Madonna Confessions II review: A hypnotic dancefloor dream - BBC

On the cover of her latest album, Confessions II, Madonna's face is obscured by a purple veil.

"Sometimes I like to just hide in the shadows," she says as the record opens. "Create a new persona, a different identity. I can be whoever I want to be."

Madonna has always been a master of reinvention. For decades, her insatiable musical curiosity allowed her to surf the zeitgeist, often introducing new sounds to pop before they'd gone mainstream.

So a sequel was the last thing anyone expected. But for her 15th album, she's revisiting her 10th: 2005's Confessions on a Dance Floor.

Her last true classic, it was a hymn to the liberating power of the club. A place where one of the planet's most recognisable women could blend into a sea of bodies, and lose herself in the music.

(Or so she says. I'm willing to bet that when Madonna gets up to dance, a massive circle forms around her and everyone whips out their phones.)

After a life-threatening case of sepsis, she's thrown herself back into that world with determined zeal.

On Confessions II, she's "living under neon" in a "temple of sweat and surrender". And she's mystified by a generation who've traded skin-on-skin intimacy for the mind-numbing scroll of TikTok.

"No-one wants to go outside / It's not OK / It blows my mind."

Whisking her back to the discotheque is British producer Stuart Price, who co-wrote Confessions part one, and served as musical director on Madonna's recent Celebration tour.

Speaking to Interview magazine, Madonna said the duo agreed the new album had to " be as good as or better than " the original.

It's not. But it comes close.

The first 30 minutes are impeccable. Full of pulsing sub-bass and crisp club beats, they zip past in an intoxicating blur of hedonism and exuberance.

Madonna throws open the doors with the hypnotic, Donna Summer-esque I Feel So Free. She shakes out our hair on the euphoric Good For The Soul, and throws shapes to the filtered grooves of Love Sensation.

There's a bit of flab around the middle. Tracks like School and Love Without Words are more experimental, full of chopped-up vocals and squelchy synths, but by this point we've heard some variation of " the rhythm sets us free " approximately 900 times. Yes, we get it, Madonna. Dancing = good. Not dancing = sad face emoji.

Instead, the album really soars when it gets autobiographical.

The highlight is Danceteria - a sweat-soaked strut through the nightspot where Madonna launched her career.

It was there that she persuaded DJ Michael Kamins to play the demo of Everybody, securing her first record deal.

On the song, she captures the club's electrifying clientele in a rap section that riffs on Vogue's roll-call of Hollywood legends.

We bump into Nile Rodgers, and a disco guitar drops into the mix. Breakdance posse The Rock Steady Crew are introduced with a blast of the Apache drumbeat. And when Kamins finally drops Everybody, a sample of the song's hook echoes in the background.

Unveiled in a short film that featured Kate Moss and Benedict Cumberbatch, it would have been a perfect single.

Instead, that honour went to the Sabrina Carpenter duet, Bring Your Love.

Premiered live at the Coachella Festival, it's the latest in a long line of songs where Madonna bristles at other people's judgment (see also: Human Nature, Nobody Knows Me, Rebel Heart).

Carpenter's presence is well-earned. Like Madonna, she's weathered a storm of sexist commentary about her lyrics and outfits, often by people who've mistaken her satire of male sexual desires for an endorsement.

On Bring Your Love, they join forces in a declaration of strength: "I know where the bodies are buried / Don't try to shut me up."

Rage against the algorithm

Intriguingly, the song also finds Madonna rejecting the idea of commercial success.

"I say, 'Don't try to distract me with numbers,' because I started [this album] without thinking about the charts and streaming," she told Vogue Italy.

"Working only in terms of algorithms and artificial intelligence doesn't allow you to take risks, which is the complete opposite of making art."

A handy defence, given that the song bottomed out at number 29 in the UK singles chart, but it's also an essential recalibration.

Madonna's output in the 2010s sometimes suffered from unconvincing attempts at pop relevance. Here, she doesn't even bother to reference current dance trends. There's no cash-in on the drum and bass revival, and no mimicry of the cutting-edge productions of PinkPantheress and Charli XCX.