Just days after the official announcement, Madonna offers the first taste of “Confessions II”, the direct sequel to “Confessions On A Dance Floor“, due out this summer. The project also marks a renewed collaboration with producer Stuart Price, a key figure on the original chapter.
The lead track, “I Feel So Free,” began circulating informally after airing on iHeartRadio's Pride Radio, immediately sparking a flood of radio rips. More than a structured rollout, then, it was a spontaneous spread that got ahead of the official release. The song fits into a familiar thematic thread: individual liberation through the body and movement, a motif Madonna has explored for decades. The title explicitly echoes a line from “Into The Groove,” drawing a direct line back to her own back catalogue. Sonically, the track rides a pulsing, layered italo-house groove, built by Price with a tight, unrelenting energy. Madonna's vocal presence stays central and instantly recognizable, keeping a tension that keeps the song from flattening into club cliché.
Listen to "I Feel So Free" below.
"Confessions II" will be released on July 3 through Warner Records. The new album is the follow-up to the iconic "Confessions On A Dance Floor". Ahead of the first single, the American artist shared a brief visual teaser built on trance-inflected suggestions, offering a first clue to the sonic framework of the project. Once again, at the heart of it all is dance music, which Madonna champions as a vital experience: "People think dance music is superficial, but they're dead wrong. The dancefloor isn't just a place, it's a threshold: a ritual space where movement replaces language", Madonna says, quoting the opening lines of her song "One Step Away". She then adds: "When Stuart Price and I started working on this album, this was our manifesto: we have to dance, celebrate and pray with our bodies. These are things we've been doing for thousands of years: they're 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. The rave is an art form. It's about 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-like state. We don't just hear the repetition of the bass, we feel it. It alters our consciousness and dissolves both ego and time".
Earlier on, Madonna had already sent out signals hinting at the announcement of the new album. The clearest gesture was the complete wipe of her official Instagram profile, a move that has become a standard move in the pop industry as a prelude to an announcement. At the same time, the website of the "Like A Virgin" artist was updated with cryptic artwork bearing the words "Confessions on a Dancefloor", "Confessions on a Dancefloor II" and "COADF 2". Dominating the image is a shot bound to spark discussion: a female figure lying down, in high heels, legs spread, with a speaker placed in between.
Her Instagram bio was also changed to the line "Time goes by so slowly", a direct quote from "Hung Up", one of the best-known tracks from "Confessions On A Dance Floor". The reference hardly seems accidental: everything suggests the American pop star is preparing a follow-up to that 2005 record, one of the most significant chapters of her career.
At the time, the album took the world by storm, topping the charts in dozens of countries and selling over ten million copies. The single “Hung Up”, built around a sample of ABBA's “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!”, dominated international charts, while tracks like “Sorry” and “Jump” cemented a tight, cohesive dance sound. The album also won a Grammy for Best Electronic/Dance Album.
Her last studio album, "Madame X", dates back to 2019, while in the years since Madonna has released standalone singles and also dealt with health issues, culminating in a severe bacterial infection that forced her into emergency hospitalization in 2023. The celebratory tour that followed, grossing over $200 million, marked a solid return to the stage, however.
Meanwhile, the American artist continues to work on other fronts as well: after the difficulties encountered by a planned biopic, a collaboration has been launched with director Shawn Levy for a Netflix series centered on her rise to fame.
On the release front, no official date has been announced yet. However, a few recent moves seem to be laying the groundwork: on March 27th, a reissue of the 2005 album "Confessions on a Dance Floor (The Silver Collection)" was released, while Record Store Day is set to bring "The Confessions Tour – Live from London", a recording of the 2006 Wembley Arena show.
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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by OndaRock Staff, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.