it's a different enough pattern that it doesn't sound like a bite, at least to me. (With "Material Girl" you have a point.) I hear only a little of St. Etienne's "Burnt Out Car" and not enough to rule out coincidence.

But I hear enough of EBTG's "Future of the Future" in "Get Together" to think Madonna's a fan.

It is indeed her best album since "Like a Prayer" though.

But I just can't stomach how truly awful, ugly and inadequate her vocals are this time round. She's such a drag on this. She hasn't ever been this bad ON RECORD before has she? "Hung Up" is still the absolute pits.

I do love how relentless and pulsing it is (although it kinda fucks up pretty quickly)... but sorry, I'll still take Kylie's "Fever" over this. Or any disco records with non-cringe singing.

The album would have to be amazing to beat Fever so it's not surprising that it falls short of that peak.

Geir wrong about Erotica obv.

Madonna is supposed to sing not speak

I've yet to hear a song sampling the "Funky Drummer" loop that classifies as awful. And there are hundreds of them.

"Bad Girl" may be her best song qua song. Love everything about it - the lyrics, the arrangement, the melody, the singing, the theme...

Actually when you think about it with "Bad Girl", "Rain" and "In This Life" on there Erotica is actually fairly strong in the ballads department. I think I used to be iffy about "In This Life" but time has washed away all qualms I had with this record (see also "Words", whose lyrics I used to hate and now I kinda love).

Only the actual songs were so much weaker than those great ballads on "Like a Prayer".

so wrong... so very very wrong.

http://s21.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0CGUZO6ANC7M4311AG56P02RKD

When was the last time Madonna made an electro album?

(Or, for that matter, when in the 80s did U2 do a highly Britpop-influenced album with focus on melodies rather than guitar lines?)

FINALLY!!! Thank you thank you thank you!!!
I haven't heard it yet, but this is an EVENT!!!

http://s13.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0UYPK8Y7R08V12BGMSE2I7R6BP

"I Love New York" would be great if all Madonna sang was the title. Generally Lex OTM about

And no-one told me this album ended with a schaffel bandwagon leap!

I guess, though, that I can categorically rule out the possibility of Madonna's persona ever entrancing me on a new record ever again. :-(

the only points at which i'm really down with madonna's persona on the album are 'hung up' and that incredible "JUST WATCH ME BURN" on 'let it will be', maybe 'jump' as well - but at least she's safely ignorable for most of the rest.

the production on 'push' is ridiculously great - where did jlc get those ideas from? and who will pick up on them?

Ha ha no wonder I like it so much. Madonna is fairly useless on it admittedly.

Also there's that gratuitous reference to the SOS Band's "Take Your Time (Do It Right)".

I wd like a difft, more sensitive vocalist over the the 'get together' dub tho

Does anyone have any clue as to what remix this was? Or was this some chopped-up concoction of the DJ at the club I was in?

Funny though - before this song played, a fuse had blown in the DJ booth, sending the whole club into darkness. Everyone was getting rowdy and confused (was the place closing or wasn't it?) - it was looking kind of disastrous. But then the lights came back on, things began powering up, and there came that ticking, and then those repeating, accumulating vocals: "time goes by.... so slowly slowly..."

It took a split second for everyone to work out what was being played, after which the dance floor was packed in an instant.

Later however, the DJ claimed to have "no Madonna" when I made a request for 'Sorry'. I have a feeling that this mix may have been stored in a glass case, labelled "In Case of Emergency, Break Glass and Put On Decks".

Anyone have any ideas?

The last Madonna album I was this aggressively ambivalent towards (ie, I have no desire to hear it) was Music.

A:She really loves them as well. Because they worked with Bobby Orlando in New York really early on, and I'm guessing she would've been around there at that same period. So I think there's a huge kind of cross-over there.

_____________

still astonishing that bit, i dunno why.

New single:

http://i18.tinypic.com/4xq3ddg.png
http://youtube.com/watch?v=x8x2FjpLpFI

WEAK. What is this, 2003?

uh oh, THANKS - it better be better than fucking HEY YOU

Yeah, it's better than that POS. It's pretty catchy, it just sounds old and tired and kind of pathetic..

I can't get through the first minute and it's all Pharrell's fault and his lazy production. Why didn't she just stick with Stuart?

what's the title?

and what's with the old thread?

new thread please!

It's not bad. It certainly doesn't evoke the same levels of excitement that the Confessions on a Dancefloor singles did, but it's not terrible.

When Madonna singles generate no excitement, there's something wrong.

Link here. It's awful.

This hold up well 2 and a half years on, don'tuthink?

1 Madonna Sorry Mar 2006

DOES ANYONE REMEMBER THIS (happening) ?

Yes. It kept Corinne Bailey Rae off the top, so it wasn't all in vain.

yup, agreed it does.
which is why i just picked up the Juliet album that Stuart P. produced.

ooh. juliet?

work hell means that i have been unable to actually listen to the Juliet album yet. however, this thread :
So... that Juliet album leaked...
seems to be pretty spot on, especially the Garbage connection.

Hilariously, it does still sound good.

Well you know what? I think this might actually be her best album.

As an album, yes it is

Yes! Her strongest singles are elsewhere, but this one works in ways no other album of her does (I’m assuming because it’s all conceptualized as some sort of continuos disco house dj mix).

Erotica functions the same way.

Oh yeah you’re right! Erotica sort of does this too. That one is my second favorite of hers.