Summer 2026. Madonna’s return is now.

New album, Confessions II, a sequel to 2005's Confessions On A Dancefloor, teased since 2023, was formally announced in April. Social media accounts were cleared and biographies updated to hint at what was to come. The project drip-fed to the public via an astute marketing campaign.

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From a Coachello appearance with album track collaborator Sabrina Carpenter (Bring Your Love); via an 'unannounced' Times Square appearence in conjunction with Grindr, to a ten minute album promo premiere at the Tribeca Festival .. it’s been full steam ahead for team Madonna. Yes, certain aspects drew criticism. The Times Square stunt resulted in numerous comments regards her appearance and performance. Sure, there were moments when the lass came across like your drunken auntie at a wedding, but, there aren’t many 67 year olds who could move freely in those boots .. then again, maybe, like the rest of us, her knee joints have seen better days. And if nightwear is the new going out-wear, then so what. You didn't expect her to age gracefully, did ya !

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As for the Confessions II video promo, tradition would dictate such things focus on music already out there. Not in this case. The promo may have been all vaginal lasers, satin corsets, bananas and dodgy Cumberbatch dance moves, but that it featured four unreleased (to that point) album cuts only served to whet the appetite further .. See what I mean by astute. The presence of Kate Moss, Julia Garner (as cast in the ’shelved’ bio flick), Odessa A’Zion (getting all the top video gigs of late), Cole Palmer and João Pedro at the unrinals (WTF !), Gwendoline Christie, peeking into, and Richard E Grant, cavorting within, some toilet cubicle, only served to heighten interest.

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Lest we forget the brief conflict with Charli XCX over the relevance of disco and the dancefloor .. a small matter quickly extinguished (’twas simply a misunderstanding) .. the pair of them subsequently chummy at the YSL SS27 menswear show and ‘club confessions’ after party. All good column inches for heavy hitters with albums ready to drop within weeks.

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And what of the Club Confessions album launch listening party events in Los Angeles, Paris and London. Promo on setroids. Think Madonna, album producer/collaborator Stuart Price on the decks, with daughter Lourdes (also known as Lola Leon) lending a hand (in London at least). Madonna could be found singing along to tracks and interacting with the crowd, giving an exclusive airing to Danceteria, Physical Attraction, received an airing in London, its first public outing since 1983. Vogue’s iconic dance moves being dusted off in good measure.

• The official X post is a neat summary of the London event: An event held on the eve of Pride weekend, and one which found almost every single gay man in town over the age of 27 descend on North Greenwich.

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let down your hair and breath in the air ..

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What of the album itself. Confessions II, the first sequel in her nearly five-decade career, is touted as her best album in two decades. Something that wouldn’t be too difficult tbh. It’s a pretty low bar. Certainly, it’s her most focused, self-reflective and cohesive effort in decades. There’s the same whiff of musical rebirth witnessed with 1998’s Ray of Light; an album where self-reflection and self-regard finally interlocked like a spiritual call and response.

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Opener, I Feel So Free, lays the ground rules: “Sometimes I like to just hide in the shadows, create a new persona, a different identity, I can be whoever I wanna be.” There stands the admission of a woman who finds safety surrounded by others who, like her, have surrendered to the dancefloor. “The dance floor is not just a place. It’s a threshold, a ritualistic space where movement replaces language.” A similar ethos runs through Love Without Words, “ .. This is a club, a temple of sweat and surrender. Where rhythm replaces reason and movement. When we dance, it makes our heads turn ..”

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Madonna describes the album as an outgrowth of the shelved biopic she was writing for Universal. Cue, Danceteria. which recounts Madonna’s early years thrusting demo tapes in the faces of DJs at the Roxy, Paradise Garage, and the titular Danceteria. Thematically akin to Everybody, she roll-calls the faces of that scene, and interlopes Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side in the process. That she urges everybody to get up and dance is only to be expected. Telling them to put their fucking phones down and engage, a frustration/observation expressed post-Times Square. “Jean-Michel Basquiat, Fab Five Freddie, Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf .. Rock Steady Crew and Crazy Legs .. Nile Rodgers and David Byrne, The B-52s had money to burn, Lounge Lizards have so much style, Lower East Side, take a walk on the wild side.” Doo de doo, doo de doo, indeed.

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The 'original' Confessions on a Dance Floor (also produced by Price) was a career peak, coming, as it did, two decades after she claimed her throne with hits like Into the Groove and Material Girl.  Confessions II is clearly the first crowd-pleasing move since then. Trawls into her past have occurred since, witness Veronica Electronica and the Celebrations Tour, but it’s on Confessions II, that she looks back and lingers on times past. Fragile, a lament for her long-estranged brother Christopher, with whom she reconciled before his death in 2024. The Test, is a duet with Lourdes, where she apologises for bringing her into such a crazy celebrity world. With Lourdes also turning up in the Confessions II, could we witnessing groundwork for a music career yet to be .. Okay, I’m an old cynic, but ...

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There are hooks aplenty, the collab with Sabrina Carpenter (Bring Your Love, all Vogue-ajacent strut) and single Love Sensation for starters, yet songs like Good for the Soul and Love Without Words appear to favour vibe over hooks. So after opening with a 20-minute suite of tracks built around a looping barrage of house beats, a melancholic worldview kicks-in (ie. Betrayal, co-produced by a longstanding French collaborator, Mirwais, is catchy trip-hop ingeniously threaded with an Erik Satie sample during which she exorcises the memory of an ex.) and build towards the conclusion of L.E.S Girl, where Madonna ruminates on her early days in New York and a fleeting romance that was destined to die as she fixated on fame. “Everything fades away ... except for you.”

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That's where you'll find the greatest light ..

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As an artist who emerged from the clubs of New York in the early 80s, and would throughout the 90s and 2000s repeatedly utilise dance music to facilitate artistic transformation, it’s only right that with Confessions II, the Queen of Pop has returned to her rightful domain.

 

Though it could do with losing a few tracks here and there, it's a return good enough to keep the franchise rolling. Queen of Pop/Dancefloor, dancing queen, whatever moniker you care to pin to her leotard, Confessions II proves the boss can still throw a party.

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​​​​​​ALSO THIS PLAYLIST .. Goes without saying the whole thing is top heavy Madonna, double cover too, but as is the norm you can expect a few nuggets in support. To that end, we have something new from BLOND:iSH (collab with Kurtis Wells); the pick of the tracks from Jalen Ngonda's recently released Doctrine of Love album and keeping the disco vibe going, there’s the new single release from Disco Bambino (Giuseppe Savoni), Nile Rodgers & Sophie Ellis-Bextor. Written by the three of them, it’s all Italian electro-pop vibe driven by a distinctive guitar rhythm (Nile's) guaranteed to pack dancefloors across Europe this summer. The Rolling Stones have released their second new album in three years, the Andrew Watt produced, Foreign Tongues (neat title, poor album sleeve lads). The album could do with shedding 4 or 5 tracks, but regardless, this other big hitter of the month bags four entries in the playlist .. including Hit Me In The Head, a number fused from a 2021 demo featuring Charlie Watts. Afterall, no Charlie, no Stones.
 

ELSEWHERE .. We jump back to 2003 for LFO's Freak. Originally a Leeds duo, the project would effectively become a solo project for Björk and Depeche Mode producer, the late Mark Bell. Freak also happens to have one of the great, understated and truly original videos of the 2000's. We'll likely give it a mention on our X feed, so watch out for that.

 

After receiving a nod in our Suggested Listening a few issues back, Fcukers, the New York party starters with a penchant for house, drum n bass and reggae, make the playlist with a cut from debut, Ö (released in March). Having previously opened for our mate Harry Styles, they’re set to do likewise on his forthcoming Brazil dates (17-24 July). Their sub-three-minute hook laden bursts seem to have done the trick. Good for them.

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Talking of the lad Styles, last time out we rounded things off with a Harry classic. So, given the crust has been broken on that one, we thought why provide a degree of symmetry between that July 333 playlist and this. To that end, we head towards the conclusion of proceedings with a brace, including the lad’s latest single (and best cut), from new (Hansa recorded) album, Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally. Following his record-breaking, Blue Peter gold badge award winning, Wembley stint, stadium residences loom in Brazil (as mentioned), Mexico and Australia before the year is out .. then there’s a 30 date (thirty!) takeover of Madison Square Garden between 26 August and 31 October. Take your hat off to the lad, that’s some going. So the inclusion of Pop and Dance No More, a track that affords him the opportunity to camp it up big time in the video, is somewhat deserved. The inspiration for DNM being described thus:  "I remember going out for the first time in Berlin and standing in the middle of the dance floor and feeling so unbelievably free and safe that I just had my hands in the air and my eyes closed and I just felt these tears streaming down my face. And it was this moment of, like, 'I feel so alive right now!" .. Madge would approve.

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We round things off with second single, Pulse, from Laura Veirs, self-played (aside from sax), recorded and produced, Temple Songs album, which drops mid-August. The lo-fi, world music, jazz-infused, shuffle of a gem brings things down a notch .. but hey, one needs a break from the dancefloor every so often.

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And that's us. We're done. Our glitterballs well and truly polished.

​MCQ returns next month.

Until then, I'm off to ponder stylistic acronyms not mathematical digits.

Ed

For Victor and Bonnie (Gaynor).

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