Madonna "Confessions On A Dance Floor"

Confessions on a Dance Floor is the tenth studio album by American singer and songwriter Madonna. It was released on November 15, 2005, by Warner Bros. Records. A complete departure from her previous studio album American Life (2003), the album includes influences of 1970s and 1980s disco, as well as modern-day club music. Initially, she began working with Mirwais Ahmadzaï for the album but later felt that their collaboration was not going in the direction she desired. Madonna took her collaboration with Stuart Price who was overviewing her documentary I'm Going to Tell You a Secret. The album was mainly recorded at Price's home-studio where Madonna spent most of her time during the recordings.

Musically, the record is structured like a DJ's set. The songs are sequenced and blended so that they are played continuously without any gaps. The title arrived from the fact that the album tracklisting consists of light-hearted and happy songs in the beginning, and progresses to much darker melodies and lyrics describing personal feelings and commitments. Songs on the album sample and reference the music of other dance-oriented artists like ABBA, Donna Summer, Pet Shop Boys, the Bee Gees and Depeche Mode, as well as Madonna's 1980s output.

Madonna promoted the album through several live performances and a promotional tour. She embarked on the Confessions Tour in 2006, which became the highest-grossing tour ever for a female artist at that time. Four singles were released from the album. "Hung Up", the lead single, topped the charts in a total of 41 countries. According to Billboard, it was the most successful dance song of the decade. It was followed by "Sorry" which became Madonna's twelfth number-one single in the United Kingdom. "Get Together" and "Jump" were released as the third and fourth singles respectively, both becoming top-ten hits in several countries.

Most critics praised the album, calling it a return to form for Madonna and ranking it alongside her best albums. Madonna was honored with a Grammy Award for Best Electronic/Dance Album in 2007, as well as International Female Solo Artist at the 2006 BRIT Awards. Commercially, the album peaked at number one in 40 countries, earning a place in the 2007 Guinness World Records for topping the record charts in the most countries, and has sold over 10 million copies worldwide. Ranked third on "The 99 Greatest Dance Albums of All Time" by Vice magazine, the album is noted as a testament to Madonna's longevity with the ability to continuously reinvent herself in the third decade of her career.

Confessions on a Dance Floor merged elements from 1970s disco, 1980s electropop and 2000s club music. Madonna decided to incorporate elements of disco in her songs while trying not to remake her music from past, instead choosing to pay tribute towards artists like the Bee Gees and Giorgio Moroder. The songs reflected Madonna's thoughts on love, fame and religion, hence the title Confessions on a Dance Floor. It was the complete opposite direction from her previous studio effort American Life (2003). The songs on that album were a form of diatribe directed at the American society. However, Madonna decided to take a different direction with this album. Regarding the development, Madonna commented:

"When I wrote American Life, I was very agitated by what was going on in the world around me, [...] I was angry. I had a lot to get off my chest. I made a lot of political statements. But now, I feel that I just want to have fun; I want to dance; I want to feel buoyant. And I want to give other people the same feeling. There's a lot of madness in the world around us, and I want people to be happy."

She started to work with Mirwais Ahmadzaï with whom she had previously developed her eighth album Music (2000). However, that collaboration did not suit Madonna's musical direction. According to Madonna, "[Producer] Mirwais is also very political, seriously cerebral and intellectual. All we did was sit around, talking politics all the time. So, that couldn't help but find its way into the music. I think there's an angry aspect to the music that directly reflects my feelings at the time." Hence after recording tracks with Mirwais, Madonna decided to stop the project and start fresh. It was then that she turned to Stuart Price who had served as musical director on her two previous concert tours and co-wrote one song on American Life.

In 2004, after the release of American Life, Madonna began working on two different musicals: one tentatively called Hello Suckers and another one with Luc Besson, who previously directed the music video for her single "Love Profusion"., which would portray her as a woman on her deathbed looking back on her life. Madonna collaborated with Patrick Leonard, Ahmadzaï and Price to write new songs, the latter being assigned to pen disco songs sounding like "ABBA on drugs". However, Madonna found herself dissatisfied with the script written by Besson and scrapped it. Hence Madonna and Price decided to use the compositions for the album instead. According to Madonna, it was easy for her to shift from her previous album's sentiments, since she included those political views in her documentary I'm Going to Tell You a Secret. She elaborated:

I was running back and forth, literally, from the editing room with [the documentary's director] Jonas Akerlund to working with Stuart, who was also mixing the music in the film. We were together, non-stop, all of us. Cutting 350 hours of film down to two hours. There are a lot of serious aspects to the movie. I needed a release. When I would go to Stuart's, and we'd go up to his loft, it was like, 'Honey, I want to dance.' I wanted to be happy, silly and buoyant. I wanted to lift myself and others up with this record. So, yes, the new album was a reaction to all the other stuff I was doing, which was very serious in nature. I hope that doesn't imply that I wanted to make a superficial record, because it's not. I want people to smile when they hear this record. I wanted it to put a smile on my face, too.

The first three songs that were written for the album were "Hung Up", "Sorry" and "Future Lovers" In an interview with Billboard, Madonna commented that the recording process was a give-and-take situation. According to her, Price used to stay up all night working on the songs. This was helped by the fact that he is a DJ and is used to staying awake all night. This gave Madonna the chance to work on other aspects of the compositions. She noted the fact that she and Price had opposite characteristics, which helped in their collaboration. The songs were mainly recorded at Price's home. Madonna said:

We did a lot of recording at his house. I'd come by in the morning and Stuart would answer the door in his stocking feet - as he'd been up all night. I'd bring him a cup of coffee and say, 'Stuart, your house is a mess, there's no food in the cupboard.' Then I'd call someone from my house to bring food over for him. And then we'd work all day. We're very much the odd couple.

She further elaborated that their camaraderie was also because they had toured together for Madonna's Re-Invention World Tour. Hence Madonna reflected that her relationship with Price was more of a brother-sister kind than the formal collaborations she was accustomed to during the recording process.

Confessions on a Dance Floor is primarily a dance, electronica, disco, and deep house record. It is structured like a nightly set composed by a DJ. The music starts light and happy, and as it progresses, it becomes intense, with the lyrics dealing more about personal feelings, hence "Confessions". According to Madonna, "[t]his is the direction of my record. That's what we intended, to make a record that you can play at a party or in your car, where you don't have to skip past a ballad. It's nonstop." Madonna used samples and references of music by other disco artists. In the album's first song, "Hung Up", she sampled ABBA's 1979 hit "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)", for which she wrote a personal letter to songwriters Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, who permitted Madonna to use the track. References of other disco-influenced acts, including Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode, and Daft Punk, were also used on the album, as were the disco hits of Parisian DJ Cerrone. The album has a song called "Forbidden Love", which is different from the same-titled song from Madonna's sixth studio album Bedtime Stories. Regarding sampling herself and her own song names, Madonna commented:

"I did all of that on purpose, [...] I mean, if I'm going to plagiarize somebody, it might as well be me, right? I feel like I've earned the right to rip myself off. 'Talent borrows, genius steals,' [...] "Let's see how many other clichés I can throw in there. That's exactly it. I was only hinting early on, but then I tell it like it is. It's like, now that I have your attention, I have a few things to tell you."

A pulsating rhythm is present in the song "Isaac", which is regarded as the only song close to a ballad on the album. However, the song was heavily criticized by a group of Israeli rabbis who commented that Madonna was committing a blasphemy with their religion. They said that the song was about sixteenth-century Kabbalah scholar Yitzhak Luria. In reality, the song was named after the featured vocalist Yitzhak Sinwani, who sang portions of the Yemenite Hebrew poem Im Nin'alu in the track, as well as references to the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac. Initially, Madonna toyed with the idea of calling the song as "Fear of Flying" since the idea behind the composition was to let go. However, at the end she decided to just call it "Isaac" after the English version of Sinwani's name. Regarding the song's development and the condemnation of the Rabbis, Madonna said:

"You do appreciate the absurdity of a group of rabbis in Israel claiming that I'm being blasphemous about someone when they haven't heard the record, right? And then, everyone in the media runs with it as if it's the truth. And that's a little weird. But what's even weirder is that the song is not about Isaac Lurier [sic], as the rabbis claim. It's named after Yitzhak Sinwani, who's singing in Yemenite on the track. I couldn't think of a title for the song. So I called it "Isaac" [the English translation of "Yitzhak"]. It's interesting how their minds work, those naughty rabbis. [...] He's saying, "If all of the doors of all of the generous peoples' homes are closed to you, the gates of heaven will always be open." The words are about 1,000 years old. [...] [Yitzhak] is an old friend of mine. He's never made a record. He comes from generations of beautiful singers. Stuart and I asked him to come into the studio one day. We said, "We're just going to record you. We don't know what we're going to do with it." He's flawless. One take, no bad notes. He doesn't even need a microphone. We took one of the songs he did and I said to Stuart, "Let's sample these bits. We'll create a chorus and then I'll write lyrics around it." That's how we constructed it."

The lyrics of the songs on the album incorporate bits of Madonna's musical history and are written in the form of confessions. "Hung Up" contains lyrics from Madonna's 1989 duet with Prince called "Love Song", from the Like a Prayer album. "How High" continues the themes of two songs from Madonna's eighth studio album Music, namely "Nobody's Perfect" and "I Deserve It". The lyrics of "Push" thank the person who challenged her to expand her limits and also incorporate elements of The Police's song "Every Breath You Take". Other tracks like "Sorry" include the title word in ten different languages (several of which are non-idiomatic). In "I Love New York" (written at the time of American Life), she praises the city where her career began and replies to negative comments made by George W. Bush. Elsewhere, Madonna sings about success and fame ("Let It Will Be") and the crossroads of past, present and future ("Like It or Not").

Track listing

Confessions on a Dance Floor – Standard edition

1. "Hung Up" 5:36
2. "Get Together"    5:30
3. "Sorry"  4:43
4. "Future Lovers" 4:51
5. "I Love New York" 4:11
6. "Let It Will Be" 4:18
7. "Forbidden Love" 4:22
8. "Jump" 3:46
9. "How High" 4:40
10. "Isaac" 6:03
11. "Push" 3:57
12. "Like It or Not"   4:31

Total length: 56:28

Various Artists "Platinum 80s"

Platinum 80s is a double CD compilation album, released in 2002 by Warner Strategic Marketing.

Track list:

CD 1

1. Queen & David Bowie Under Pressure 3:57
2. Madonna Holiday 3:51
3. Peter Gabriel Sledgehammer 4:40
4. David Bowie Let's Dance 3:36
5. Talking Heads Road To Nowhere 4:19
6. Depeche Mode Personal Jesus (Single Edit) 3:43
7. Eurythmics Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) 4:35
8. Madness Our House 3:21
9. Genesis Invisible Touch 3:12
10. Simply Red Money's Too Tight 4:12
11. Fleetwood Mac Little Lies 3:37
12. The Smiths This Charming Man 2:42
13. Blondie Call Me 3:29
14. A-Ha The Sun Always Shines On TV 5:06
15. Tears For Fears Shout 4:45
16. Culture Club Do You Really Want To Hurt Me 4:22
17. Human League* Don't You Want Me 3:56
18. Prince Kiss 3:38
19. Falco Rock Me Amadeus 3:20
20. The Cars Drive 3:55

CD 2

1. John Lennon (Just Like) Starting Over 3:54
2. Pink Floyd Another Brick In The Wall (Pt. 2) 3:50
3. Van Halen Why Can't This Be Love 3:31
4. Frankie Goes To Hollywood Relax 3:56
5. Duran Duran Rio 4:44
6. Crowded House Don't Dream It's Over 3:53
7. Belinda Carlisle Heaven Is A Place On Earth 4:04
8. Bananarama Venus 3:38
9. Fine Young Cannibals Good Thing 3:09
10. Communards* Don't Leave Me This Way 4:29
11. New Order Blue Monday (88 Radio Edit) 3:48
12. Erasure Sometimes 3:37
13. Kim Wilde Kids In America 3:24
14. Simple Minds Don't You (Forget About Me) 4:18
15. Kate Bush Babooshka 3:28
16. Spandau Ballet Gold 3:52
17. Tina Turner What's Love Got To Do With It 3:35
18. The Pretenders Don't Get Me Wrong 3:46
19. Bee Gees You Win Again 3:50
20. Phil Collins In The Air Tonight 5:29

Madonna "The Immaculate Collection"

The Immaculate Collection is the first greatest hits album by American singer and songwriter Madonna. It was released on November 9, 1990, by Sire and Warner Bros. Records. It contains new remixes of fifteen of her hit singles from 1983 to 1990, as well as two new songs, "Justify My Love" and "Rescue Me". The title of the album is a loose pun on the Immaculate Conception, the conception of the Virgin Mary without the stain of original sin. An extended play titled The Holiday Collection was issued in Europe to accompany the compilation and the re-release of the single "Holiday". It is the first album ever to use an audio technology called QSound.

"Justify My Love", the album's first single, became Madonna's ninth number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and was one of her most controversial singles due to its sexually explicit music video. "Rescue Me" was released as the second single and became the highest-debuting single on Hot 100 by a female artist at that time, entering the chart at number fifteen and peaking at number nine. It became Madonna's second album to be certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America for shipment of over ten million copies across the United States. It spent the second highest number of consecutive weeks at number one for a female solo artist in the UK, being at number one for a nine-week stint. The album has sold 30 million copies worldwide, making it the best selling compilation album by a solo artist and one of the best selling albums of all time.

Madonna "Like A Prayer"

Like a Prayer is the fourth studio album by American singer Madonna. It was released on March 21, 1989 by Sire Records, nearly three years after her previous studio effort True Blue. Madonna worked with Stephen Bray, Patrick Leonard, and Prince on the album while co-writing and co-producing all the songs. As Madonna's most introspective release at the time, Like a Prayer has been described as a confessional record. She described the album as a collection of songs "about my mother, my father, and bonds with my family." The album was dedicated to Madonna's mother, who died when she was young.

The album uses live instrumentation and incorporates elements of dance, funk, gospel, and soul into a more general pop style. Madonna drew from her Catholic upbringing, as seen in the album's title track and lead single "Like a Prayer". The lyrics deal with themes from Madonna's childhood and adolescence, such as the death of her mother in "Promise to Try", the importance of family in "Keep It Together", and her relationship with her father in "Oh Father". Madonna also preaches female empowerment in "Express Yourself". Like a Prayer received critical acclaim, with Rolling Stone hailing it as "...as close to art as pop music gets." Commercially, the album was an international success, reaching the top of the charts in multiple territories. The album was certified quadruple platinum in the United States by the Recording Industry Association of America. Six singles were released from the album: "Like a Prayer", "Express Yourself", "Cherish", "Oh Father", "Dear Jessie", and "Keep It Together". "Like a Prayer" became Madonna's seventh number-one on the Billboard Hot 100, while "Express Yourself" and "Cherish" peaked at number-two and "Keep It Together" became a top 10 hit. Worldwide, the album has sold over 15 million copies.

With the singles' accompanying music videos, Madonna furthered her creativity and became known as a leading figure in the format. The music video for "Like a Prayer" was a lightning rod for religious controversy, using Catholic iconography such as stigmata and burning crosses, and a dream about making love to a saint, leading the Vatican to condemn the video and causing Pepsi to cancel Madonna's sponsorship contract. The music video for "Express Yourself" was the most expensive video at its release. Like a Prayer preceded Madonna's ground-breaking Blond Ambition World Tour. At the end of the 1980s, following the release of Like a Prayer, Madonna was named "Artist of the Decade" by several publications.

1988 was a quiet year on the recording front for Madonna. Following the lack of critical and commercial success of her 1987 film Who's That Girl, she acted in the Broadway production Speed-the-Plow. However, unfavorable reviews once again caused her discomfort. Her marriage to actor Sean Penn ended and the couple filed for divorce in January 1989. Madonna had also turned 30, the age at which her mother had died, and thus the singer experienced more emotional turmoil. She commented for the May 1989 issue of Interview that her Catholic upbringing struck a feeling of guilt in her all the time:

Because in Catholicism you are a born sinner and you're a sinner all your life. No matter how you try to get away from it, the sin is within you all the time. It was this fear that haunted me; it taunted and pained me every moment. My music was probably the only distraction I had.


She came to the realisation that as she and her fans were growing up, it was time for her to move away from the teen appeal to wider audiences, and en-cash on the longevity of the album market. Feeling the need to attempt something different, Madonna wanted the sound of her new album to indicate what could be popular in the music world. For lyrical ideas of the title track, she chose topics that until then had been personal meditations never to be shared with the general public; she told SongTalk magazine "In the past I wrote a lot of songs that [revealed my inner self], but I felt they were too honest or too frightening or too scary and I decided not to record them". She decided to take a more adult, sophisticated approach; thoughtfully, she sifted through her personal journals and diaries, and began considering her options. She recalled, "What was it I wanted to say? I wanted the album and the song to speak to things on my mind. It was a complex time in my life." She had certain matters on her mind, including her troubled relationship with her husband, actor Sean Penn, her family, her lost mother and even her belief in God.

Madonna "True Blue"

True Blue is the third studio album by American singer and songwriter Madonna, released on June 30, 1986, by Sire Records. She co-wrote and co-produced the entire album with Stephen Bray and Patrick Leonard. True Blue deals with her visions of love, work, dreams as well as disappointments, and was inspired by her then husband Sean Penn, to whom Madonna dedicated the album. Musically, the songs on the album took a different direction from her previous endeavours, incorporating classical music in order to engage an older audience who had been skeptical of her music.

The album features instrumentation from acoustic guitars, drums, synthesizers and Cuban musical instruments. The topic for the songs range from love, freedom, and in the case of "Papa Don't Preach", social issues like teenage pregnancy. After its release, True Blue received critical acclaim, with music critics who complimented the album as the archetype of the late 1980s and early 1990s pop albums. They also praised the fact that Madonna's voice sounded stronger than it did on her previous efforts, while commending Madonna's skills as a singer, songwriter and entertainer.

True Blue was an immediate global success, reaching number one in then record-breaking 28 countries across the world, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. It spent 34 consecutive weeks at the top of the European Top 100 Albums chart, longer than any other album in history. It became the world's top-selling album of 1986, as well as the best-selling album of the 1980s by a female artist. With estimated sales of over 25 million copies worldwide, True Blue remains one of the best-selling albums of all time. All five singles released from the album reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100, with "Live to Tell", "Papa Don't Preach", and "Open Your Heart" peaking at number one.

The album was promoted on Madonna's second concert tour, the Who's That Girl World Tour, which visited cities of North America, Europe and Asia in 1987. True Blue is credited as being the album which established Madonna's position as the biggest female artist of the 1980s, rivaling male musicians like Michael Jackson and Prince. The album's singles and their accompanying music videos have sparked debates among scholars and social groups. She became the first female artist to receive the Video Vanguard Award at the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards in recognition of her impact on popular culture. The album also gave her first appearance on the Guinness Book of World Records.