Oh man, I can’t believe how time flies! But this week sees the 10th anniversary of Madonna’s “Confessions On The Dance Floor”. I feel as if it were released yesterday. It’s one of the few post “Ray Of Light” Madonna albums I liked right away. Most of the earlier albums had the same effect on me. But after “Ray Of Light” I felt, and this is so my personal opinion, that some of her song concepts were becoming weaker, like she’s running out of topics to write about. In fact, I actually bought a special edition of “Confessions On A Dance Floor” that gave me access to the special download of a song called “Superpop” that I’ve never played again since. But that aside, the official track listing of the album is close to brilliant and it’s literally just one major disco party that never slows down, just like Madonna. Unlike “MDNA”, also a good album, “Confessions On A Dance Floor” is a timeless dance album. It’s probably because she updated that classic disco sound and mixed it with modern day dance music. Maybe, the album's success also lies in the fact that it’s miles away (get it?) from “American Life”, the album that preceded this one. “American Life” came with a dark violent vibe, also in her image, and contained even more soul searching for her. It was just a bit too much, so this slightly lighter disco dance album and colorful image may just have been what the doctor ordered. Since “Ray Of Light”, Madonna’s putting much more of herself in her lyrics, which gives a portion of this album a bit of weight, that is well balanced out with the light hearted other half of the album.
Also, her spiritual interests were incorporated in this album, in the track ”Isaac”. The album further contains the singles “Hung Up”, which is one of the few dance tracks that was actually allowed to sample Abba, “Jump”, “Get Together” and “Sorry”. I learned later, that the latter, was a great track to learn a singing technique on. Something you would not quickly link to Madonna, perhaps, though she’s clearly worked on hers for many years now. Madonna actually speaks a little Dutch on “Sorry”, but unfortunately she doesn’t say “sorry”, but she says “I’m sad”. Close enough though.
The album led to a tour, which turned out to become the highest grossing tour for a female pop star at the time. It was my second Madonna concert. Now, I’m one of the thousands, if not millions, of people who’ll be catching one of her shows from the “Rebel Hear” tour. That will be my fourth. Can’t wait.
