We have Confessions to make...

Introducing Madonna's Confessions 2

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1:06Charlie, I have a confession to make. My door's open. Forgive me, Father, but I have not paid any attention to the latest album from Madonna. That's going to be at least 30 Hail Marys. You're going to have to say a little prayer. I will say I also have a confession to make. I have been listening to the record, but I haven't really spent enough time listening to it very closely. Like, I don't feel like I've really absorbed it. Luckily, we do have a Madonna expert on staff, producer Rihanna Cruz.

1:44Welcome to Switched On Pod. I am producer Rihanna Cruz. The Madonna expert. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. And I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. And I heard the confessions from the both of you. And I am honored to be your spiritual guide today in hopes that I could gesture the both of you towards enlightenment.

Bring Your Love and Pop Industry Critique

2:06Show us the light. So amidst all of the down-tempo vibes this summer, Madonna, the queen of pop, has returned with an album full of huge hooks, pounding bass, deep emotional resonance. And that is, of course, Madonna's Confessions 2.

2:27Oh, wow. It's 1990 all over again. I feel like I'm four years old. So that's Bring Your Love featuring Sabrina Carpenter. It's one of the singles from Confessions 2. The first time I heard it, I didn't like it because I think there's so many layers in the mix, it could be almost overwhelming. But the more that I listen to it, I think there's a sense of

3:00sonic chaos there that brings a real texture to the music. It feels like being in the middle of the dance floor, hot, sweaty club, sharing a spiritual connection with those around you, as Madonna does on this song with Sabrina Carpenter. Safety in numbers on the dance floor. Safety in numbers. The two pop divas trade verses on this song, but the part of this track that I find myself the most interested in is Madonna's spoken word intro.

3:31Madonna has something that she wants to talk about. It's a funny statement because A, Confessions 2 is Madonna's 15th record. And B, Madonna has always had things she wants to talk about over the course of her career. We all know she's always spoken her mind. Think back to what she says at the beginning of the track, Express Yourself, all the way back in 1989.

4:06Come on, girls. Do you believe in love? Because I got something to say about it. And it goes something like this. She loves an announcement. Oh, yeah. Hear ye, hear ye. Yes. And in the case of Confessions 2, Hear Ye, Hear Ye, this is Madonna's first album in seven years. It's her return back to her label Warner Records after essentially two decades. And over that time, there's been a lot of pent up emotion and reflection that previously hasn't had an artistic outlet.

4:43Notably, speaking of her experience with other labels, she commented on Instagram, Remember when I made records with other artists from beginning to end and I was allowed to be a visionary and not have to go to songwriting camps where no one can sit still for more than 15 minutes. Wow. That's a send up to the entire pop industry. Yeah. So it makes sense that Madonna is coming at this record with shit to say. She's in a newfound place of creative enlightenment and has flowing creativity when she's back in the saddle with

5:14people she trusts. And she's not coming quietly. Confessions 2 is Madonna's 10th number one album in the U.S. It topped the chart in 17 countries and is a sequel to her 2005 smash hit record Confessions on a Dance Floor, which had songs we all know and love like Sorry and Hung Up. That is not Madame X. That is a dance record.

5:47Exactly. One of the great dance records of the 21st century, if I do say so myself. And on her latest record, Confessions 2, she's working again with producer and DJ Stuart Price, who produced almost every track on the first Confessions, while also bringing in contemporary genre-twisting collaborators like the Venezuelan musician Arca and producers du jour Andrew Watt and Circuit. It's necessary. They're everywhere.

The Danceteria Track and New York Lore

6:20They really are. And Bring Your Love was the album's second single. Silly dance track. At the end of the day, Madonna and Sabrina have a silly back and forth, which I love.

6:41I love the line Sabrina says, don't try to distract me with numbers. What does that mean? Are people throwing times tables in front of Sabrina Carpenter? Yeah. It's literally what my five-year-old says when I try to get them to do math problems. Do not try to distract me with numbers. Absolutely not. I think it's probably another throw at the way that musicians are so often compared to each other through metrics of billboard success. Maybe it could be an embrace of Madonna's love of Kabbalah

7:18over numerology. Whoa, Charlie, you were listening to me in the listening to Madonna series. Wow, I'm learning a lot here. I don't know what I'm talking about. So, okay, maybe Bring Your Love means a little bit more than we see on the surface. And I think you could say that about Confessions 2 on the whole. It is more than just a dance record. I see it as Madonna clearing her throat about her life, her career, her ethos as a musician. I find that Confessions 2 is Madonna as an artist refining her practice. And I think it's of note

7:52that in this period where she was in between making records, right? Madonna X came out in 2019. That was her last full album. Madonna was trying to make a biopic about her life. That project fell through. And thus, I feel like this album is Madonna's biopic. Confessions 2 tells Madonna's story on her own terms, recounting her whole life and synthesizing her whole career within one record. I mean, if you described another artist as making an album biopic of their life,

8:25I might roll my eyes. And yet with Madonna, it feels appropriate because her career and her persona is so larger than life. I'm like, yeah, that seems entirely fitting. It's also born on the dance floor. So many of her greatest hits have been dance floor songs. So I'm really glad that she's telling it through a dance vernacular. Yeah, it's a sonic and thematic homecoming for Madonna. And I find it to be clearest on the song that is maybe my favorite track of the year so far. The song Danceteria, named after the now

9:01defunct New York club where Madonna used to hang out in the 80s. Check it out. Okay. Whoa. Rihanna, I'm so... Oh my gosh. I'm hearing so many things now that we're listening closely to it. We have the pulsing background synths of Ray of Light. We have the 909 of Vogue,

9:38the drum machine.

9:42We have the sort of Vogue, spoken style, vocal technique. Everyone here is a work of art. Everyone here is a work of art. And then there's even a throwback lyric to Into the Groove. I just want to move myself in the groove. It's all there. There is a lot happening on this song. And I think it's funny that she starts the song. She starts Danceteria saying, once again... And then proceeds to give us a slew of references, both musically and lyrically,

10:22to previous hits of Madonna's career. You mentioned the reference Into the Groove. There's the line, I just want to lose myself in the groove. Her first single was Everybody. There's the chorus, Everybody Get Up and Dance. It's referencing, references upon references. And the verses of the song tell a story of Madonna's time at the club Danceteria, meeting some of her friends that are often mythologized in the Madonna lore. And it's her story of getting discovered, all while using

10:56her distinct cadence of speak singing that you both said we find on Vogue. I'll give the both of y'all a quick refresher. Listen to how the Bridge of Vogue is performed.

11:16I could play that song ad nauseum every day till the day I die. But listen to how Madonna uses this same famous diction to tell the story of her approaching Danceteria. Oh my gosh. Using that narrative Vogue voice is so appropriate because you're right. She is narrating and composing her own biopic. Like, she came in from Michigan, came to New York City with

11:48only $35 in her pocket, and then tried to make it going to clubs all around New York City as a dancer. Like, this is her story. Yes, exactly. And the way she's singing it, I also love because her voice is a little bit more measured. It's a little bit more mature, on account of her age, of course. But it's still a distinct parallel to Vogue and to these other songs where she uses the same tone, especially with the amount of names that she's throwing into the mix. And something I also like is that she is not just telling a story lyrically, but her and Stuart Price are also doing it musically.

12:24The production on the verse is a little filtered. It's a little bit muted. It's very cinematic. It's like you're hearing it outside through the walls of the club as Madonna is talking about cutting the line and entering the building. Also, we know Madonna loves the Spanish language. Throw in a quick little multilingual aside in her songs. And we get a very quick throwaway, no entiendes,

12:57which I think is such a callback to previous songs of hers, like Spanish Lessons, Spanish Eyes, La Isla Bonita, etc. But yeah, going back to the biopic point, we see Madonna on this song tell her story on her own terms and making note of her unique experiences and formative memories. I also think that this song is definitely an ode to a bygone era, but takes it a step further.

13:27The club she sings about isn't around anymore, but her friend that she mentions in the opening lines, her quote unquote boy toy, Martin Burgoyne, was a really good friend of hers that was very instrumental in the early years of her career and died of AIDS-related complications at 23 years old.

13:48So the song becomes almost a eulogy for their shared history. And Madonna underlines that point with the repeated lyric in the chorus, everyone here is a work of art.

14:07So while Danceteria is buoyant, has this freewheeling, overstimulating dance production, there's almost this reflective, melancholic air, lyrically, to the song. With this idea of everybody being pieces hanging on the wall at a museum, instead of dynamic characters that Madonna can engage with on a person-to-person level. It's kind of like when you're talking to an elder and they're talking about the good old days and there's that tinge of sadness because those days aren't here

14:43anymore. And I really dig that contrast between the lyrical elements and the way the song sounds. There's a sense with that line, everyone here is a work of art, that this club wasn't just a place to go and have fun and let loose. It is this presence in our modern soundscape that Madonna is like calling attention to and saying like, hey, don't forget like this, these clubs and the queer people, especially who populated them, were like the bedrock of 99% of the music we listen to today.

15:18No, totally. And Madonna keeps that in mind throughout the entire song. Names of people fly around left and right, both living and deceased. The second verse starts off with a killer couplet that I have not been able to get out of my head in months.

15:41Rhyming elevator with Debbie Mazur. Genius work. Charlie, Debbie Mazur. Is that anything clocking for you there?

15:51Actress in Goodfellas. Goodfellas. Very good. Yeah. It's making me realize, Rihanna, you know, in Vogue, Madonna used this spoken way of singing to talk about movie stars of the past. Now, singing her own biopic, she's turning, in some cases, Debbie Mazur, actual movie stars, but also her friends, into the stars of her movie. Yeah, totally. She's shining the spotlight on her specific people. You never know what to expect next. I think that's the thing I love about this song the most, from the Debbie

16:26Mazur line to he's the DJ, hide the cocaine. There's just so many elements here. And as Madonna is telling this story, by the third verse, we're in the middle of the dance floor. People are spinning all around her. The synth switches up, her syntax is constantly changing, and she's swept up in it all. That's an Apache sample, very briefly, nodding to early hip-hop and the breakdancers that would have been at the clubs as well.

17:09Yes, the incredible bongo band gets their sample in there when she's talking about Crazy Legs. Puerto Rican boys, they make me crazy. Very stream of consciousness, rhyming, rapping, singing happening here. I love the historical detail on this track. She's doing something smart on this record. She's not trying to be too current or chase trends. I think she's really leaning into the sound she's familiar with, the history that is so fascinating to all of us. I feel like maybe on previous releases, she would try to be like, oh, reggaeton is hot right now. I'll make a reggaeton song.

17:52This is like, I'm going to stay in my lane and just do it to perfection. She goes on in the song to talk about Nile Rodgers, David Byrne, B-52s, lounge lizards. There's references everywhere. But the last thing I want to flag about this very dense text of Danceteria is its bonkers interpolation of Lou Reed's classic Walk on the Wild Side, because I think it speaks to this biopic sensibility.

Lou Reed Interopolation and Subculture History

18:22I think it speaks to this biopic sensibility.

18:31Wow. So here's Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side. So I think this interpolation is really intentional because what a lot of people don't know about Walk on the Wild Side, in addition to having one of those killer melodies, is that the song is a lyrical chronicle of the lesser known queer and transgender people that were in the orbit of Andy Warhol and his facts.

19:05In New York in the 70s, where the verses of Walk on the Wild Side talk about Candy Darling, Hollywood Lawn, others that hung around in Warhol and Lou Reed's orbit in the New York scene. And Walk on the Wild Side functions as a song that marks history about people and subcultures that don't normally get the spotlight on them and have their stories chronicled. Madonna has always done this, but on Danceteria, her song serves a similar purpose, mentioning by name a lot of people that defined and shaped culture, but don't really get their stories out there.

19:42That's cool. I really love when an artist takes this sort of perspective of one piece of art and applies it to another, because I would never have made that connection if it weren't for that tiny little interpolation where she's like, let me show you my reference material. It doesn't sound like the dance music that I'm making, but I'm thinking in the same kind of way. Yeah, and with Danceteria, thinking big picture, I can imagine with somebody like Madonna, who is older, there's a sense of urgency of, if I don't tell this story, who will?

20:17And she's fitting all of this, all of this lived experience within the context of her own history and place in the scene as a keeper of pop music and electronic music history, which goes back to the idea of this album being an outlet for Madonna to get things off of her chest and say things that are on her mind. Is this why, when I listen to the opening track, all I can hear is one of the first dance tracks of history, Donna Summers' I Feel Love?

20:49So you're hearing I Feel Love in I Feel So Free? Yeah. Like, if you're gonna make a record about your whole biography, you have to begin at the start of the sounds of electronic music, which is Donna Summer, Giorgio Moroder, and you can hear a similar bass line.

21:19You can hear that same sort of, like, moving up the key that she's doing, and obviously the title is a nod to both. So it's like, let me greet you into the world of dance. Yeah, and Madonna has always found the dance floor to be a place of spirituality, a place of salvation. She has a lot of reverence for dancing, for electronic music, and the club, to her, is a vessel to engage with a sense of spirituality.

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Dance and Spirituality on the Record

23:20These themes were on the first Confessions on a Dance Floor back in 2005. One of Madonna's central tenants as an artist has been joining together the worlds of dance and spirituality. When we did the Listening to Madonna series a few years back, I spent a little bit of time dissecting the spirituality of the guiding light of Confessions One, the track Get Together. That's a song about reaching a certain type of religious ecstasy on the dance floor.

24:01This concept of connection, breeding enlightenment. Confessions on a Dance Floor lays the groundwork for Confessions 2, as if Confessions 2 is an expansion pack. Both records have Stuart Price involvement. Both are continuous mixes designed to be played in full from top to bottom. And both have Madonna dealing in similar sounds. I always think about with the early part of Madonna's career, the contrast between what's happening on the dance floor and all of her history and Catholicism and spirituality.

24:37You have songs like a prayer. And when you have Confessions on a Dance Floor, you're having the you're blending the two of them. She's really turning the dance floor into a church. Totally. She has always done this and she's always dealt in simplicity. You know, like I see the equation of Confessions on a Dance Floor being like dance equals religion. But on Confessions 2, she's a little bit more forthcoming with more complex themes and she's getting more literal lyrically than she did on her past few records.

25:13And there's the opening of the song One Step Away off of Confessions 2, which lays it all out there in the clearest terms possible, what she is trying to do with this album. The dance floor is not just a place. It's a threshold.

25:30A ritualistic space where movement replaces language. A lot of dance tracks makes this argument kind of implicitly. It's really cool to hear Madonna just coming out and saying it. This idea of crossing the threshold into a place where gesture replaces speech. I am here for it. The dance floor is a threshold. It's a ritualistic space. Thinking about Danceteria, it's a place to engage with something beyond yourself.

26:04And it's all very clear-cut and direct throughout the album. Different songs have spoken word intros reflecting on this idea. And it's the tone of the whole album. Part of the appeal of Madonna's songwriting to me as a fan has been her brevity. She doesn't obscure things. Her lyrics are never over flowery. You know, she's not doing too much, especially in recent years. And that's why I find her work really easy to connect with. I think of one of my favorite songs of hers, which is a deep cut, 2003's Nothing Fails off of American Life.

26:40Nothing fails. I'm not religious. But I feel so moved. Makes me want to pray. Pray you'll always be here. It's like rock music before rock music. This is like very Charlie XCX contemporary, you know, off-the-cuff text message style writing. And she was doing it back on, what was this, 2003, you said? Yeah, American Life. This is the playbook, also. If we really want to get into it, Madonna is Mother.

27:12Like, American Life is the music, fashion, and film playbook. And we could probably find so many other parallels from our modern pop stars to canonic Madonna albums. But, yeah, it's interesting. I've never thought about her work this way, but she doesn't really mess around with metaphor very much. It's like what you hear is what you get. It's straight down the middle. Yeah. And I'll take any opportunity to bring that track up.

Direct Lyrics and Madonna's Influence

27:40But on Confessions 2, there's a couple of Madonna-isms that have really stuck with me in their profound simplicity. Like one of the opening lines on Bring Your Love. I've got something I want to talk about. Don't comment on my ideas. I don't want your judgment or your expectations. Don't comment on my ideas has wormed its way into the back of my brain. It's like a vocal stim for me.

28:10I can't stop saying it. Are we talking new tattoo? Maybe. Maybe so. Maybe so. Even more than that, though, the shining example of this on Confessions 2 is this statement of great spiritual significance to me on the track Everything.

28:29It's not okay. I don't fuck with it.

28:36There's no time for beating around the bush with Madonna. She has shit she wants to talk about. It's not okay. She does not fuck with it. Oh, my God. Wow. That was very cleansing. I gotta use that in my life. Yeah. Yeah. It's not okay. It's like the antithesis to FOMO. I feel like, you know, if we're talking about influences and the mother of it all, like, it's worth mentioning the Gaga of it all. Like, when I hear Madonna make these spoken word pronouncements, I'm just, again, reminded of how profound her influence is on artists like Lady Gaga, who have just taken this playbook of saying, you know, intoning deep, profound thoughts in this spoken word voice.

29:24I love it. I mean, we've also talked at length recently on the podcast about how people are rewriting their second verses and their bridges to have these spoken moments. We hear it in Olivia Rodrigo. We hear it in Chapel Rhone. We hear it in Sabrina Carpenter. Like, that whole spoken voice is a part of everyday pop music. And we might not be hearing Vogue when we're hearing Olivia Rodrigo, but we're also not. Not. Maybe there's, like, a feedback loop happening where, like, Madonna influenced all of these people and because Madonna is always on top of the trend is getting influenced by the new pop stars and it's kind of going in a circle.

30:04On the Gaga tip, I do want to say that Gaga, in the last five years or so, has been working extensively with Andrew Watt and Circuit, who are also all over Confessions, too. So, again, maybe that feedback loop is happening, which I love. You know, it is innovating Madonna's work continuously. We're 15 albums in and still getting new and exciting sounds from her. It's crazy. Yeah, I mean, I think it's worth pointing out that, you know, Nate talked about how Madonna's kind of, like, in her lane.

30:35But I think, if anything, the lane here is just, like, dance music. And there isn't really any dance music which is off topic. Like, yeah, we're hearing a lot of 909 drum machines, which are predominant in house music. But we're also hearing Filter House, which was popular after that era. We're hearing, you know, what was the song where she doesn't give a fuck? Everything. I mean, that has those over-the-top bass sounds, the OTT bass sounds, which are very contemporary. Like, those are popular dance sounds today. So, she's not afraid to draw from what is contemporary and look to the past and make a collage of her life and sounds to create this contemporary biopic.

Fragile and Vulnerable Personal Themes

31:14And while she's breaking new sonic ground, I also think Confessions 2 has Madonna breaking new emotional ground. For the first time in over two decades, I'm seeing Madonna engage with herself, going beyond Danceteria and going to the rest of the album. The back half of Confessions 2 is very open and reflective. She has a ballad with her daughter on the album. She talks about her strained relationship with her stepmother. This is like a 60-year beef that she's airing out on this album.

31:45But the obvious highlight in this section of the record is the song Fragile, which is very reflective about Madonna's relationship with her now-deceased brother. We share the name, a home, we share the fragile bond, now you're gone, we laughed, we cried, we held each other's hands, we held each other's eyes.

32:19So, this track is about Madonna's brother Christopher, who has passed. Madonna was very close to him and then drifted apart from him for a long time because he wrote a tell-all book about her. And then they reconnected for a short bit before he passed away. So, there's a lot of loaded energy to this song. It's over this kind of desolate breakbeat. It's really interesting how Madonna uses her voice on this song. Something to remember about her is that she uses her voice to tell a story.

32:53And on Fragile, she's singing in her upper register, which indicates a much more vulnerable and delicate approach in contrast with the dominating tones on the more dance-forward tracks that we've heard. And it's doing that thing where, if you're kind of tuned out, I said at the beginning of our show that, like, I have been listening to this in the background and haven't really been bringing it forward. And if you hear some, like, breakbeats and some synth pads, you're like, ooh, this is like a cool, dark dance song.

33:27And then when you are listening to the texture of her voice more closely and you're paying attention to the lyric, she has this unbelievable way of mixing the cathartic place of the dance floor with much heavier-weighted themes. Yeah, it reminds me a lot of the tracks on Ray of Light, which is my favorite Madonna album, and also her most emotionally vulnerable record. There's songs like Frozen that have that cold feeling to them. Yeah. Frozen, fragile. Again, with the self-references.

33:57Wow, that is unlocking some deep childhood memories, y'all. Great track. Production from William Orbit, who recently passed. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Beautiful. It's like another side of what happens on the dance floor.

34:28That's why this title is so appropriate, you know, Confessions on the Dance Floor. Like, sometimes you end up, like, pouring your heart out after, like, a long night at the club. You end up, like, divulging secrets to strangers who you'd never met until that night. Like, shit can get real on the dance floor. It really is her reinventing herself. And she gets vulnerable on her previous album, sure, but often about the state of the world. Like, on Madame X, there's a bunch of songs that feature Madonna lamenting about gun control or immigration or things like that.

35:03She really turns the camera onto herself here and explores her narrative and her history for one of the first times in recent memory. Yeah, I remember listening and catching one of the narrations, maybe early on the record, where she talks about how she's not able to trust anyone. Like, it's really hard for her to open up. I mean, I think this is probably very relatable, both to anyone who feels uncomfortable on the dance floor, but also, you know, obviously speaks to her celebrity status.

35:44That is it possible for her to really trust anyone and bring them into her life when she is this known figure? I like that she's addressing that topic. It feels like it's something that's very real. There's so many things that a celebrity, you're that famous, you're an icon. I can't connect with you, but I can really connect with that feeling of who can I trust? Yeah, her stories are really evocative, and she tells them through these short, brief, emotional anecdotes.

36:15The Bridge on Fragile, she tells the story of being visited in a dream by her brother. Late last night I was fast asleep. You came to me in a dream. You said don't forget about me. Don't forget to be happy. And again, with Madonna being a vocal storyteller, the things she's doing with her voice on this song communicate the world that she's trying to share.

36:46She's talking about her brother visiting her when she's sleeping, and we get this ultra-processed, formant-shifted voice that, to me, feels like her brother connecting with her on a different plane, saying, I hope you found a higher ground. It's really profound in its simplicity. And you have the backdrop of the heartbeat, very cinematic. You feel like you're being taken into this other sort of hazy world. I think that's why that formant-shifted vocal, yeah, it's totally appropriate. We feel like we're in her dream with her.

37:17So between Fragile, which we just heard, One Step Away, and Danceteria, I get the sense that Madonna is contending with deeper feelings, sentiments, maybe regrets, both in and out of her music.

The Biopic Album Concept

37:30While she's constructing this album, that is supposed to serve as her biopic. And while Confessions 2 is a love letter to the dance floor, like, that is the baseline on which we build off of, it's a layered album. There's a lot more happening here, and there's a sense of urgency to tell her story on her own terms through this music. I have another confession to make. Hit me, Charlie. I don't really like biopics. I think so often they're just, like, fluff pieces that don't really quite tell the truth.

38:06And yet, this doesn't feel like a biopic movie. This is a whole new form to me. The biopic album, I think I really love. It's getting honest. It's taking me back. But it's also bringing me forward. Madonna, I mean, once again, you think she's going backwards, but she's inventing a whole new form. Exactly. Fifteen albums in, the music is still exciting. It's vital. There's space for Madonna to grow and develop as an artist. And she's articulating high concepts in her work while also making it deeply listenable.

38:42So in revolutionizing her own persona, Madonna is showing pop music why we don't just love Madonna. Madonna, we need Madonna. And that's my confession. Oh, boom. This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT.

39:15Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons Podcast. Have you guys heard about ChatGPT work? It's the new way to use ChatGPT for bigger multi-step projects. And when you need more than just answers, give ChatGPT work access to your apps and files, and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting work mode available on Plus and Pro plans.