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

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.

I love how “Danceteria” liberally quotes from “Everybody”

Does Stuart Price still do rando remixes, like those awesome ones he did for Gwen Stefani and Coldplay? Or is he too locked it with whoever he is working/touring with at the time (Madonna, Pet Shop Boys, etc.) to goof around on the side?

I have listened to this album once and found it mostly okay. I may have overhyped it in my head based off of the general reaction to it.

On my first listen I also thought it was okay, in part b/c the two singles were on the first half.

i was underwhelmed on a first couple of listens, i liked the singles (and still do), but they didn't feel strong enough to carry the album. now they're not even my favourite tracks.

first, The Test, at one point it was like a calm warm wave washing over me and releasing some long held stress. the last reaction i'd expect from listening to a new Madonna album!

then Love Sensation, Love Without Words, School - there is a talk about nostalgia and looking back and referencing the history of dance music, sure, whatever, but these are her best tracks in years and they feel like proper Madonna tracks in that it's not Madonna trying to stay relevant but just making good music.

there is so much expectation for this album (even though the bar was low, or maybe because of that), so it was impossible to not listen to it through the lens of "can she still do it", and the singles kinda felt like that, her trying just a bit too hard. it took the rest of the album to feel like that old Madonna swagger is back, like when she makes music she _knows_ is fucking good and she doesn't have to prove anything to anybody.

and with that in mind, i know think that Danceteria is an absolutely banger. but goodness, there is so much to find on this album, it should've been called Erotica II.

it really is erotica ii. imagine me weeping and dabbing my eyes with tissues while saying that

I knew she had regained her strengths when she comes up with a two-note melody for the fra-giiile/let-dowwwwn couplet on "Fragile."

love the "shut your mouth" refrain in "Read My Lips," been walking around mouthing it.

I dislike most of Erotica once you move away from the singles so that touch point isn’t making me want to dive deeper into the album

the comparison wasn't between the actual tracks but rather how varied they are on both albums (and i don't feel the need to skip any on either album, although i don't care much for Good for the Soul and One Step Away)

My favorites are probably Love Sensation, Danceteria, and One Step Away.

Love Sensation hits me like it has always existed.

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."

― veronica moser, Sunday, July 5, 2026 7:44 PM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

I only got around to listening to the album this morning, but when this track came up, I immediately remembered this comment.

I'm pretty sure I like the album, but I'll need more time with it. "L.E.S. Girl" and "Danceteria" are the immediate standouts.

Also, Madonna concluding the album with "L.E.S. Girl" make me think of Dire Straits ending Making Movies with "Les Boys," but I can't really make the connection work beyond that.

ha, same thought

call it trance
call it house
call it love without words

"One Step Away" feels PSB-esque to me. Something about the beat and the strings and the way it grows and grows.

school
is in session

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8097aotVw80

Yup, I checked: this album still rules.

I woke up with "Fragile" in my brain.

I was on listen #2 of this album during a walk when I broke my left femur at the end of July, so I'm hoping I don't develop a forever negative association with it. For now, it just might not be my fave thing to listen to while I'm recovering.

this is still really fucking good

it's still such a triumph yeah

I wouldn't have expected a 2026 Madonna album to scrape my top 20.