Madonna released Confessions II today through Warner Records, her fifteenth studio album and the first time she has made a sequel to one of her own records. Twenty-one years after Confessions on a Dance Floor, Stuart Price, the producer who built the 2005 original with her, is back at the controls.
The original mixed twelve tracks end to end like a DJ set, no dead air, crowned by "Hung Up" and its ABBA sample, one of the biggest singles she ever cut. The Celebration Tour, her 2023 and 2024 retrospective, put her and Price back in a room together, and somewhere between rehearsals and encores the two started writing new material.
Where the first Confessions worshipped at the altar of European disco, the sequel shifts the geography to house music's American source, Detroit and Chicago, building its sixteen tracks from that foundation with samples and interpolations stitched through the record.
The guest list covers Sabrina Carpenter, Feid, Stromae, Martin Garrix, and Lola Leon, Madonna's daughter. The credits go deeper, to Arca, Tainy, Andrew Watt, Cirkut, and Mirwais, the producer from her Music era.
The confessions themselves have gotten heavier. Grief and autobiography drive the writing, sharpest on "Fragile," "The Test," "Betrayal," and "L.E.S. Girl."
Madonna staged the rollout at full scale, spanning a Coachella appearance, a Grindr partnership, and a film premiere at Tribeca. At the time of writing, the album holds an 83 average on Metacritic, among the strongest receptions of her late career.
Confessions II is her first studio album since 2019's Madame X, the longest gap between records in her career.
