The International Writers Magazine: Music Review

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Confessions On A Dance Floor by Madonna • Samara O’Shea 'It’s safe to assume that Madonna didn’t plan on making music this far into her forties' The queen of the 80’s channels sounds from the 70’s to lace her latest album: Confessions On a Dance Floor. After a failed attempt to stir up politics as usual in both Washington and Hollywood with her last album, American Life, Madonna decided to ditch combining messages and music and returned to the formula that has always worked well for her: A catchy beat and simple lyrics.

With Hung Up, the first single off Confessions, Madonna borrows sound from Abba’s electronic masterpiece Gimmie! Gimmie! Gimmie!, and borrows lyrics from herself. The line, "Time goes by so slowly for those who wait and those who run seem to have all the fun," appears in pieces in Hung Up but appeared in full in Love Song—a collaboration with Prince that appeared more than a decade ago on the Like a Prayer album. The self-plagiarism continues with the song Forbidden Love—a different song with the same name appeared on 1994’s Bedtime Stories—and in the song How High Madonna reminds listeners that "...nobody’s perfect. I guess I deserve it," as she did on the Music album with the songs Nobody’s Perfect and I Deserve It.

Although Confessions’ lyrics are predictable the upbeat rhythm, which stays constant and danceable throughout, is charming to the ear. The song Future Lovers begins breathy and morphs into a high tempo song with a refrain that listeners will surely crave. Both Jump and Sorry are also songs with genuine electronic attraction. The album’s low point is, undoubtedly, I Love New York—a song as simple as the famous t-shirt design. It opens with the embarrassing couplet, "I don’t like cities but I like New York, other cities make me feel like a dork." And, as the word dork indicates, the song spirals downhill from there.

It’s safe to assume that Madonna didn’t plan on making music this far into her forties. As it goes in her mind: She gazes lovingly on the 20-year music career behind her and starts making movies full time—singing an occasional song for the soundtrack. But even Madonna doesn’t always get what she wants, and, with the exception of husband Guy Ritchie, the directors aren’t calling. So her somewhat conventional approach to Confessions is understandable—as she is Madonna and that, more than the music, is the reason she’s lasted this long.

When all is said and done, she has given us two decades of unceasing entertainment and even managed to rise above pragmatic pop a few times and produce some outstanding albums such as Like a Prayer and Ray of Light. So at this point if she gives us music that’s good and not great we can forgive her while bouncing along to the beat.

© Samara S. O'Shea - New York, Nov 17th 2005

Hear Madonna's album here

Samara works full-time writing on a New York magazine Country Living, and her work has also appeared in Pittsburgh Magazine, Woman's Day, and on Happenmag.com. She also hosts a Website: Letterlover.net.
She hates letter left undelivered and enjoys causing trouble.

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