''Confessions on a Dance Floor'' is the tenth studio album by Madonna, released on November 15, 2005.
Despite moments of greatness ("Intervention," "Die Another Day," "Nothing Fails"), ''American Life'' somehow amounted to less than the sum of its parts, at times awkward and monotonous (thanks to Mirwais's creatively-stunted production), but also daring, the sound of a superstar once again venturing outside her comfort zone. Like with ''Erotica'', Madonna was given the cold shoulder by critics and audiences alike. It may went to No.1 and became platinum but it was her first album ever not to have a single enter the Billboard pop Top Ten. ''American Life'' wasn't a bad album by any standard; had it been released today (or in '03 by an unknown artist), it could very well have become a critics' darling a la Green Day's ''American Idiot'' or, at least, been less of a bomb.
Madonna needed a complete departure from it so that's how ''Confessions on a Dance Floor'' came to life - as a back-to-basics move of sorts: after a stumble, she's returning to her roots, namely the discos and clubs where she launched her career in the early '80s. Her best work has always married the rapturous with the introspective (think of ''Ray of Light'' or ''Like a Prayer'') and maybe Madonna has learned that she's better off taking a cue from George W. Bush and appealing to her base. And if there's anything else the woman knows how to do, it's damage control. ''Confessions on a Dance Floor'' is the first album where Madonna seems like a veteran musician. Not only is there a sense of conscious craft to the album, in how the sounds and the songs segue together, but in how it explicitly references the past — both her own and club music in the larger sense — the music seems disassociated from the present; Madonna is reworking familiar territory, not pushing forward.
The album is structured like a DJ's nightly set. The songs are sequenced and blended together so that they are played continuously without any intermediate gap. The title arrived from the fact that the tracklisting for the album consists of light-hearted and happy songs in the beginning, and progresses to much darker melodies and lyrics describing personal feelings and commitments. Taken on a purely sonic level, ''Confession on a Dance Floor'' does its job: with the assistance of co-producer Stuart Price (plus Bloodshy & Avant and Mirwais) she not only maintains the mood, but keeps the music moving nicely, never letting one track linger any longer than necessary. This is shimmering music falling just short of sexy, yet it's alluring enough on the surface to make for a perfect soundtrack for pitch-black nights. That's what the album was designed to do, and it works well on that level.
Aside from "Hung Up" and "Sorry", the insanely catchy second single that's destined to become a Madonna classic, ''Confessions...'' isn't the mindlessly fun dance album we were promised. It, in fact, has a lot more in common with Madonna's last three albums than her first three. ''Confessions on a Dance Floor'' is ''American Life'' repackaged for the masses—or, rather, her masses: recurrent topics include materialism ("Let It Will Be" and "How High") and, of course, spirituality (''Isaac'').
"Future Lovers", with its spoken-word passages and chants, is less like an actual song and more like a spiritual instruction manual. The allegorical closing track, "Like It or Not'', finds Madonna stuck in English Roses mode, stringing together Kabbalah-learned platitudes one after the other. For evidence of Madonna's previous talent of turning clichés into pop slogans, though, look no further than "Get Together", with its subtle nods to "Holiday" and "Secret," or the "I've heard it all before" hook of the ABBA-esque "Sorry" (the track appropriates the bassline from the Jacksons's "Can You Feel It," the beat of which was, coincidentally, nabbed for Madonna's career-defining "Material Girl" 20 years ago).
After its release, the album debuted at the top of the charts in most nations. It became Madonna's sixth number-one album on the Billboard 200 albums chart (selling 350,000 copies in its first week). She was also honored with a Grammy Award for "Best Dance/Electronic Album" in 2007, as well as "International Female Solo Artist" at the 2006 BRIT Award. The supporting tour for the album, known as ''Confessions Tour'', became the highest grossing tour ever, for a female artist at that time.
Four singles were released from the album: ''Hung Up'' (became Madonna's most successful single worldwide by topping the charts in forty-five countries, thus earning a place in the Guiness Book of World Records), ''Sorry'', ''Get Together'' and ''Jump''. Up to this moment, worldwide sales of the album surpassed 7 million copies.
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