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COAD Reviews; - reviews of the entire album
Topic Started: Nov 3 2005, 07:47 PM (662 Views)
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Rock Star From Mars

Rolling Stone Review

I think the reviewer tries to be fair, which is fine with me. He tosses her positive comments where he thinks she's done okay, but there are some negatives, too.

Excerpts:
  • Confessions On A Dancefloor
    Originally released: 2005
    Warner Bros. Records

    A few other songs hint at the lessons learned from her religious awakening but fall short of revelation. On "How High," Madonna claims, "I spent my whole life wanting to be talked about," and asks, "Will any of this matter?" only to conclude "I guess I deserve it." The closing "Like It or Not" is intended as a bold declaration of independence, but its string of cliches feels lazy ("Sticks and stones may break my bones"? Madge, you can do better than that). On the other hand, her willingness to rhyme "New York" with "dork" on the spiraling "I Love New York" is a flash of the old Ciccone sass -- the album would have benefited from more.

    Madonna's songwriting has always been her most underrated quality. But while Confessions absolutely hits its mark for disco functionality, its greatest strength is also its weakness. In the end, the songs blur together, relying on Price's considerable production magic to create tension or distinctiveness.

    Coming off her last album, the tepid American Life, the forty-seven-year-old mother of two wants to show that she can still stay up late. Confessions on a Dance Floor won't stand the test of time like her glorious early club hits, but it proves its point. Like Rakim back in the day, Madonna can still move the crowd.

    ALAN LIGHT
    (Posted Nov 03, 2005)
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The 1 Not Fooled
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Madonna's songwriting has always been her most underrated quality.
:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
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Here's a review, interestingly enough, from FOXNews:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,174503,00.html

Quote:
 


Madonna's New Album Leaked to Internet
Thursday, November 03, 2005
By Roger Friedman

Madonna's new album, "Confessions on a Dance Floor," has been leaked onto the Internet 10 days before its official release.

The album is marked by a defiant self-defense of her whole career, when she sings on the hilarious and forceful "Like It or Not": "You can call me a sinner/you can call me a saint/Celebrate for who I am/Don't like me for what I ain't/Don't put me up on a pedestal/Or drag me down in the dirt/Sticks and stones will break my bones/But your names will never hurt."

And: "Better the devil that you know/This is who I am/You can like it or not/You can love me or leave me/Because I'm never gonna stop. Oh no." She compares herself to Mata Hari and Cleopatra, too.

Warner Music Group is said to not be very happy about the leak. "Confessions" was being held right until the last minute. Copies aren't even available at the record company's offices yet.

The album contains a song called "Isaac," first reported on this column several weeks ago. It's supposedly about Isaac Luria, a 16th century Kabbalah philosopher.

I've listened to it, and there's nothing particularly shocking about the lyrics. It has a good beat, though, and some chanting that's meant to sound Hebraic. It could be anything. I don't think there will be religious concerns.

The lyrics are basic pop stuff: "Wrestle with your darkness/Angels call your name/Can you hear what they saying/Will you ever be the same?" Basically, it reduces Kabbalah to the stuff of T-shirt slogans.

I wouldn't get excited, and neither should any rabbis. She does try and mix some religious gobbledy-gook in other tracks, like the electronica-based "Future Lovers," but it's about as benign as a yellow smiley button.

"Isaac" is not much different from a couple of Sting songs that use Arab chanting, and I wouldn't be surprised if that's where she got the idea. Madonna is nothing if not the great synthesizer of existing material.

One track on the album, "Push," out and out samples Sting's "Every Breath You Take." That's what I call a nice friend, since Sting usually demands 100 percent of the publishing rights when other artists do that.

Apart from "Isaac," "Confessions" sounds like a good dance record. "Hung Up" is already a hit. "Get Together" is a full-on disco pumper from the early '80s. "Sorry" starts with Madonna saying that word in different languages, then rocks along with an infectious melody that recalls her best songs from 20 years ago. This is the one that contains a sample from a Jacksons song, "Can You Feel It?" circa 1980. It should be the next single, after "Hung Up."

But someone had better tell Jackie Jackson, brother of Michael Jackson and co-author of that song. His rep tells me no one's asked for a sample license so far. Lawyers are already picking up the phone, no doubt.

All in all, "Confessions" is a return to what Madonna does best: mindless, fun, dance music. There's none of the grenade-throwing politics that got her in trouble last time out with "American Life," her lowest-selling album and a total bust for her and for Warner Music Group.

Like Santana's new album, "Confessions" is mixed to be one hit after another, no filler. It's a great idea, and in a time when nothing is selling and Warner is barely functioning as a record company, Madonna has come riding to the rescue.

I never grade CDs, but let's give her an A- and head for a nightclub. It's just good fun.


:bad:
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The 1 Not Fooled
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This part was good, though:
Quote:
 
"Isaac" is not much different from a couple of Sting songs that use Arab chanting, and I wouldn't be surprised if that's where she got the idea. Madonna is nothing if not the great synthesizer of existing material.

One track on the album, "Push," out and out samples Sting's "Every Breath You Take." That's what I call a nice friend, since Sting usually demands 100 percent of the publishing rights when other artists do that.

I guess "synthesizer" is a synonym for "rip-off con artist"?
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Gabriel's Horn
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The 1 Not Fooled
Nov 3 2005, 11:11 PM
I guess "synthesizer" is a synonym for "rip-off con artist"?

Yep...kind of like how people mistake craziness for "eccentricity."
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Badhardtop


flea dip
Nov 3 2005, 07:47 PM

Confessions On A Dancefloor
Originally released: 2005
Warner Bros. Records


Someone mailed me the leaked songs! And let me give you my review. It's a mixture of American Life/Music. 12 Songs on the album and only two are so/so. Two be honest Get Together and Sorry have potential but are remakes from other songs. Get Together samples Stardust's Music Sounds Better With You and Sorry samples Can You Feel It big time. So even thou it has potential it's because those songs were huge before she sampled them. Nothing original here. But coming from Madonna what can you expect?
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The 1 Not Fooled
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I'm posting this one because it suggests a couple more sources for her rip-offs (one in particular is about the "Isaac" track):
Gayest Album Ever
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Mihoshi Marie
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Badhardtop
Nov 4 2005, 01:01 PM
flea dip
Nov 3 2005, 07:47 PM

Confessions On A Dancefloor
Originally released: 2005
Warner Bros. Records


Someone mailed me the leaked songs! And let me give you my review. It's a mixture of American Life/Music. 12 Songs on the album and only two are so/so. Two be honest Get Together and Sorry have potential but are remakes from other songs. Get Together samples Stardust's Music Sounds Better With You and Sorry samples Can You Feel It big time. So even thou it has potential it's because those songs were huge before she sampled them. Nothing original here. But coming from Madonna what can you expect?

I am listening to it right now (the one where all tracks are mixed together in one big continuous track).

I think it is better than American Life. To me it doesn't sound much like the stuff she did with Mirwais on American Life and Music, which is good because that sound was totally dated.

I did find myself liking Sorry and Let It Will Be (that is what the track I downloaded is called). The rest are okay. I Love New York does sound a bit Goldfrappish, due to the guitars in it.
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Mihoshi Marie
Nov 9 2005, 01:39 AM
I am listening to it right now (the one where all tracks are mixed together in one big continuous track).

I think it is better than American Life. To me it doesn't sound much like the stuff she did with Mirwais on American Life and Music, which is good because that sound was totally dated.

I did find myself liking Sorry and Let It Will Be (that is what the track I downloaded is called). The rest are okay. I Love New York does sound a bit Goldfrappish, due to the guitars in it.

I've heard the album as well and I think it will get old really fast. After all the hype I was left thinking, "Was that it?" The lyrics on I Love New York are sooooooo bad...it's unfortunate that Madonna resorted to letting her daughter write her lyrics for her.
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The 1 Not Fooled
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From Madonna.Nu:
Quote:
 
Here is a review by Dan Martin for NME magazine a very influential music magazine, which gives Madonna's new album a ranking of a 9 out of 10!

You hear little about the new wave bands Madonna drummed with upon her arrival in New York as a teenager. But believe it, Madonna came from punk, and here she returns to those glorious roots. Where anyone else would have long descended into ballad hell, Madonna, 47, has made a future-house album set at Studio 54 in 2005. Which, you have to admit, is rather punk. "Confessions..." is a monster, no ballads, no gaps between songs, just one relentless, thumping assault on the senses which references New Order, Giorgio Moroder and, hilariously, Madonna herself. Believe the hype, this is even better than "Ray Of Light".

What crap. Madonna never was "punk" - and I don't care if she chopped her hair like in these pictures
Posted ImagePosted Image
- she's a poser. She only pretended to be punk because she was infatuated with the idea of being viewed as a "rebel". It's all about image with her.
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MTV's review
I think parts of this have been excerpted elsewhere, but a couple of nauseating bits I wanted to point out:
Quote:
 
"I did all of that on purpose," she says. "I mean, if I'm going to plagiarize somebody, it might as well be me, right? I feel like I've earned the right to rip myself off. 'Talent borrows, genius steals,' " she laughs. "Let's see how many other clichés I can throw in there."

Oh, har har. Plagiarism is always something to laugh at, right? This comes a couple of paragraphs after
Quote:
 
And "self-referential" doesn't even begin to describe "Get Together," which incorporates Stardust's "Music Sounds Better With You" — which, in essence, is a rewrite of her own "Holiday."

SHE DID NOT WRITE THAT SONG! WAKE THE F*CK UP!
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Odd review. They give her a few positives, but they do so after giving her left-handed compliments.

Groove Volt.com Review: Madonna Returns to Club Roots
  • After the stunning failure that was American Life, many wondered whether Madonna would be able to prove herself relevant in pop music’s everchanging landscape.

    Fortunately for both the singer and her fans, her latest, Confessions on a Dance Floor, is a return to form, a club-friendly disc that flows seamlessly and is strong enough to allow the listener to overlook Madonna’s notoriously-weak lyrics.

    The catchy opening track (and first single) “Hung Up” sets the tone for the disc. This is an album that Madonna wants you to hear while you’re shaking your ass on the dance floor.

    “Hung Up” also highlights the only true weakness of this album. It’s clear that some of the songs have been extended to be more palatable to DJs who want five-minute-long tracks; songs that are not compelling enough to run that long.

    Another decision that proved to pay off on the disc is releasing a continuous version where there are no pauses between tracks. The tracks have a good flow from one to the next and with no breaks to allow the listener to process what he just heard, you’re constantly focused on the next song and not thinking about what might have been wrong with the last one.

    Most important to the success of this disc is the obvious: the songs. And for the most part, they work. Madonna’s choice to sing small phrases in different languages on “Sorry” gives the track an international feel and endears it to worldwide audiences who are used to hearing different languages while dancing and “Jump” (which seems to borrow chords from The Who’s “I Can See For Miles”) will be a popular track with the female empowerment crowd.

    The biggest misstep on the disc is “I Love New York,” whose trite lyrics (“I don’t like cities/But I like New York/Other cities/Make me feel like a dork”) make the track nearly unbearable; however, it will prove a hit in New York City and if you can tune out the lyrics while you’re dancing, you’ll make it through relatively unscathed.

    After several misguided years, Madonna has returned to her club roots on Confessions on a Dance Floor, and manages to transition successfully the underground sound to the mainstream, just as she has done so many times before.
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Mihoshi Marie
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Gabriel's Horn
Nov 9 2005, 08:10 AM
Mihoshi Marie
Nov 9 2005, 01:39 AM
I am listening to it right now (the one where all tracks are mixed together in one big continuous track).

I think it is better than American Life.  To me it doesn't sound much like the stuff she did with Mirwais on American Life and Music, which is good because that sound was totally dated.

I did find myself liking Sorry and Let It Will Be (that is what the track I downloaded is called).  The rest are okay.  I Love New York does sound a bit Goldfrappish, due to the guitars in it.

I've heard the album as well and I think it will get old really fast. After all the hype I was left thinking, "Was that it?" The lyrics on I Love New York are sooooooo bad...it's unfortunate that Madonna resorted to letting her daughter write her lyrics for her.

I agree - the lyrics on 'I Love New York' are really, really bad and if she loves NYC so much, why is she living in London? She is so dumb.
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Tonygirl
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She still talks about how great Paris is in interviews, yet sings about NYC being best. Is she schizo or something?
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Madonna CD suffers a slipped disco

Excerpts:
  • In general, though, the dance styles cooked up by Madonna and DJ Stuart Price here aren't as daring as her earlier work was in its day. While "Confessions" means to balance retro-'70s disco with the future kind, it lands closer to the former than the latter.

    The deeper problem comes when Madonna feels she has given us kids enough fun and it's time for some serious lessons. Starting on track six, the improbably named "Let It Will Be," Madonna sings "Now I can tell you about fame," as if she hasn't told us about it 100 times before. In "How High," she blah-blah-blah's about celebrity culture, a subject she seems to take to heart more than most. And, naturally, it wouldn't be the modern Madonna if she didn't work in a kaballa nod: the inorganic, Hebraic dance cut "Isaac."

    Whenever Madonna tries to be "meaningful" in this way, she winds up obscuring something far more substantial — the wit, sex and intelligence of great dance music. Only when she's content to deliver that does "Confessions" have the goods to move you.

    Originally published on November 14, 2005
Madonna: Justify My (Self) Love
  • November 14, 2005
    BY JIM DEROGATIS Pop Music Critic

    Rating: **1/2

    "I've heard it all before," Madonna sings over and over again on "Sorry," one of a dozen offerings on her allegedly new but remarkably deja vu 11th studio album, "Confessions on a Dance Floor," which arrives in record stores Tuesday.

    The 47-year-old mother of two is singing to an errant lover -- "I don't wanna hear, I don't wanna know / Please don't say you're sorry" -- but she might as well be expressing the thoughts of the average listener, those of us who don't worship at the foot of Our Lady of Ciccone but who've admittedly (and perhaps against our best instincts) found some pleasure from time to time during her absurdly hyped 22-year career.

    We have indeed heard it all before: the helium warble disco; the dark, twisted-fantasy bedroom grooves; the laughably bad stabs at musical theater; the failed attempts to go techno; the electronically tweaked folk schmaltz.

    At this point, what could Maddy, the distaff David Bowie and pop's second most infamous musical chameleon and plunderer/popularizer of underground sounds, possibly do to surprise us?

    Nothing, really, and she knows it. So like the U2 of the last two albums or the Rolling Stones of the last two decades, she has made an unsurprising, thoroughly predictable and decent but no big "wow" Madonna-by-numbers self-tribute.

    This is better than her last disc, 2003's "American Life," with its failed attempts to rap and its increasingly annoying New Age navel-gazing. But it certainly doesn't have the edgy thrill of Madonna at her finest, circa 1992's "Erotica."

    The musical engine this time around, producer Stuart Price, a k a Les Rhythmes Digitales, goes old-school, powering the opening "Hung Up" with an ABBA sample, quoting the Tom Tom Club, vaguely Middle Eastern folk music and bits of Maddy's own career, and running the tunes together like an energetic, ready-made DJ set, albeit one designed for a family wedding rather than a rave or a hip after-hours dance club.

    There are those who will argue that discussing Madonna's lyrics is a pointless exercise, since she has never had anything to say, but I disagree: Her expertly calculated button-pushing may have always been extremely superficial, but it was at least amusing. Alas, the statements here (such as they are) are as familiar and as safe as the sounds.

    We learn, for example, that Madonna still loves New York, and that other places make her "feel like a dork" ("I Love New York"); that she still confuses sex and religion ("Connect to the sky / Future lovers ride there in mission style / Would you like to try?" she croons in "Future Love"); and that her Kabbalah-inspired philosophizing is still inscrutable mumbo jumbo ("Isaac" comes complete with a spoken-word interlude of Hebrew chanting; oy vey!).

    Oh, Madonna is also still entirely too fond of herself and hubristic in seizing what she views as her rightful place in the pop pantheon, her brand of mysticism seemingly unopposed to false pride.

    "It's funny, I spent my whole life wanting to be talked about / I did it, just about everything to see my name in lights / Was it all worth it? And how did I earn it? / Nobody's perfect, I guess I deserve it," she sings in "How High."

    Sure, Maddy. And Bono was robbed when he didn't get the Nobel Peace Prize, and Mick Jagger really oughta be president of the World Bank. We demand a recount!

    Still, for all of these gripes, "Confessions on a Dance Floor" is a fun ride, zipping by with a guilty pleasure sugar rush of hummable hooks and husky-voiced cooing, the more mature voice of Madonna's late career being infinitely preferable to the fingernails on the chalkboard chirp of her early days. And as I said, it's ideal for family weddings.

    Grandma deserves to boogie, too, and Madonna has provided a decent disco soundtrack, with the best songs ready to slip in easily right after "Believe" by Cher and just before that sure-fire crowd-pleaser, "YMCA" by the Village People.
In the review above, it says,
"she still confuses sex and religion"
-- What?

From the TIME magazine review:
  • Madonna detractors will point out that most of this wizardry is the work of other people, notably Stuart Price, the British producer who has accumulated a dozen or so musical aliases (Les Rhythms Digitales, Paper Faces) in his 28 years on the planet. She didn't break too many pencils working on the lyrics either, but as Mrs. Ritchie might say on the manor, horses for courses.

    In dance music, words exist to be repeated, twisted, obscured and resurrected. How they sound in the moment is far more important than what they mean, and Madonna knows that better than anyone. Confessions on a Dance Floor is 56 minutes of energetic moments. It will leave you feeling silly for all the right reasons.
From a BBC News review, "Madonna's last dancefloor confession? - BBC News"
  • Has Madonna reinvigorated her music career, or is she merely throwing one final dance party for her long-term fans before settling down to record more sedate material?

    "Dance music fans may be unconvinced by Madonna's new image as it no longer reflects her real life," says DJ magazine's features editor Carl Loben.

    "Madonna embraced the early stages of New York club culture in the 1980s but I doubt she has been into a club for years."

    .... While clubbers are relatively unconcerned by the age of an artist, Madonna has been permanently ousted from the cover of Smash Hits magazine by acts such as teen stars McFly and Son of Dork.

    Staff writer Ian Eddy says teenage music fans judge Madonna on a song-by-song basis.

    "Pop fans are a bit fickle," he says. "If her next single is a bit of a dud they won't bother with it."

    Smash Hits readers were divided in their opinion of Madonna's promo video for her single Hung Up, in which the 47-year-old contorts herself in a pink leotard and flirts with young dancers.

    "A lot of our readers are saying Madonna has still got it, that she is still youthful," says Mr Eddy, "but some say she should grow old a bit more gracefully."

    Young pop stars may cite Madonna as a music or fashion influence, but teenage music fans "just don't have the same affection for her as people in their 30s do".

    Madonna's gay audience has always been very forgiving, perhaps too forgiving
    Matt Miles, Axm magazine


    Madonna's most loyal fan group has been gay men, which gay magazine Axm attributes to her eye for fashion and music trends, and her ever-changing image.

    "Many gay people want to break away from their past, and every six months Madonna goes into a cocoon then emerges as a new butterfly," says Axm editor Matt Miles.

    She strengthened her gay and lesbian fanbase by challenging sexual and religious convention in promo videos such as Like A Prayer and Justify My Love, suggestive live performances and 1992's explicit Sex photo book.

    "Madonna's gay audience has always been very forgiving, perhaps too forgiving," says Mr Miles. "It would take an awful lot to put gay men off her."

    Mr Miles says it is understandable why Madonna would want to "throw herself back into the gay bosom" with a new hi-energy album, after the relative failure of American Life.

    "Why not? It doesn't seem too cynical, and it worked for Kylie Minogue. It is as if Madonna is sampling the 1980s but making it better."

    Gay fans believe Madonna's career will match the longevity of that other iconic US singer, Cher. If her songs match her ambition, she may also retain her revived mainstream audience.

    Mr Eddy says: "Madonna really thinks of herself as young. I can't see her sticking to dance music but she could easily come back in a few years with something fresh."

    "Madonna may return to the slower beats of her Ray of Light album or move into torch songs," adds Mr Miles. "She would probably like to turn herself into a cartoon, and is kicking herself that Gorillaz got there first."

    He concludes: "She is pushing 50 and still looks great. I wouldn't put it past her to be swinging off a trapeze at the age of 60."
Fan site madonnalicious posted a scan of a People magazine reivew of COAD, which I actually haven't read myself, it hasn't downloaded yet:

Scan of People Magazine review
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Allergic To Hype
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Thoroughly Modern Madonna Gets Retro

By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Madonna
"Confessions on a Dance Floor" (Warner Brothers)

A ticking clock is the first sound on Madonna's new album, "Confessions on a Dance Floor," and it leads straight into a time warp. Her latest music invokes the early 1980's, when dance music and electronics were just starting their long, happy liaison. Yet the voice amid the beats and blips isn't some young pop contender just getting into the groove. It's Madonna as she is now: a star and celebrity with spiritual aspirations and a chip on her shoulder.

She produced this album with Stuart Price, a knowingly retro British D.J. and remixer also known as Jacques Lu Cont. They came up with an album that segues its songs together like a D.J. set, while also hinting at the arc of Madonna's career from pop ingénue to (somewhat) deeper thinker.

For anyone who was out clubbing in the 1980's, the music should set off name-that-tune nostalgia. There are glimmers of Donna Summer, S.O.S. Band, Tom Tom Club, Blondie, Depeche Mode and even a little Iggy Pop. In the song "Hung Up," Madonna samples Abba's "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!" But she's not attempting a simple 80's revival; for all the vaguely familiar hooks, there are also sustained, wistful overlays of strings and acoustic guitar that enfold the music like a haze of indistinct memory.

Love songs, happy and sad, take up the first half of the album, and Madonna has kept her pop touch in "Hung Up" (which is already in telephone advertising), "Forbidden Love" and "Sorry," a thoroughly annoyed kiss-off. But as the album continues, Madonna the serious present-day star takes over from Madonna the pop confection, reflecting on fame, wealth, religion and restlessness. "I spent my whole life wanting to be talked about/ I did it!" she declares in "How High," before wondering, "Will any of this matter?"

Her somber side sounds best in "Jump," about the urge to move on, and in "Isaac," a song about revelation - "wrestle with your darkness/ angels call your name." In "Isaac," Madonna samples a vocalist, Yitzhak Sinwani, singing over a rhythm track built around a picked acoustic guitar. For this album's requisite Madonna brouhaha, it drew denunciations from Israeli rabbis who believed it was about a 16th-century Jewish mystic and kabbalah scholar, Yitzhak (or Isaac) Luria, and Jewish law forbids using a holy rabbi's name for profit. Madonna told Billboard magazine that it was about Mr. Sinwani.

Elsewhere, she sounds petulant or silly, as when she brazenly sings, "I like New York/ Other places make me feel like a dork." By the time she finishes flaunting her attitude in "Like It or Not," comparing herself to Cleopatra and Mata Hari, she comes across as quite a sourpuss. But with the synthesizers steadily pulsating behind her, at least she's still inviting listeners to dance.

JON PARELES
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The 1 Not Fooled
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"Justify My Self-Love" :laugh: Great title.
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Melissa
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Here's Amazon.com's lovey-dovey review:

Quote:
 
Apparently there's nothing in the Kabbalah that disallows sweaty, head-spinningly good dance music, because here comes a flame-haired Madonna hawking a dozen songs' worth: Confessions on a Dance Floor darts seamlessly from Madge's early days, when she emerged as the genre's enduring darling, through the political, kiddie, and acoustic pap that drove a wedge between her and early adopters of the fingerless glove look. Songs like the pop-leaning "Jump" and first single "Hung Up"--an adrenaline drip on high that, like many of these tracks, will inspire mild shame among those who've thrilled to the much thinner disco-dusted outpourings of younger divas recently--represent both a return to form and an unmistakable march into the future. "Get Together" is a sonic freak-out in the best sense; "Push" traffics in gut-level futuristic trance; and "Forbidden Love" loops in 80s blips and bleeps for a follow-me-into-the-past effect that's both neo and retro. For all the image-affirming innovations here, though, these confessions find Madonna framed in her share of reflective moments too. "Was it all worth it/How did I earn it?" she asks on "How High," a song featuring vocoder. "Nobody's perfect/I guess I deserve it," comes the answer. A later lyrical inquiry is left for the listener to judge: "Does this get any better?" Madonna wants to know. But that opens the door to a dizzying proposition. Few of us would have guessed, after all, that it got this good. --Tammy La Gorce

Album Description
On Confessions of a Dance Floor, Madonna, the most popular and significant female artist in pop music, returns unapologetically to her roots. A stunning blend of musical styles with one foot in early disco and the other pointed toward the future, Confessions On A Dance Floor "is all about having a good time straight through and non-stop," says the Material Mom, who co-wrote and co-produced every track. For Madonna and music fans everywhere, the all-dance, no-ballad Confessions on a Dance Floor is a welcome guilty pleasure.
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Yes, amazon.com's review was rather barfy... "Madonna, the most popular and significant female artist in pop music," :rolleyes2:

More and more reviews of COAD have been popping up lately.

I realize that some of them are fairly positive, but I'm not picking up a genuine sense of excitement from most of the reviews. This is entirely subjective on my part. Many of the reviews feel as though they were just another day's assignment to the journalist, that their hearts weren't in it.

The CNN review mentions Kraftwerk:

EW review: Madonna's 'Confessions' glides - CNN.com
  • November 15, 2005
    Madonna never completely deserted clubland, of course, but she hasn't made an album this consistently beat-driven since 1992's "Erotica." Once again, she's the restless soul aching to connect, this time by way of fluid Ibiza techno ("Jump," "Get Together") and a robo-voiced Kraftwerk homage ("Forbidden Love"); "Hung Up" shows how effortlessly she can tap into her petulant inner teen.
" "Hung Up" shows how effortlessly she can tap into her petulant inner teen."
- for someone who's never really grown up, yeah, I can find it easy to believe that she can tap into her inner teen.

More:
  • For all its pretenses of being giddy and spontaneous, though, "Confessions" is rarely either. Madonna is no longer the free spirit of her youth, which is plenty obvious when she ponders the spiritual "place where I belong" ("Let It Will Be") or indulges in further self-pity over the price o' fame ("How High"). It's as if a rain cloud has settled over her nightclub.

    ... Like so many Madonna albums, this one eventually runs low on gas; not even Price can make sense of her Kabbalah parable, "Isaac," which evokes older, better Madonna hits. ...

    Grade: B+
Live Daily Review - November 16, 2005, by Sarah Schmelling

This one is negative (I could only access one page of this; it's a 4 page review, one has to be a subscriber to read the entire thing):

Album reviews: Madonna CD strictly about dance
  • The evolution of Madonna continues on this, her highly anticipated new album. Already getting major press for being fresh and different, this album sounds more like one of the releases from the popular "Ultra Dance" compilation series than anything all that fresh. Still, it's a welcome change from current popular music, and Madonna goes for total fun on this all-dance-track release. But in her moments of simple pleasure she forgets dance music can have variation.

    Madonna keeps the lyrics simple and somewhat catchy, but one may question if she wrote any of this material at all. And if she did write it, she needs her notebook confiscated. A good example of this can be found on "I Love New York" where Madonna sings, "I don't like cities, but I like New York/Other places, make me feel like a dork."

    On "Sorry," she repeats herself so much and rides the music in such a way that the whole thing feels like improv. "Future Lovers" sounds like trippy, freestyle poetry, and Madonna's crackling, shaky vocals make the number almost laughable, if still danceworthy. She gets things right on "Jump," "How High" and "Hung Up," three of the albums few must-listen tracks.
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Here's a couple of great reviews (as in bad) that are worth the read.

Madonna: Confessions on a Dancefloor/Scotsman

FIONA SHEPHERD
WHERE next for the shape-shifting pop diva Madonna? That is the perennial question. The material girl turned lady of the manor probably even surprised herself with the stability of her latest role as loyal wife and mother espousing the joys of filthy rich domesticity from the battlements of her English country estate. For a while, it looked like there were no more albums on the cards, that her work in music was done, that she would just bask in her status as eternal pop icon. But it seems she has been able to wring out a few more tunes. So what has Madonna done next? She has made a Kylie album.

Twenty years on from Into the Groove (still her most immaculate, hypnotic and vacuous statement of intent to date), she has decided to spin that mirrorball relentlessly with an album entirely dedicated to sleek nouveau disco sounds that won't upset the rhythm of the night too much with anything crazy like new ideas or individuality. Even the superior Ray of Light and Music albums were not as uniformly pitched at the dancefloor as this self-styled "non-stop, all-dance tour de force".

Non-stop it is, with every track slamming directly into the next like a readymade mix tape. Confessions was written and recorded mainly with her current musical director Stuart Price who, in his former incarnation as Jacques lu Cont of Les Rhythmes Digitales, displayed a talent for unapologetically grave-robbing 1980s electro (his rather compelling Jacques Your Body track was recently resurrected as the soundtrack for that dancing transformer car advert). Together, they have created a seamless dancefloor reverie, but one which lacks Madonna's usual force of personality on many of the tracks.

The unimaginative use of the Abba sample on current hit Hung Up is a lazy substitute for an original hook. Its instant familiarity makes it, and not Madonna, the focus of the track, which could almost be mistaken for any number of those production line dance hits presented by an anonymous troupe of dancers on Top of the Pops. In that respect alone, Madonna has produced a thoroughly representative modern dance pop track, and one which was obviously insidious enough to put her back at the top of the charts, where it could easily be followed by the recycled electro disco of Get Together and Sorry without a bat of a fake eyelash.

She plays the blatant rip-off game again on Future Lovers, which brazenly pastiches Donna Summer's I Feel Love and the patented synthesiser sound of 1980s über-producer Georgio Moroder. Written with her Music collaborator Mirwais Ahmadzai, it is an artless copy, bordering on the inane - and pushes all the requisite buttons to make it a massive club hit. Forbidden Love is even more vacuous and trance-like, a song to get lost in on the dancefloor, or doing the housework. Pay it any more attention than that, and it sounds more like album filler than dancefloor filler.

The singalong celebratory likes of Beautiful Stranger is absent here. No-one expects songs conceived to get the listener shaking his/her booty to contain much in the way of lyrical poetry, but surely Madge can do better than "I don't like cities/but I like New York/other places make me feel like a dork ... if you don't like my attitude/then you can f*** off/just go to Texas/isn't that where they golf?" (from I Love New York). Apart from the unconvincing disclosure that Madonna could ever feel like a dork, is her hood these days not privileged rural England? Somehow, a paean to grouse-beating and clay pigeon shooting might not work in the context of a disco song.

It transpires that How High is the only hint of confession we are going to get on Madonna's dancefloor, and her banal musing that "I spent my whole life wanting to be talked about/I did just about everything to see my name in lights/was it all worth it and how did I earn it?" rings curiously hollow. Like it or Not is an even blander exhortation to like or lump her because you'll never change her. Maybe in the future, she will be prepared to drop the carefully manicured façade and deliver a proper, penetrating confessional, say, in a torch song style.

Things get marginally more interesting towards the end of the album. Push has a harder, slightly more industrial edge to its beats, while Isaac, built round the magnetic Yemenite vocals of Yitzhak Sinwani of the London Kabbalah Centre, sounds more like the Madonna who is willing to push a few pop boundaries rather than just keep the hotpants warm until Kylie returns as the pristine, mechanical queen of the 21st-century disco.

Hang It Up, Madge/CBC
Madonna’s new single reveals her fallibility
By Andre Mayer

November 14, 2005

For the past two decades, Madonna has been pop music’s most tenacious cool hunter, scouting the underground club scene for the most electrifying trends. The result of Madonna’s reconnaissance has been a dizzying creative evolution, from her early Latin-pop phase (1984-86) to her torch-singer phase (1989), which dovetailed into her voguing phase (1990), which led to her techno phase (1994 on) and her brief flirtation with ghetto fabulous (1999’s Music).

You don’t have to venture too far into Confessions on a Dance Floor, Madonna’s new record, to realize she’s fully ensconced in her new phase: the blissful ’70s.

Cynics decry Madonna’s approach as crass appropriation — which, to a certain extent, it is. Her hauteur doesn’t help; whether it’s voguing or her fervour for Jewish mysticism, she has an irritating tendency to advertise her latest mania as though she invented it. (She also has a habit of berating other celebrities for their lack of commitment.)

Personally, I’ve never seen a problem with her musical m.o.; it’s helped her amass the most impressive singles catalogue of any pop star of the last two decades. Fans and skeptics alike await any new Madonna album with a keen anticipation. If other franchise artists (like, say, Mick and Keef) were as hell-bent on staying fresh, listening to adult radio would seem less masochistic.

But as any fashionista will tell you, keeping on top of trends is hard work — particularly if you’re a 47-year-old mother of two who is still madly touring, writing children’s books and doing movies. Juggling all those responsibilities, while maintaining your unquenchable desire for musical currency, is bound to dim your judgment. The evidence: Hung Up, Madonna’s new single, which finally reveals the singer’s fallibility.

After Madonna’s inane opening refrain ("Time goes by / so slowly"), what emerges from the sonic murk is a disco pulse and the baroque synthesizer melody from ABBA’s 1979 hit Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight). The prominence of the ABBA sample is jarring — not only because it’s rare to hear the Swedish band out of context but because it’s the first time Madge has resorted to such gimmickry. (Madonna actually begged ABBA to use it. Songwriters Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus are famously stingy with their tracks; the Fugees are the only other act to legally sample one.)

There’s nothing innately objectionable about sampling. It’s just that pop stars rarely do it with noble intent — or much tact. The aim of any pop song is to lodge itself in your memory; that journey is greatly expedited if the hook has already been living there for 20 years. One of Madonna’s unheralded achievements has been her ability to avoid such pat mnemonics; despite her trend spotting, her discography, until now, has maintained a sort of creative purity. For her to use an ABBA riff as the basis for an entire song seems like creative capitulation.

The problem with Hung Up is exacerbated by the video. The implicit mandate of any new Madonna vid is to highlight some sexy, newfound dance. In Hung Up, it’s krumping, the hyperkinetic form of street-dancing born in the mean streets of Los Angeles. In past videos like Vogue or Deeper and Deeper, you got the sense that Madonna had actually ventured into the clubs and gotten her heels dirty on some grotty dance floor. Judging from the clip for Hung Up, someone else is doing her field research.

The video opens with Madonna walking into a dance studio wielding a vintage boom box. Sporting Farrah Fawcett tresses and a hideous pink leotard, she commences some (admittedly impressive) warm-up exercises. The rest of the video shuttles between Madonna, striking clichéd disco poses, and the krumpers, stretching the limits of human elasticity. The whole thing feels disjointed; there’s no connection between the style maven and her new discovery. (What’s more, Madge is clearly outclassed.) For someone who has always immersed herself in subcultures, the singer comes across as strangely distant. Even the video’s climax, where the dancers unite in a London club under the aegis of guess-who, can’t hide this fact.

What’s also troubling is that the dancing doesn’t suit the music. Krumpers would never bust a move to ABBA. Their preferred soundtrack is frenetic hip-hop, something more in line with Missy Elliott — who incorporated them in the 2003 video for I’m Really Hot — than hoary Swedish disco.

Confessions on a Dance Floor, on the whole, is similarly conflicted. Lyrically, Madge has never been more arch or out-of-touch: she still insists on dispensing sexual advice; she still takes juvenile pot shots at President Bush; she still writes juvenile rhymes (e.g. “New York” with “dork”).

What ultimately saves the album is its luxe sound, which will play well in the clubs. If Confessions on a Dance Floor evokes a specific vibe, it’s that of producer Giorgio Moroder, the architect of some of the fizziest, most sensual and durable tracks of the disco era. Madonna’s production team (a veritable army that includes Stuart Price, Bloodshy & Avant and Mirwais Ahmadzai) have Moroder’s game down cold: the album throbs with mechanical basslines, effervescent synths and vocoders.

Madonna owes Moroder more than a passing nod, but nothing on the album feels as musically exploitative as its first single. Hung Up seems like a pathetic attempt to simply hang on.


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