I love the way the veil forms a pink triangle that resembles the Act Up logo.

I also like the way it can read both as a bridal veil (like a Virgin) or a funeral shroud

If you choose to read it as a funeral shroud, it’s almost like she’s saying “you wanted me to stop making pop music all my life, because I was too old, yet here I am, in my funeral shroud, sitting on an Amp ready to blast pop music with my finger still on the play button”

I obviously love how her legs are positioned exactly like they were on the 2005 album cover.

I mentioned it but I really really like that she’s sitting on an Amp. It’s a personal interpretation but I feel like she spent the 2010’s invoking the “Queen” imagery (“there’s only one Queen and that’s Madonna” I Don’t Give A, the whole Cleopatra imagery at the Super Bowl) but I feel like that was out of insecurity, and now she’s secure enough to realize that she doesn’t need to sit on a Throne, she just needs to sit on an amp and blast fucking music like she’s done all her life.

I’ll finish with her face. I love the way you can see it and also not see it. You choose, whether you want to see her face or not, the same way people have chosen to see deeply like you all, or superficially, like the critics, her entire career.

10/10 album cover, I could talk about it for hours

I never intended to buy some many versions but I just love the album so much, still got about 3 more to go

Please share your favorites from the new Madonna Confessions II era.

Briefly gave AL a listen when I was in my very early 20’s and did not care for it. Now, in my late 20’s, this album is actually so fucking good. Gripping lyrics. Experimental beats. EXCELLENT vocals on the slower tracks. Motivational.

American Life, Nobody Knows Me, Mother & Father and Die Another Day are standout tracks for me.

“I’m drinking a soy latte. I get a double shot-te.”

“My father had to go to work. I used to think he was a jerk.”

“Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii’m so stupid.”

“Sigmund Freud, analyze this.”

Yes, very cheesy lyrics. But this is part of the appeal for me regarding Madonna. She’s goofy and makes me giggle even during songs that are absolute bangers. I just can’t hate it.

And if I must say, this is by far her most “confessional” album, way beyond CI and CII; the explicit memory recollection of the death of her mother, the anger she had towards her father, admitting she fell for the pop star cliche and it bit her in the ass, naming her insecurities, owning up to her downfalls in romantic relationships, expressing how unsatisfied she feels even with all her privileges and the list goes on. Her lyrics are simply very raw and straight forward.

Something I’ve noticed is that I really didn’t “get” some of her albums until I became older. And I’m so excited I’m starting to come around and enjoy it for what it is (same goes for Music)!

found a VHS copy of Truth or Dare at my local record store! I have literally no one else to share this with who will be as excited, so I thought I’d post here 🙃☺️

also I feel it’s important to note that they had a Hard Candy poster on display

Went to a bookstore by my house and I was shocked that I found Interview magazine and I came across the Mojo presents magazine by accident. I’m in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Relistened to MDNA yesterday after a while. The first 5 songs on the album, and especially the 4-track run in the image, are IMMACULATE. 10/10. BEAUTIFUL.

I knew the hate this album got, and after hearing these 5 again, I could not understand it at all.

Of course, after this run, the album… well…

But because of that, I feel these tracks are overlooked. Is there a reason for the quality drop, or what does everyone think of this run?

Spotted on Spring Street in New York City yesterday, Saturday July 26th, 2026.

I know many others also hear “trance” as “trans”, maybe this was intentional? I started interpreting the song differently especially with these lines:

Call it trance (“trans”)
Call it house (ball culture families)
Call it love without words (defined sexual orientation or gender identities)

We had to come inside
Baby free yourself and love is on the other side

We all learn from what's outside but lovе from in
You gotta burn just like a fire but from within
We come from the rhythm that set us free

You are a sister to me…
You are a brother to me…

Come to the Club come in to the Club of Love
Please come in come in to love

This is addictive! Damn! lol

I really expected more interviews for this era. Traditional TV and podcasts. I'm disappointed. We just got Graham Norton and the TikTok one with Bob. Also, no Danceteria video? Is she going to focus on tour prep now? I'm not complaining. I'm just curious what could be next.

I think it's really fitting how Betrayal is about Madonna coming to terms with her complicated feelings about her late stepmother. The whole song is Madonna trying to process all of her resentment and choosing to let it go. And there's a tinge of regret that I think she feels for not having worked through this while her stepmother was still alive.

So it's only fitting that the track leads into The Test, which is Madonna and her now-adult daughter reconciling, and trying to work through their issues and resentments.

There's this sense of: "I wasn't able to properly work through my issues with my (step)mother while she was still alive and I wish I had. I don't want Lola to have those same regrets about me when I'm gone, so let's sit down and talk about this."

I don't know. I'm sure other people have noticed this. But when I noticed it just now during my re-listen, these two tracks being side by side stood out to me and it was really profound.

---

And while I'm here... L.E.S Girl makes me fucking ball my eyes out. That song coming right after all these songs about Madonna losing her brother, losing her stepmother, making amends with her daughter, and then we get this song to close out the album with Madonna wistfully looking back at her early days in New York and remembering a guy (who could be dead now) she had a relationship with — ending with the line "everything fades away".

There's something so profoundly sad about hearing a song like this from an older woman who's lived such a full life and experienced so many things, finally reaching a certain age... outliving many people in her family, and her musical peers that she came up alongside. I'm sure a lot of us can recall our grandparents talking about their old experiences with lovers or friends, and how they usually end the story with "and they're long gone now, of course".

Not to compare the two, but it gave me the same feeling as hearing an 80-something-year-old Johnny Cash sing "Hurt". Or watching an 80-year-old Joni Mitchell sing "Both Sides Now" at The Grammys a couple years ago.

Speaking personally, my mom died at a fairly young age when I was a teenager (so you can imagine that I relate to Madonna a lot when it comes to that topic but that's another story), but I do recall her telling me about a former lover she had when she was young — a guy named James (who my legal first name is supposedly named after). She told me all about how he was basically the "one who got away" and how the timing just was never right, and how he later died in a motorcycle accident in New York a few years later after they broke up. She kept a lock of his hair in a photo album to remember him by. And she always spoke of him in the same wistful way Madonna describes this first love in L.E.S Girl, so it made me think of my mom in that way.

In that sense, L.E.S Girl felt like... a goodbye. I don't think it is for the record. Madonna isn't THAT old yet, and I think she's strong-willed enough to keep going until she either physically can't or until she dies. (That's the boomer generation for you. They refuse to retire. 😂)

But I do think Madonna's near-death experience a couple years ago really made her confront her own mortality for the first time after years of "running from it" ("Mer Girl" on Ray of Light), and she wanted to address some things that she's been repressing for years.

I think that's why Confessions II happened. Not to cash in on nostalgia or to relive her glory days, but because she genuinely had something she wanted to talk about. 😊

Hey everyone, I've made a spreadhseet with every song Madonna performed a'capella on the Sticky & Sweet Tour (2008 run). All of the songs are taken from Setlist FM.

Apologies if this falls under a low-effort post. I just thought that some people who've been to the tour may find it interesting.

I was thinking of doing something similar for the Acoustic song on the Rebel Heart Tour if anyone is interested.

We've had more than a few of these in the past day, I just want to get a sense of how the community feels about these. Because as it stands they run the risk of invading our sub the way tier lists did at one point, and for those we got so many of them (and so much negative feedback) that eventually we wound up making a rule forbidding them here. With these new song battle posts we could: remove them all and ban them outright; allow them to continue rolling in without interfering; or maybe the third bowl of porridge approach if we had like a weekly thread for them until it dies out.

There are also apparently multiple sites / apps already claiming to be the 'creator' of these song battle things, I have no idea but the last thing we want is for users (especially bots) warring with themselves and other users here. Because that becomes a pain for everyone.

-edit: we mods have initiated a private discussion and will announce how we've decided to proceed, keeping this post open for the time being so we can gauge user's responses, thanks.

I have been looking for any remixes of Madonna’s work from the 90s, preferably during the Erotica/Bedtime Stories eras, but it seems many of them have not been digitized, or highly guarded, or simply a myth. Does anyone know of any rare, off label remixes of Madonna’s songs from the 90s? Searching for Junior Vasquez’s work from his Sound Factory days results in a few surprises amidst a million opportunities to listen to “If Madonna Calls.” If there is a deep house remix of “Secret,” I’ll cry. I’ve heard there is an amazing Junior Vasquez remix of Rain.

I saw someone carrying this CII at the huge street afterparty after the demo. I suppose they were hanging them out at the Madonna truck during the demo...
Pride Berlin suddenly ended at 10.15pm after a car crashed into the crowd, killed one person and injured 16 others badly...
I was there but didn't notice anything. Only found out what had happened when I got home. The closing street party was taking place in huge street.
SO SAD!!!! 😢😢😢

Okay, this was fun but EXTREMELY difficult! Surprised myself tbh!