Can I make a confession? It feels good to write about a Madonna album that people aren’t just enjoying, but that’s also being critically well received. Diehard fans have always done what they do best for their chosen pop avatar: show up, argue, defend, rinse, repeat. Almost regardless of the music’s quality. Despite the narrative from pop pundits and the intelligentsia that she was done, fans sifted through projects like Hard Candy, MDNA, Rebel Heart, and Madame X, finding hidden gems, killer hooks, and glimmers of hope. General pop listeners were cautious. The release of a new Madonna album still generated major buzz, but with a bit of car-crash energy: half cheering her on, half hoping for a train wreck.
Critics were less than kind. Savaging the pop icon as being scattered, out of step, suddenly chasing trends instead of setting them, and doing too much. Pointing out the adoption of the modern pop trope of songwriting-by-committee and the dilution of the sharp, singular vision that made her such a force of nature. If we’re being really honest, some of that critique lands. There were moments on those albums where it felt like there were too many cooks in the kitchen and that the sonic choices were beneath her. But it also flattens the truth that a lot of that material would’ve been better received if it were delivered by a pop sprite in her 20s, with a quarter of the myth and baggage.
With the release this past week of CONFESSIONS II, the sequel to her widely lauded 2005 album Confessions on a Dance Floor, it feels like the zeitgeist has stopped waiting for permission to enjoy her again. The reception isn’t forensic or measured. It’s openly excited, even affectionate, as if pop culture collectively remembers that Madonna is supposed to be fun, provocative, and a little unruly, and is finally willing to meet her where she’s at as the 67-year-old Queen of Pop.
On its face, the idea of dropping a sequel album to Confessions… 20 years later felt like a recipe for disaster. It could’ve very easily gone gimmicky or become nostalgia bait, feeling designed to engineer “Hung Up 2.0.” Instead, what we get is something way more interesting: a woman who notoriously doesn’t like to look back, choosing to re-enter her own mythology like she still owns the lease. A fitting move for her first new album since returning to Warner Records.
Producer Stuart Price is back in the mix, and you can hear it immediately. His steady hand guided her through her most focused album in years. The transitions flow naturally. There are no hard stops here, just one long exhale into another groove. And Madonna sounds locked in. Yes. There are some tracks where you can tell that she recorded the vocals while wearing her grills. But on the whole, she sounds like herself and comfortable not just in her own skin but where she is on her career timeline. This isn’t nostalgia. It’s persistence.
On the standout track “Danceteria,” which probably should’ve been the lead single, she’s not just reminiscing about downtown New York. She’s DJing her own past. Walking you through the heady scene in the early 80s with name-drops of everyone from best friend Debi Mazar and exes like Jean-Michel Basquiat to contemporaries like The B-52s (did you catch the “Legal Tender” reference?) and David Byrne. Or the forlorn beat poet-esque “L.E.S. Girl,” a wistful ode to her time on New York’s Lower East Side and rumoured to be about her relationship with Michael Gira of the noise-rock band Swans.
The features are where things could’ve gone sideways, but they all work. Sabrina Carpenter adds some lightness to “Bring Your Love,” making it less a canny passing-the-torch moment and more a tip of the hat. French artist Stromae’s spoken-word turn on “My Sins Are My Savior” is unsettling in the best way. Feid’s appearance on the Latin-flavoured “Read My Lips” makes it radio-ready. And daughter Lola Leon’s appearance on “The Test” is the emotional mother-daughter scar tissue that this record needed.
While the vibe is upbeat for much of CONFESSIONS II, it does get heavy and heartfelt, especially in the back half. After a near-fatal bout of sepsis, plus losing her brother and her stepmother, that makes sense. She gets raw and philosophical about trauma, loss, betrayal, and survival, and still finds a way to bring it back to movement. Thinking will ruin you; dancing might save you. It’s not subtle, but it’s honest.
Madonna keeps returning to the club not because she’s stuck there, but because she knows the dance floor isn’t an escape from history. It’s where history gets rewritten in real time, under strobes, in sweat, in sound. As she proclaims on “One Step Away,” my personal favourite track: “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.”
Anyway, put it on loud. Dance to it in your kitchen. If you’re gay, expect to hear these songs out in the club. It’s shaping up to be a Madonna summer, and as a lifelong fan, I’m here for it.