Madonna - The postmodern popstar

If there's ever been a manual for the perfect popstar, she's the one who wrote it: Veronica Louise Ciccone, born August 16, 1958, in Bay City, Michigan, USA. A mutant, cannibalistic popstar, shape-shifting and postmodern, able to launch trends and then cunningly ride them, turning herself into icon and fetish while simultaneously mocking the basest instincts of an audience hungry for idols to worship and sacrifice on the altar of stardom. By posing as a sex object and easy prey, she has in fact always dominated everyone, from record executives to her own fans. A ruthless dominatrix, in short, just like the "Mistress Dita" of "Erotica" - but in managerial form: velvet glove, iron fist.

While whole armies of popstars and wannabe starlets have ended up shredded in the meat grinder of show business, she has always managed to keep control of the game, crushing in turn anyone who got in her way. A wilful, irreverent diva, able to mock both the feminist clichés traditionally pinned on female rock artists and the dogmas of that unrepentant boys' club that the music business has always been.
For a figure like this, it was inevitable to attract, alongside her fans' devotion, the undying resentment of those who would never accept such a reversal of perspective or, more simply, could never see past the smokescreen of the "material girl".

From the "off" discos to the Chic discos

In truth, the registry office had already given the exuberant Miss Ciccone a hand in her climb to the top, bestowing on her the most forbidden, impossible name of all: Madonna. And yet the brash little punkette Veronica Louise had precious little of the virginal about her. Daughter of Silvio, originally from Abruzzo, left motherless at six years old with seven siblings, the girl who grew up in Detroit and studied modern dance already had few scruples and one fixed idea: "I wanna be famous, I wanna be a star" - as she would later joke about herself in her first video compilation.
The "popstar mission" kicks off in New York at the end of the Seventies, where Veronica Louise moves to work with a dance company. To make ends meet, she also appears in a couple of B-movies (including the soft-porn flick "A Certain Sacrifice") and poses nude for men's magazines. Half rebellious teenager, half cold-blooded calculator, Miss Ciccone begins her climb by elbowing her way through the "off" clubs of Soho. Then, two years later, she joins the entourage of Patrick Hernandez, author of one of the decade's closing dance anthems: "Born To Be Alive".

After a brief stint in Paris, she forms the dance duo Breakfast Club with her boyfriend Dan Gilroy, first as drummer and then as singer. Then, with her other ex-boyfriend and college friend Stephen Bray, she forms Emmy, starting to work on a series of club tracks. Some of these songs get played at New York's Danceteria by DJ Mark Kamins. He would prove to be the true deus ex machina of her actual vinyl debut, producing "Everybody", the first single released under the name Madonna. It's an R&B track as basic as it is infectious, which the American singer delivers with the sensuality of a suburban Lolita.

Thanks to a deal with Sire Records, the follow-up, the equally contagious funky single "Burning Up/Physical Attraction", also takes off in dance circles. In June 1983, DJ John "Jellybean" Benitez, the singer's new boyfriend, writes "Holiday" for her, a dance anthem steeped in genuine freshness and vitality (“If we took a holiday/ took some time to celebrate/ just one day out of life/ it would be, it would be so nice”), driven by a Latin-disco beat and funky piano lines. The success is matched by the equally irresistible "Lucky Star", with its sexy synth-groove sheen laid over an old nursery rhyme. And then there's the midtempo of "Borderline", a more reflective moment that breaks from the frenzied pace of its predecessors, revealing her best vocal performance of the period and a pop songwriter attuned to the melodic charm à la Elton John. A knockout trio of singles, in short, that establishes Madonna's name on the American dance charts.
All these tracks, plus a few equally intriguing unreleased numbers (from the upbeat "Think Of Me" to the driving "I Know It"), are collected on her debut album, simply titled Madonna (1983), which reveals her unsuspected talent as a songwriter (she wrote almost every track) as well as performer, relying on the infectious grace of urban pop-dance mixed with typically eighties synth-pop sounds.
The dominant theme is love among the bohemian kids of the bleakest New York. These are simple tunes, often with sparse, monotone arrangements, yet they pulse with considerable rhythm and sexual charge, built around synth riffs and insistent rhythmic patterns, unfolding around inescapable hooks. Madonna delivers them in her own way, singing in a shrill, sensual little voice, mixing provocative nymphet poses with sacred-blasphemous looks (crucifixes and lingerie, miniskirts and fishnet stockings). A mix of raw post-pubescent sensuality and calculated poses worthy of a seasoned diva: the ideal formula to capture multitudes of teenagers hunting for new role models to identify with.

Given the decade's fickle trends and the ephemeral nature of every pop creature of this kind, bets are already being placed on the expiration date of this new, glittering product. But Madonna is not the usual teen idol destined to vanish within a single season. She is an extremely skilled media manipulator and a sharp reader of her era's social changes. A heroine of the post-punk, post-disco age, Madonna makes promiscuity and sexual excess her main road, blending the sacred and the profane in a brazen, opportunistic, almost animalistic way. But, deep down, this is exactly what makes her persona special, combined with an extraordinary clarity in understanding, Bowie-style, how her own reflection in the mirror could become even more important than herself. The plot begins to take shape: the stubborn small-town girl who makes it, crowning the most classic of "American dreams".

Music, in all this, doesn't play as secondary a role as one might think. Because the dance ballads on Like A Virgin (1984), her second album, still mark a step forward, toward a more mature and refined style, as shown by the explosive title track that precedes its release: almost an even more amphetamine-fuelled version of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean", with that obsessively pulsing bass and those shimmering synth lines. Madonna delivers it in a cheeky, almost teenage register, staging yet another of her sexual pantomimes (“Your love thawed out/ What was scared and cold/ Like a virgin/ Touched for the very first time”).
In the producer's chair sits none other than Nile Rodgers, ex-Chic member and studio guru. Along with him come two of his Chic bandmates: Bernard Edwards on bass and Tony Thompson on drums. The production thus becomes richer and more sophisticated, and the arrangements far more intricate and complex compared to the suburban-disco feel of her debut.
But of course image also demands its share. Having ditched the street look of her debut (though certainly not the sensual, provocative poses), Madonna sinks ever deeper into the role of diva. "I don't just want attention, I want all the attention!" is her motto. So, to introduce the album, during an awards ceremony organized by MTV, Miss Ciccone performs "Like A Virgin" emerging from a cake in a wedding dress, writhing outrageously, with a conspicuous belt branded with the words "Boy Toy". Feeding the myth further are the equally provocative video, shot in Venice, and the album cover, which immortalizes her as a sexy bride, draped in lace, sensually reclining on a velvet bed, flowers in hand.
Dancefloor numbers still dominate: the delightful "Dress You Up" threads a sensual melody between pulsing synths and a guitar solo, while the other floor-filling single "Into The Groove" (included only on the European edition) bounces intoxicatingly over powerful bass lines and increasingly tight patterns. There's also a trio of atmospheric slow numbers: the desperate "Love Don't Live Here Anymore", a Rose Royce cover, the saccharine-sweet "Shoo-Bee-Doo", and "Crazy For You", the perfect teen-movie theme, as indeed it was for "Vision Quest", whose soundtrack it joined.
To be filed among the decade's forgettable synth-pop ditties, yet crucial in shaping the icon, is "Material Girl", almost a manifesto of Madonna's cynical, ruthless ethic and perhaps also of the shallow spirit of the Eighties (“The boy with the cold hard cash is always Mr. Right/ ‘Cause we’re living in a material world/ And I am a material girl”). In reality, it's something of a remake of Marilyn Monroe's "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend" (1953), a parody itself further parodied in the song's video, where Madonna, sheathed in red silk, impersonates cinema's most famous blonde, drawing a parallel that is anything but accidental.
A masterful blend of image and sound, of groove and seduction, meticulously crafted down to the smallest detail, Like A Virgin is the album that crowns Madonna's stardom. A glittering dance kaleidoscope that updates the canons of disco music, of which Rodgers had been a standard-bearer, for the age of polished pop and 80s superproductions.

The empire of the "material girl"

The success is planetary and overwhelming. For her first tour she brings along a crew of white Jewish guys called Beastie Boys, also destined for the spotlight. For two years, every Madonna single sells millions of copies, and the singer-dancer's image is further cemented, helped also by her role in Susan Seidelman's film "Desperately Seeking Susan" and by the Live Aid benefit concert. Also in 1985, skeletons come tumbling out of the closet: the soft-porn video shot back in 1979 surfaces, while Playboy and Penthouse go hunting for compromising photos of the aspiring star dating back to 1977. But far from damaging her image, these racy little scandals only feed her magnetism. Madonna is adored by men, but also becomes a formidable gay and lesbian icon, while teenage "Madonna-wannabes", decked out in lace, frills and crucifixes, spring up in every corner of the globe.
By now bookmakers' odds on her imminent downfall are climbing steadily: behind the diva's plunging necklines and tantrums lies the steely resolve of a woman some already portray as cold and merciless, others as a genuine born entertainer, blessed with the charisma and appeal to win everyone over.

While nimbly changing her look, moving from the curvy platinum-blonde showgirl of "Material Girl" to the androgynous performer of her new world tour, Madonna continues her racy pop autobiography with True Blue (1986). This time there's no Rodgers, but rather Patrick Leonard, at the start of a long partnership, alongside Stephen Bray: together with them, Veronica Louise produces and writes every track.
The disco-funk sheen of the Chic godfather is gone, replaced by a preference for a wider variety of styles and arrangements, though all still converging toward a typically "mid-eighties" pop sound. Starting with the second single, "Papa Don't Preach", a small-town sketch about a pregnant girl who refuses to have an abortion, introduced by an unexpected string prologue and sung by Madonna in a deeper, more nasal register compared to the falsetto of her early days. The lead single, "Live To Tell", is instead an enveloping ballad in the vein of "Crazy For You".
But there's also novelty in "Open Your Heart", where the drumming hits hard to lend aggression to a performance that would find its ideal setting in the outrageous video (a stripper dancing in a black corset in a club full of voyeurs), and above all in "La Isla Bonita", where Latin American sounds and rhythms blend with a sugary chorus, kicking off the Latin-pop wave that, for better or worse, would dominate the years to come.
Rounding out the picture are the breezy pop of "Jimmy Jimmy" and "Love Makes The World Go Round", while "White Heat" sticks to synth-pop tracks and "Where's The Party" keeps at least a toe on the disco floor.
Musically, the album is perhaps a step back from Like A Virgin, but the lyrics show a maturing of the Madonna persona, from rough-edged suburban punkette to troubled, controversial diva. An evolution that inevitably affects her look too: gone are the lace, frills and crucifixes, as the new Madonna sports shorter platinum-blonde hair and even wears jeans and casual T-shirts.

Her golden run is untouched by the box-office flops Shanghai Surprise (with her husband Sean Penn) and Who's That Girl, whose soundtrack nonetheless yields her a new hit single (the admittedly modest title track).
Madonna's chameleonic persona is also cemented by her live shows, staged in the grand style of a Hollywood revue. Feverish performances in which she sings and dances tirelessly, displaying her outstanding skills as a showgirl.
In 1988, Madonna also makes her Broadway debut in David Mamet's play "Speed The Plow.

Shaken by family troubles that would lead to her divorce from Penn, Madonna returns to the studio to record Like A Prayer (1989), another step in her emancipation from record labels and from the clichés of her past, even if not always matched by songs of equal quality. The album is carried by its title track, a vibrant rock-soul number complete with a closing gospel choir, which would cause a scandal in its video version, featuring a stunning dark-haired Madonna as a modern-day Mary Magdalene, writhing among burning crosses and kissing the statue of a Black saint that comes to life. Too much for Catholic fundamentalist groups, who would sue her for "religious contempt".
The album also features carefree pop ballads ("Cherish") and jolts of funky adrenaline ("Keep It Together", "Express Yourself" and "Love Song", written and performed with his majesty Prince), as well as gentle lullabies ("Dear Jessie", dedicated to Leonard's daughter).
The lyrics, too, become more thoughtful and introspective, with several autobiographical undertones: her troubled relationship with her father ("Oh Father"), the trauma of losing her mother when she was only 6 years old ("Promise To Try"), to whom the whole album is dedicated, and finally her stormy divorce from Penn ("Till Death Do Us Part").
Madonna, in short, presents herself as a more mature, reflective artist, though one who takes herself a bit too seriously, losing the exuberant naïve verve of her earlier records, and occasionally drowning in sounds that are too conventional and predictable. Yet even songs that aren't entirely irresistible, like "Express Yourself" and "Cherish", still manage to crack the Top 10. And the following year's Blonde Ambition Tour is a massive success with audiences.

Madonna's colossal shows become increasingly defined by a brazen sexuality, drawing the wrath of the prudish but also the adoration of new crowds of fans. And she plays it up, with a racy behind-the-scenes film titled Truth Or Dare (released in Italy as "A letto con Madonna").

A formidable manager of her own career, in 1992 Madonna signs a sixty-million-dollar deal with Time Warner to launch her own label, Maverick (which would go on to produce, among others, Alanis Morissette, Prodigy, Muse). Madonna-the-actress, meanwhile, takes on roles in Woody Allen's "Shadows and Fog" and in "Dick Tracy", alongside Warren Beatty, which also allows her to score a hit soundtrack, I'm Breathless, driven by two singles: the frothy house gem "Vogue" and the intoxicating "Cotton Club"-style swing of "Hanky Panky". Still in the film world, she would even go on to found her own distribution company, Siren Films.

Eroticism in black and white

Stirring up fresh scandal and controversy is the extremely erotic (and gorgeous) video for the new single "Justify My Love", directed by a guru like Jean-Baptiste Mondino. Madonna outdoes herself this time, with a decidedly risqué performance set in an openly promiscuous, voyeuristic context. MTV bans it, but success is guaranteed anyway, thanks also to the quality of the song, written by Lenny Kravitz using a sample from a Public Enemy track ("Security Of The First World") and forging a thoroughly irresistible porn-groove, with Madonna essentially just whispering unspeakable fantasies.
Also causing a stir is the publication of "Sex", a photo book in which the singer is captured nude in S&M and lesbian poses, with provocative attitudes bordering on pornography.

The huge wave of "negative" publicity triggered by the book is, however, just another promotional trick, one that helps launch sales of the new album, whose title — far from casual — is Erotica (1992). A record of icy dance music, built on a drier, more glacial groove, marked by syncopated bass and hip-hop beats, with vocals that grow increasingly minimal, almost a falsetto recitation, or else slide into deep, sensual tones. For the first time Madonna isn't chasing the hit, but the sound, working alongside two other producers, Shep Pettibone and Andre Betts.
The nymphomaniac mantra of the obsessive title track is its most eloquent manifesto, but the equally unsettling "Waiting", the rarefied electronics of "Rain" and the blend of jazzy textures and drum'n'bass on "Secret Garden" also leave their mark. Elsewhere (the near-spoken-word "Where Life Begins") the sensuality masks a certain emptiness, while breezier moments like "Deeper And Deeper" and "Thief Of Hearts" keep a link to 80s electro-pop, though without the same sweeping appeal. The ballad "Bad Girl" earns itself a video featuring an exceptional guest star, Christopher Walken, cast as an improbable "guardian angel".
Erotica is perhaps Madonna's most experimental record, the one where the artistic project, devised by the producers of course, takes organic shape, transcending the individual songs. But what strikes most is the dramatic tension that emerges, that of a star as cynical as she is unhappy. As Jean Baudrillard writes with ruthless clarity in his "The Perfect Crime" (Cortina Editore): "Madonna fights desperately in a universe without answers, that of sexual indifference. Hence the urgency of hypersexualized sex, whose signs grow more and more exasperated precisely because they no longer address anyone. That is why she is condemned to embody every role, every version (and perversion) of sex. In fact, she fights against her own sex, she fights against her own body. Lacking anyone else to free her from herself, she is forced to build herself an arsenal of accessories, in reality a sadistic apparatus from which she tries to free herself. The body is harassed by sex, sex is harassed by signs. She is perpetually decked out, whether in leather or metal, in the obscene will to be naked, in the artificial mannerism of display. Madonna thus ends up paradoxically embodying the frenetic frigidity of our age. She can play every role. But can she do so because she possesses a solid identity, a fantastic capacity for identification, or because she has no identity at all? Certainly because she has none, but the essential thing is knowing how to exploit, as she does, this fantastic absence of identity."

The sophisticated experimentation of the Nineties continues with Bedtime Stories (1994), where the decision to ditch the electronic gadgetry of the previous record in favour of a bloodier, distinctly black groove throws many fans off guard. Prominent producers flock to Madonna's court, including Babyface, Dallas Austin, Nellee Hooper and Marius De Vries, alongside Björk, who co-writes the title track. The song's video, directed by Mark Romanek, would also become famous for its record-breaking $5 million budget, remaining one of the most expensive ever made. Pop and R&B sounds with a glamorous sheen inform several tracks on the album ("I'd Rather Be Your Lover", "Survival", "Human Nature"), while "Don't Stop" recaptures a certain funky-dance verve.
After a shaky start, the album nonetheless goes multi-platinum thanks to the soft ballad single "Take A Bow", which spends two months atop the US top ten, boosted also by its vintage-style video, in which Madonna plays the lover of a bullfighter.

In 1995, while the compilation Something To Remember comes out, featuring unreleased material (including a version of Marvin Gaye's "I Want You" recorded with Massive Attack), Madonna is in Argentina playing Eva Perón in Alan Parker's film Evita, the Hollywood version of the famous musical by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber. For this film she will receive an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, but only for her performance of "You Must Love Me", one of the songs on the soundtrack.

Madonna in Orbit

Still a fixture of the gossip pages for her flings and her provocations, Madonna completes her transformation from teen popstar to refined singer-songwriter with Ray Of Light (1998), her finest album since the days of the "Virgin". Credit is also due to the well-chosen cast of producers, headed by beatmaster William Orbit (king of trip-hop and jungle), flanked by Craig Armstrong and Patrick Leonard. Madonna thus finds herself surrounded by a thicket of synths, bleeps, loops and samples, putting her seductive voice at the service of a completely new sound.
A perfect fusion of new-age spirituality and sensuality, Zen mysticism and technological pulse, the album reaches peaks of genuine quality, such as the near world-music single "Frozen", with its elaborate, rarefied synthetic arrangement wedded to Arabic-tinged percussion and a delicate melody, or the equally splendid "The Power Of Goodbye", with its sinuous stride set within a shimmering electronic frame of sampled strings and swirling synths, and the driving dance novelties "Nothing Really Matters" and the title track.
The lyrics range from mysticism ("Shanti/Ashtangi" is an adaptation of a text drawn from Shankara's "Yoga Taravali", sung entirely in Sanskrit) to autobiographical episodes, with little Lourdes at the centre of the tender lullabies "Little Star" and "Substitute For Love", while on "Mer Girl" Madonna confronts her relationship with her family, in particular with her mother, referred to with the Anglo-French phrase "girl of the sea".
Closer to Björk than to Donna Summer, the Madonna of Ray Of Light is a polished singer-songwriter and a mature woman grappling with new generational issues, from motherhood (truly the key theme of the record) to the restless spiritual quest that would draw her ever closer to Kabbalah.

Mother of two children, Lourdes and Rocco, born to two different fathers and "occasional lovers", Madonna closes out the Nineties having sold over a hundred million albums.

Her partnership with Orbit, however, doesn't repeat its magic on the follow-up Music (2000), which abruptly halts her musical growth, lapsing into sterile, monotonous dance music. Madonna shows up dressed as a cowgirl, but she has few cartridges left in her belt, and this time even Orbit is firing blanks ("Runaway Lover" and "Amazing" are as pretentious as they are insipid). Even the electronic backdrops of the other go-to wizard of the moment, Frenchman Mirwais Ahmadzaï ("Impressive Instant"), fail to redeem the overall poverty of ideas. And the success of the pounding "Don't Tell Me" owes much to its "cow-chic" video, once again masterfully directed by Mondino.
A thoroughly forgettable record, in short, with the exception of the fizzy title track "Music", with its robotic, syncopated stride almost à la Prince: yet another dance-music lesson to hand out to the various wannabe nymphets.

Madonna, however, seems by now to have found her own personal balance, as shown also by her marriage to Scottish director Guy Ritchie (in a lavish ceremony at Skibo Castle in Scotland). And anyone who saw her live on stage during the last "Drowned World Tour" — which she herself described as "the triumph of technology applied to art" — got to witness her undiminished verve as a showgirl and choreographer. Her acting career, admittedly less exhilarating, also continues, with "The Next Best Thing", alongside Rupert Everett.

But ideas keep running short, and not even the heavily hyped American Life (2003) manages to reverse the decline of Madonna's 2000s output, which now seems trapped in a sea of trashy clichés. The flat title-track single is among the worst she's ever released, the syrupy ballads "Hollywood" and "Love Profusion" induce yawns, and not even the techno pulse of "Nobody Knows Me" manages to revive the listener.
And then, let's be honest, there's something a bit melancholy about a Madonna who censors herself after just 24 hours of heavy rotation, swapping out the first version of the "American Life" video (directed by Jonas Åkerlund) for a far more inoffensive second cut ("I didn't want to offend American sensibilities").
The carefree punkette of Like A Virgin and the high priestess of trip-pop-age on Ray Of Light seem to have vanished for good, replaced by a seasoned Hollywood glamour of dubious taste and scant inventiveness.

Back to the Dancefloor

With Confessions On A Dancefloor (2005), however, she pulls off a miracle. Madonna finds her footing again, looking back to the past, to the clubs where her legend was born. It's a record that moves along three time frames: 80s dance music, what came before it (its chief inspirers, Kraftwerk) and what came after (its chief rediscoverers, Daft Punk). All of it channelled together into a sound that feels current and precise, thanks to Stuart Price's flawless work in the control room.
"Hung Up", the first single, relies on a perfect solution: an ABBA sample that lends just the right verve to the song's tight electronic rhythms, which unfold at a train-like pace. Without a break, it flows straight into "Get Together". A sinuous melody stretches out over beds of lightly distorted synths, a steady electronic beat and little keyboard flourishes and pulses filling out the sound. Its melodic strength makes it the album's most striking track. The one that gradually reveals itself is the future second single, the brisk "Sorry", a pulsing little tune boasting metallic clangs and vocoder in the backing vocals. "I Love New York" deserves just as much attention, a track of high rock attitude, declaimed, tough-sounding vocals, drums marking the air, electronic flourishes. In short, the opening run is dazzling, with only "Future Lovers" (the most 80s-sounding track of the bunch) failing in its quest for atmosphere.
The record's central section, by contrast, is a touch more subdued. Most notable is the hook of the ballad "Forbidden Love", with vocoder and little bells in Daft Punk flavour and a very Madonna-esque melody, sung with grace and charm, while underneath a very Kraftwerk-ian Computer World-style pulse works away, linking it to the restless "Jump". The violins of "How High" and the guitar riffs of "Isaac", along with both tracks' synths, do the valuable dirty work on the atmosphere, which proves hugely useful in fully savouring the record's true gem. That would be "Push", an extremely sensual track, an arrangement masterpiece with Arabic-tinged percussion, gusts of synth and violins, crystalline touches hovering between dream and fear, surprise and delight as it opens up into the sweet caress of the hook. A most fitting closer is the (almost equally) beautiful hand-clap-paced stroll of "Like It Or Not", built on a slightly desolate guitar music-box figure, with Madonna's performance deeply felt and assured.

Three years later, for Hard Candy, Madonna plays it safe, hiring the wonder trio of Pharrell, Timbaland and Timberlake. The producers are brought in for exactly what they do best: the record leans on their signature choppy rhythms and bright, modern arrangements. Madonna works the melodic side, bringing with her the disco/house experience of "Confessions". In essence, it's a sonic facelift to cement her new status as queen of the dancefloor.
The drum-heavy intro "Candy Shop" sums up exactly that: a basic melody, percussion and synths bearing Pharrell's trademark, dance music hovering between sensual and open, a hook with electronics made to sound like violins. The slow "Miles Away" refreshes the wardrobe (guitar, percussion, keyboards) of Madonna the balladeer, able to bring retro-flavoured melodies up to date. The same operation happens on "Devil Wouldn't Recognize You": another fine track, though one with greater potential than the final result suggests.
On the other hand, of course, there's "4 Minutes". The lead single, a duet with Justin Timberlake, is a typical Timbaland bomb: horns sounding an epic call to war to launch the charges, with the beats serving as both scaffolding and lead actor throughout. Even better is the second single, "Give It 2 Me". A stunning Pharrell synth job, it pilfers from Chemical Brothers here and there and hits the dancefloor sounding like the perfect continuation of the previous album; Madonna does her part, shifting character at every turn, from pseudo-teenager in the hook to femme fatale in the verse. "She's Not Me", with its funky little guitar and violins, is disco revival; then, after a dreamy interlude, it fades out and switches back on in a house, robotic key.
The record's strength is that, beyond its three or four key tracks (the two singles, "Miles Away" and the splendid closing melody of "Voices"), it never really pauses, delivering good results even in the filler moments (the collaboration with Kanye West, "Beat Goes On"; the purely gypsy-flavoured divertissement "Spanish Lesson"). Its strength lies in being all of a piece: energetically rhythmic, colourful, with good melodies and arrangements.

The double anthology Celebration (2009) is the definitive summa of her now nearly thirty-year reign over pop.
Meanwhile, her turbulent family saga continues, including her divorce from Ritchie and the controversial adoption of two children in Malawi, David and Macy, and she ends her European self-exile, returning to her native New York ("I was away for the eight years of Bush," she'll quip on "The David Letterman Show"). What doesn't end, however, are her provocative stunts, from the sapphic kiss (more pathetic than transgressive) with Britney Spears at the MTV Awards to the steamy photos with her new, strapping partner, improbably named Jesus (nomen omen!).

By 2012, Madonna's career has to contend with a problem she had so far managed to dodge with ease. During her couple of years away from the scene, an aggressive horde of popstars consolidate their status as chart dominators at her expense, and she increasingly becomes a looming yardstick, routinely wielded against any younger colleague setting out to follow in her footsteps. The burden she has to bear is twofold: a marked impatience toward her from a new generation of pop devotees who, understandably, don't take kindly to seeing the achievements of their current idols diminished by comparison with a middle-aged woman they barely know, and, as a consequence, having become, in everyone else's eyes, a sort of taken-for-granted institution unfit to compete in a field that demands youth as its primary requirement.
And she accepts the challenge. Indifferent to making something befitting her age, and rightly convinced that even the most frivolous song, to work, must stand on its own two feet rather than on the demographically youthful legs of whoever sings it, the new Madonna presents herself under the banner of an aggressive, angular and, naturally, young sound.
Forgetting the dutiful, meticulously citation-heavy disco of Confessions On A Dancefloor, MDNA (2012) is an electro-dance maelstrom that overwhelms the listener with sheer force, probably inspired by Kelis's underrated Flesh Tone (several collaborators are shared between the two) and finding its apotheosis in the molten "Gang Bang", a dark pulse with Madonna cast in the hysterical role of a Nancy Sinatra as reimagined by Robert Rodriguez.
Lending her a hand in the enterprise are two producers who aren't exactly fresh faces but have recently returned to the spotlight, Benny Benassi and Martin Solveig. The Italian DJ gets the task of kicking off the festivities, sirens blaring, with a "Girl Gone Wild" as infectious as it is predictable, and of making an impression shortly after with the ecstatic "I'm Addicted", distorted techno-pop that's damn catchy nonetheless.
The unmistakable house touch of the French DJ is instead clearly recognizable behind (a future classic?) "Turn Up The Radio", a perfect marriage of nostalgia and euphoria on the dancefloor, and on "I Don't Give A", with the torrential Nicki Minaj lending her talents to an elastic old-school hip-hop groove that culminates in a service that's nothing short of apocalyptic (and foul-mouthed). Solveig, who also handles several bonus tracks on the deluxe edition, also has fun bringing Madonna back to the bubblegum pop of her early days. Once again in the company of Minaj, as well as the increasingly politically incorrect M.I.A., the witty stadium-ready jingle "Give Me All Your Luvin'" pokes fun at her imitators and serves, alongside a perky but overly saccharine "Superstar" (also harking back to the sixties in electro clothing, as does the bonus track "B-Day Song"), to gradually prepare the ground for a more subdued ending that seems designed to soothe the ears after the initial, pounding bender.
The fourth mind involved in the project is, in fact, a returning William Orbit (already on duty for the celebrated "Ray Of Light"), who, not before stating his case about the album's primary intentions (with the abrasive stomper "Some Girls"), ferries his muse toward more reflective, yet still synthetic, shores. If "I'm A Sinner" — Madonna's take on Catholicism on acid — is the Panjabi-tinged psychedelia fans had been asking for over the years, "Love Spent" is an agile ballad that gradually climbs toward a throbbing ABBA-style dance crescendo. The album then mellows into softer hues, first with a conventional "Masterpiece", which Ciccone sings with just the right restraint, and then, in a lovely play of strings and reverb, with a more essential "Falling Free", with its unexpectedly Celtic atmospheres.
Introspective finale included, MDNA is a well-structured project that impresses above all for its boldness, its sense of urgency and a pyrotechnic production (which some might find exhausting), though not unprecedented, and which at times suffers from a certain mechanical approach. Madonna no longer seems interested in staying one step ahead but is more direct than ever: she's a wounded ex-wife, an obsessive, a murderer, a sinner begging the Lord for forgiveness while fully aware she's lying through her teeth. The impression is that, for once, the staging isn't aimed at chasing easy provocation (audiences are used to that by now) but at celebrating the very essence of her controversial persona, offered up to the new generation.

To launch her new effort, however, Madonna cuts her TV promotion down to a single appearance, an extremely lavish half-time show during the American football championship final (which, predictably, will set mostly American media talking), before turning her attention to planning her new, imminent world tour. Not especially flattering reviews, ever-shrinking support from radio stations and her apparent indifference to promoting it outside of concerts will see MDNA sell only a couple million copies and have a fairly brief stay on world charts. Not entirely disastrous figures in today's record market, but not for someone like her, used to far greater acclaim and results. Records that nonetheless won't be long in coming when, by year's end, the MDNA Tour turns out to be the highest-grossing and best-attended tour of 2012 and the second most successful female tour of all time, behind Madonna's own Sticky & Sweet Tour, partially patching up the album's débâcle. Many begin to suspect that having left Warner Bros. Records to sign a peculiar and extremely costly deal with Live Nation, the concert-promotion giant, is leading the singer to treat her new studio creations as little more than a lazy pretext for going on tour, by now the only real source of income in an increasingly ailing record market.

Three years would pass before her next studio effort, years marked by constant hints, teasers and wild leaks of unfinished material that would lead the public to form a premature impression of the work to come. Ciccone, however, always tuned in to the most cutting-edge frequencies, seems to keep making her stylistic choices regardless of expectations, well aware that she can't please everyone and that hitting the mark for many fans means disappointing just as many others.
Her new album Rebel Heart (2015) is nonetheless so varied (a whopping 19 tracks on the deluxe edition!) that anyone can find some song that brings back their favourite version of Madonna: whether it's the one nod to classic dancefloor fare ("Living For Love", which, via Route 99 and Clean Bandit, looks to the British house revival), the spiritual country of "Devil Pray" and the autobiographical title track, or a couple of bittersweet electro-ballads like the lovely "Inside Out" and "Ghosttown". A less rigorous project than usual, in short, though there's always a martial electronic break or a ghostly synth line lurking around the corner to pull the listener away from that nostalgic comfort zone, revealing the record's main coordinates: the ones that in the past have often made plenty of people wrinkle their nose, and that once again rhyme with urban and contemporary R&B. No longer carefree as in the days of Hard Candy or glossy as in Bedtime Stories, but decidedly more serious and close, in intent, both to the torments of Erotica and to the leaden, cyber visions of the latest Kanye West. The Chicago rapper is also one of several collaborators chosen for the album's concept (which also boasts a roster of big-name guests such as Nas, repeat offender Nicki Minaj and rising star Chance The Rapper), and his influence is tangible not only on the tracks he co-produced. The pyrotechnic EDM crescendo of "Iconic", which abruptly dissolves into near-horror atmospheres, the macabre moombahton dance of "Illuminati", the trap transfiguration of material-girl pop on "Holy Water" and the acoustic/lavish dichotomy of "Veni Vidi Vici" form the backbone of a nervy record that, especially in its second half, strikes for its unexpected sorrow even when the mood turns steamier ("S.E.X."). It's an unusually austere Madonna heard among the grooves of ballads (many, and introspective in a way that hasn't happened in years) such as the dramatic, gospel-tinged "HeartBreakCity", a lavishly orchestral "Messiah" and an elegiac "Wash All Over Me", set to a stripped-down little march. A melancholy that refuses to shake off even during the intriguing, gently folkloric ethnic digressions of "Body Shop" and the more sensual, Orientalist "Best Night".
As a counterweight, the first half is at times brighter, and it's chiefly a master of global cross-pollination like Diplo who lends Ciccone a hand in giving herself a nice sonic facelift. An operation not without a few rough edges, spread across a tracklist that's at times overly schizophrenic, where good melodic ideas occasionally get lost between the generic ("Hold Tight") and the mannered ("Joan Of Arc"). Relying on their straightforwardness for the whole length of Rebel Heart might have been the safer move, but no, this is Madonna, and she prefers to go all in, as she irreverently proclaims on the boldest, most ironic and unhinged track of her entire career, bound to seriously ruffle the feathers of those who'd like to keep her tied to more traditional disco clichés. After all, what else should you expect from a bitch who, without a hint of remorse, makes her fans sing along to a perfect pop chorus ("Unapologetic Bitch", indeed) set against reggaeton rhythms that, you can bet, they never in a million years wanted as a gift from their idol?

Four years passed before she returned to the public eye with a new effort, and Madonna finds herself having to reckon with a pop landscape that has once again been reshuffled. With the rise of streaming and the real-time publication of truly global popularity charts, it became clear that the long-underrated Latin American markets were in fact consistently capable of generating numbers equal to, and sometimes greater than, those of the United States, and that their output was no longer confined to the role of seasonal divertissement for the more danceable rhythms, or of cult status for the more refined sounds. A shift in the record industry that certainly didn't escape the radar of that old fox Ciccone, probably disappointed by the scant attention paid to her by increasingly ageist Anglo-American media, and thus intent on winning over all those populations who, culturally, seem less fazed by the date printed on her ID card. Then again, who better than her to exploit a situation like this? Ever since "La Isla Bonita" became one of her biggest and most enduring hits, few of her albums have failed to include at least a wink toward Hispanic or South American sounds.

A fortuitous coincidence had it that, right around this time, Madonna relocated to Lisbon for family reasons, and in doing so came into contact not only with reggaeton, by now ubiquitous, but also with a number of local musicians who introduced her to genres rarely explored in pop. Her European stay also brought her back into contact with the reclusive Mirwais Ahmadzaï, with whom, years earlier, she had made some of her most unconventional tracks. And it's thanks to the unmistakable touch of the French-Afghan producer that a meticulous, new-age-tinged electronic palette and layers of vocoder personalize and elevate the otherwise too-earthbound latin-pop of “Medellín”, creating a robotic hybrid somewhat reminiscent of the electro-country she coined twenty years earlier on Music.
With these sonic coordinates firmly in mind, Madame X urges us to follow her on a fascinating, polyglot journey through the Third World that, starting in Portugal (the reworked fado of “Killers Who Are Partying” is inevitable), brushes the Moroccan coast to the throb of “Come Alive” and the beaches of Cape Verde with the feverish tribalism of “Batuka”, before heading overseas. And so, between Caribbean dancehall (a “Future” that's anything but carefree), frantic Rio funk alongside the curvaceous Anitta (the international makeover of Blaya's recent hit “Faz Gostoso”) and the shameless, gangsta-tinged reggaeton of “Bitch I'm Loca” (once again featuring Colombian star Maluma), Madonna lands the few truly “populist” moments of an otherwise refined album, and pulls off, with real credibility, yet another transformation. She does it so well that even when she chases contemporaneity while staying within her comfort zone, as on the delicate trap of “Crave” (a great choice in the melodic rapper Swae Lee on backing vocals), it's impossible not to feel the saudade for her beloved New York.
Madame X, however, isn't just a wandering devotee of distant cultures and Real World archives, it's arguably also a device used to carry what are her most politically engaged lyrics since American Life. With a naive self-importance that would make Bono jealous, this time Ciccone never misses a chance to remind her listeners of the urgency of standing up against every abuse: the interests of corrupt politicians, the free circulation of weapons, and discrimination of every kind, racial, social, religious and sexual. Themes that curiously coincide with the record's most outlandish moments, like when, on “Dark Ballet”, she steps into the shoes of Joan of Arc and, in the middle of an otherwise fairly conventional melody, the Tchaikovsky-esque “Dance of the Reed Flutes” suddenly bursts in, synthesized as if Wendy Carlos had left it out of the A Clockwork Orange soundtrack at the last minute. A moment as bold as it is clumsy, one to be appreciated more for its bizarre unpredictability (and its lovely piano arrangement) than for the success of the experiment itself.
Nostalgics for her more flamboyant dance side can nonetheless breathe a sigh of relief: even the engaged “Madame X” still likes to dance on more traditional dancefloors every now and then, because, in her own words, “you cannot hit a moving target”. If the Tom Tom Club-style disco pastiche of “God Control” is still too steeped in political commitment and solemn coups de théâtre to move the masses with any lightness, the sinuous tribute to '90s house of “I Don't Search I Find” should serve as a consolation prize for fans unable to keep pace with their idol. It's a paradox, because Madonna, even in her fourth decade of her career, is once again putting herself on the line instead of retreating into a self-celebratory ivory discotheque, showing enviable vitality and curiosity, and crafting a work that, while lacking instantly explosive melodies, stands out for its overall vision and carefully chiseled atmospheres. This strange, Latin-tinged, preachy melting pot probably isn't what her old audience would want to hear at this point, but the point is that anything old simply doesn't seem to interest her. Ungrateful, but perfectly in line with her persona.

In the summer of 2017, as we mentioned, Madonna left London to move with her large family to sunnier Lisbon. The triggering factor seems to have been her intention to closely follow the football career of her son David, who was playing in Benfica's youth ranks. From her new royal residence, the pop icon was not immune to the decadent, melancholic Lusitanian influences, so much so that “Madame X” ended up considerably contaminated by them, confirming the traits of an artist who never stops questioning herself, constantly opening up to new artistic experiences. Madonna believed in this work so strongly that she chose to mount a promotional tour focused almost exclusively on the new songs, leaving a smaller space than usual for the rest of her catalogue. A show conceived for the theatrical dimension, whose European leg kicked off right in the Portuguese capital, on January 12, 2020, with six nights at the Coliseu dos Recreios, followed by ten dates at the Palladium in London and eight at the Grand Rex in Paris, the last of which took place on March 8, after which the run of shows was abruptly cut short due to the pandemic.
A summary of the Lisbon performances (the set varied slightly every night), Music From The Theatre Xperience, released in early October 2021, is part of a project that also includes a docufilm featuring footage from those shows, interspersed with behind-the-scenes material and a making-of. The selection fixed on record offers almost the entire tracklist of “Madame X”, from the autotune of “God Control” and “Dark Ballet” to the exotic tribalism of “Batuka” and “Come Alive”, passing through the bright '90s dancefloor of “I Don't Search, I Find” and the tributes to Lusitanian tradition contained in the section including “Fado Pechincha”, “Killers Who Are Partying” and the brief divertissement “Welcome To My Fado Club”, with a short quote from “La Isla Bonita”. Ties to the past are secured by an elegant “Human Nature”, enriched with sinuous jazzy touches, a “Vogue” still able to get entire crowds moving, a minimalist version of “Frozen”, among the peaks of her long career, and, to close, the oldest track included in the setlist, “Like A Prayer”. It's yet another Madonna musical in technicolor, staged (as usual) with boldness and extravagance, featuring 48 artists on stage, between musicians and dancers, handpicked from every corner of the globe, including the Orquestra Batukadeiras, an all-female group from the islands of Cape Verde. Madonna holds nothing back, and at 61 physical setbacks are always just around the corner, but one hopes the theatrical experience can resume, to bring the show to many other cities.

In August 2022, Finally Enough Love: 50 Number Ones was released, a compilation featuring Madonna's songs that over the years topped Billboard's Club Dance Chart. The project reached the very top of the sales charts practically everywhere, Italy included, helped also by a shorter, 16-track version sold at a reduced price.
The anthology, personally curated by the American pop star, offers a complete overview of the artist's entire career, naturally delving deeper into her dancefloor-oriented side. The only flaw in the selection lies in its reliance on too many “edit versions”, when it would have been more interesting to gather the best remix versions crafted over the years by some of the most important international producers.

But the revival keeps going, trends come full circle, the Nineties are a goldmine of material ripe for plundering at will — and Madonna, who back then reinvented herself with a masterpiece like “Ray Of Light”, must have felt implicitly called upon. Hence Veronica Electronica, a remix album long championed but never officially released, even though some of these versions had already surfaced in other ways. Nothing new, then, this is simply archival material, structured as a journey of trance spirals and techno pulses, returning to the heart of what was once that cathartic, frenzied dancefloor. The notorious production richness of the original material, cooked up mainly with William Orbit and Patrick Leonard, suits the purpose well.
The standout moment is the previously unreleased demo “Gone Gone Gone”, a song blessed with the limpid melodic touch of Madonna and Rick Nowels, warm and emotional, with sparse keyboard and drum machine touches, plus a chorus that opens up like the sky after a storm — it's one of the quietly most beautiful moments of recent weeks, and fans have loved it.

Across the rest of the tracklist, the sound remains consistently excellent, steeped in spice and spirituality, at times serrated by more aggressive programming, at times smoothed over by brooding ambient moods; here's Welsh producer Sasha reweaving “Drowned World / Substitute For Love” with endless trance flourishes, then taking on “Ray Of Light” to turn it into a techno stomper worthy of Underworld, while the late Peter Rauhofer reshapes “Skin” and “Nothing Really Matters” with aggressive touches straight out of an underground European club. Granted, “Frozen” is little more than a cinematic swap of parts, while Victor Calderone merely replaces the beat on “Sky Fits Heaven”, keeping its ecstatic quality intact but failing to offer the spark needed to properly transform it. Better is when the famous ballad “The Power Of Goodbye” gets whisked away by Fabien over a light, Goldie-style drum'n'bass ostinato.

And so it is in this in-between land that Veronica Electronica cradles the nostalgic listener, but it fails to truly dig deep into its own era, resulting in a listen that back in the day might have seemed subversive at the top of the charts, but today reads simply as a curiosity. What's mostly missed is the lack of more unreleased material, which would have whetted the appetite of listeners of every age, but Madonna has always been stingy with b-sides. One also notices the tendency to work on the originals while leaving the studio vocal takes untouched, but the art of remixing works best when fresh ideas come directly from the artist in question — as Mariah Carey well knows, who in those very same years was reimagining her own songs from the ground up, often with surprising results.
Still, with just one remix per track, avoiding repetition and staying firmly in control of the mood, Veronica Electronica sounds like a series of curious negatives held up to the light, the B-side of a hugely beloved album still unrepeatable after all these years, one that Madonna herself felt the need to draw from in order to reconnect with a past era that, in her case, truly was a happy one.

Madonna is in all likelihood the most successful female figure in the history of pop music ever. Forbes magazine estimated her net worth at 530 million dollars. She is currently the fourth richest woman in entertainment. According to Guinness World Records and Billboard Magazine, she is also the highest-earning female artist of all time. Even though her records haven't always lived up to her fame, she can truly claim to have marked an era in the iconography of popular music. First by capitalizing on her record labels' marketing machinery, then by personally seizing control of her own image and music, all while cycling through a continuous string of high-profile producers.

Despite the countless awards she's received (the MTV Music Awards, Grammys and other accolades are too many to count), critics have never been particularly kind to her. Today, however, many have changed their minds, riding the wave of that eighties revivalism which has also brought her sounds back into the spotlight, the very ones she herself celebrated in her “confessions on a dancefloor”. Even in the indie world she has managed to win over a good deal of skepticism, just think of the tokens of appreciation she received from Sonic Youth and unexpected tributes like the one from the Flaming Lips (their cover of “Borderline”).
But for many she will always and only be a shrewd business-woman, guilty, moreover, of having opened the floodgates to the uncontrolled proliferation of popstars (Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Rihanna, Katy Perry, Gwen Stefani, Kylie Minogue and company) now that the test of time has already made clear the gap in charisma and artistic substance.

“My most important quality? Perhaps the fact that I'm an independent woman who fights for what she believes in without worrying about other people's judgment,” Madonna claims. “I've always believed in myself, in my own potential, I wanted to say something.” Indeed, in her case, wanting is power. That much is proven by a now nearly thirty-year career built on the most unbridled (and calculated) chameleon-like spirit. “I believe that staying faithful to one image is the death of creativity,” she once revealed. And so the punkette of “Lucky Star”, the fatal blonde of “Material Girl”, the single mother of “Papa Don't Preach” and the nymphomaniac of “Erotica” have all been absorbed into a new kind of postmodern diva, somewhere between a shameless high priestess and a glamour icon. A universal celebrity, able to captivate audiences of every age and social background.
What else can be added to the handbook of the perfect popstar?

Between health scares, fortunately resolved, muddled appearances, and equally questionable outfits, Madonna has arrived at 2026 artistically battered, weighed down by a gravity that's become unsustainable for a singer on the verge of seventy, and swamped by an almost incalculable number of new little queens of that thing called pop music. It must also be said that the days when Ciccone's face was lit by Vittorio Storaro, imagining her as a Marilyn escaped from a comic strip in that masterpiece of cartoonish lighting and two-bit gangster theatrics that was “Dick Tracy”, are utterly unknown to new generations. And yet, setting aside all the difficulties of the case, Madonna has somehow rediscovered her lost hunger. And to do so, she had to pick back up a thread momentarily put on hold in 2005, when she was the one enthralling half the world with wildly successful earworms and jaw-dropping tours.

Confessions II was in fact born as a sequel to Confessions on a Dance Floor, and also marks Madonna's return to Warner and to Stuart Price, the producer who stood by her side during the glorious mid-2000s.

Officially announced on April 15, 2026, the material girl's fifteenth studio album was unveiled with a manifesto published on the singer's official website, one that captures well the spirit running through the sixteen new songs: “We have to dance, celebrate and pray with our bodies. These are things we've done for thousands of years: they are genuine spiritual practices. After all, the dancefloor is a ritual space. It's a place where you connect: with your own wounds, with your own fragility. Raving is an art. It means pushing past your own limits and connecting with a community of like-minded people. Sound, light and vibration reshape our perceptions, pulling us into a trance state. We don't just hear the repetition of the bass, we feel it, altering our consciousness and dissolving ego and time.”

It's a genuine advertisement that turns dance music into a sort of Eastern philosophy. Starting with the opening track, “I Feel So Free”, which, between Lil' Louis samples and self-sampling, aims to immediately put Madonna back at the center of the village, or at the heart of the “village people”, take it either way. It's a song with a rhythm reminiscent of Tiga in his “Sexor” days, to draw an immediate parallel. So, soft house underpinning a sensual little tune with Moroder and Donna Summer on the horizon. The move of appearing by surprise alongside Sabrina Carpenter during the latest Coachella, to launch the single “Bring Your Love”, says even more about Ciccone's promotional ambitions. It should also be said that the track is extremely watered-down pop, full of melodic pirouettes between one little breakdown and the next, a nod to Inner City's “Good Life”, excited siren-like voices intertwining, in short a kind of b-side dug out of a drawer shut twenty-one years ago. And yet, by some strange law, the song works, or at least it does its glossy duty.

Between surprise appearances in New York streamed on Grindr and YouTube to launch the second single, “Love Sensation”, Madonna almost instantly gave off the sense of having made a self-aware dance record, not a shape-shifting, disorienting one, let's be clear, but an honest one, a revival of her own revival, which is something new for a shapeshifter like her. It's no coincidence that “Love Sensation” is also the most successful house-pop track of the bunch, and the one radiating the most energy across a tracklist conceived like a DJ set. Also worth appreciating is “One Step Away”, less house and more lunar, but finely calibrated in its pulse beyond the dancefloor, with a perfectly placed shift in rhythm almost at the end, right before the aforementioned duet with Carpenter and, above all, “Danceteria”, perhaps the most '90s moment of the bunch, at least melodically, with Madonna singing like a dancefloor diva tired of it all, complete with a sample of Lou Reed's “Walk on the Wild Side”.

At this wide-open party, the usual Latin-flavored missteps so dear to Ciccone are not in short supply, like the predictable “Read My Lips” featuring Feid, or the vaguely French-touch phrasing of “Everything”, which nonetheless shifts admirably in its second half, despite a rather too obvious production. The presence of three little monsters like Martin Garrix, Cirkut and Andrew Watt is palpable, take for example the beat of “Bizarre”, with the first acting as an untamable ringmaster behind the desk.

Also curious, and significant in its own way, is the presence of Stromae on “My Sins Are My Savior”, which turns the clock back not twenty but nearly forty years, as shown by the hefty sample this time of “My Army of Lovers” by Army of Lovers, an unforgettable single for lovers of the campest dance music, released, in fact, in 1990. And what to make of much of the mournful “Betrayal”, melancholically built around a melodic line borrowed from Erik Satie? Sure, there's also a decidedly dull moment in the duet with Lola Leon on the insipid “The Test”. But the closing “L.E.S. Girl” — that is, the girl from the Lower East Side — closes out the set like a music box placed at the centre of the dancefloor before it all comes to an end.

Aside from its danceable spirit, Confessions II has little in common with its putative father, being a less impulsive and more “thoughtful” record, hungry for life but never overdoing it, and perhaps precisely for this reason in line with the wishes of a pop star who, quite rightly, has no intention of leaving the firmament, and who for the occasion once again dons a Versace that, like it or not, will never go out of fashion.

Contributions by Ciro Frattini (“Confessions On A Dancefloor”, “Hard Candy”), Stefano Fiori (“MDNA”, “Rebel Heart”, “Madame X”), Claudio Lancia (“Madame X – Music From The Theatre Xperience” and “Finally Enough Love”), Damiano Pandolfini (“Veronica Electronica”), Giuliano Delli Paoli (“Confessions II”)

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