7 artists, writers and Madonna collaborators on CONFESSIONS II

Michael Cragg

Madonna celebrates the dancefloor, her family (both chosen and literal) and her own legacy on this barnstorming return to form. 

While the first half focuses on sweat-soaked union on sticky floors (Danceteria is a nostalgia trip back to 80s clubbing in New York with a mic-drop coke reference), the second darkens the mood, musing on death (Fragile) and, on The Test featuring her daughter Lola, the rupturing nature of fame. A pop journey worth taking from the best to ever do it.

IB Kamara

Ever since the first single, I Feel So Free, came out, I’ve had it on constantly in my studio. It makes me want to dance, and I think that’s exactly what M is intending with this album. There is no such freedom as freedom on the dancefloor, and no one has understood this better than the Queen of Pop herself.

Arca

Madonna was so welcoming and nurturing from the first moment I met her. Working on this record with her on a few songs was really a dream come true.

Namasenda

It feels more like its own work of art and should, in my opinion, not be grouped together with COAD… The vocal melodies in both Bizarre and Read My Lips are probably the things that remind me of that album the most, though. I do feel like she pushes the sound a little bit further this time. The vibe and spirit are still alive. Madonna is so fucking here.

Harry Tafoya

The thing that is such a gut punch about CONFESSIONS II is that it does something that Madonna has been loath to do for years: look back. I understand not wanting to become a heritage act, but she’s been the prism and the container for people’s imaginations for decades. Whole universes have boomed in her wake, so when she does thread that musical needle (calling Lourdes “Little Star” on The Test) or own up to her biography (Danceteria), it’s just incredibly moving. You can only write a song as generous and open-hearted as Fragile or serene and wistful as L.E.S. Girl if you’ve lived a fully-rounded, creatively rich life and been humbled by love in the process. And you can’t really say that the record’s impact boils down to nostalgia because she’s still so dazzlingly present.

Track for track, it’s remarkable how much she and Stuart Price absolutely fuck shit up. Madonna’s played a tremendous part in how we’ve come to find ourselves on the dancefloor and that broader perspective she achieves on Confessions II only hammers home how meaningful it is to be together here and now.

OPIA

CONFESSIONS II feels like if Hung Up-era Madonna met Kelela at an afters.

We’re most excited by the mother-daughter dynamic on The Test. It feels like the symphonic version of getting picked up from a high school party by your mum and the drive back together at 3am. But she doesn’t take you home; she takes you to an arcade, and you’re still on molly.

Rose Gray

Stuart Price and Madonna are the dream team. Everything goes crazy! It’s like the perfect song. Madonna never misses. She is, and always will be, the Queen of Pop.