Rating: NNN
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For all the hubbub over The Artist Occasionally Known As Esther returning to her ‘roots’ on her latest release, Confessions isn’t so much Madonna Classic as it is a muddled postmodern tribute to Studio 54-era disco culture. Instead of the bubble-gum pop and super-cheesy 80s synths of the Like A Virgin days, Madge teams up with producer Stuart Price, best known for hipster-friendly electro fiddling under the pseudonym Jacques Lu Cont, to eke out a slick pastiche of Daft Punkian mid-90s club cuts celebrating the popper-happy hedonism of late-70s New York dance floors. While there’s nothing new or fresh here — Price’s studio tricks, like the ‘music fading so it sounds like you’re walking between rooms in a club’ gimmick, are as played out as a Kabbalah string — Madonna has always been at her best and most relevant when she’s coaxing queens onto the floor. Skip the Hebrew caterwauling on Isaac, and just give thanks she’s not ‘rapping’ about lattes and Pilates.
