July 7, 2026 — 5:30am
Madonna, Confessions II
During a listening party for Madonna’s new album, producer Stuart Price revealed that he resurrected the studio microphone used on 2005’s Confessions on a Dance Floor, taping it together to record tracks for Confessions II. You couldn’t blame Price for reaching for a talisman; his first album with Madonna was a critical and commercial smash. But happily for the producer, his biggest client, and her millions of fans, the sequel is Madonna’s best record in 21 years.
Impressively, it’s no reheated version of the original. If the first record was inspired by disco acts such as ABBA, the Bee Gees and Cerrone, Confessions II draws from the Chicago, Detroit and New York house music Madonna was dancing to in the ’80s.
Built around a pulsing bass line that nods to the Giorgio Moroder-produced I Feel Love, opener I Feel So Free acts as a bridge between Confessions I and II. One Step Away goes deeper still, its echoing, watery synths invoking Lil Louis’ 1989 classic French Kiss.
