How Madonna revived her career after American Life - the story of 'Confessions on a Dancefloor'
Вставка
- Опубліковано 29 тра 2024
- It’s early 2005 & Madonna is at another cross-roads in her career. A few months earlier she completed the very successful Reinvention tour, in support of 2003’s ‘American Life’. Although well received for the most part by critics, the album has been a commercial disappointment, leaving Madonna in an uncertain position moving forward with her music.
But as you would expect, Madonna soldiers on & decides to head back to the the dance-floor. And in doing so she scores one of the biggest singles & albums of her entire career.
So just how did Madge pull off such an incredible comeback over two decades after her first release? Who were all the producers involved in the making of the Confessions album? How did British pop-star Rachel Stevens inspire her? Why did David LaChapelle pull out as the director of the ‘Hung Up’ video? Why did American radio for the most part ignore the record? All the questions & more are answered in the video.
00:00 Introduction
01:06 'American Life’ era
02:18 Confession’s Beginnings
02:57 Who is Stuart Price?
03:14 The story of ‘Hung Up’
05:30 The making of Confessions
07:36 The Abba Issue
08:37 Bloodshy & Avant - ‘How High’ & ‘Like it or not’
10:07 Bagge & Astrom - ‘Get Together’
10:49 ‘Hung Up’ video
12:52 The photoshoot
13:51 Promo/marketing campaign
16:31 Rest of Confession campaign
18:30 Post Confessions
Don't forget to watch my last video on Christina Aguilera's 'Stripped'
• Why Christina Aguilera...
America's biggest mortal sin is not making Hung Up #1, while the world dancing to it (#1 in 41 countries)
Agreed. I need to look into the exact chart issues there (airplay, digital sales)
@@jonnyharvey Please do! All these years later, that's been on my mind on occasion. 4 Minutes almost made it, but required a lot of effort on the part of social media to support it (as was becoming the case with music around 2008). But 2005, it was more reliant on radio shows and traditional media. So I'm curious.
@@jonnyharvey in 2005 digital sales were small, physical sales were dead, and airplay was ruled by R&B and rock
Americas biggest mortal sin was letting American life flop, so underrated.
Confessions and Ray of Light are my two favourite Madonna albums. I wish Madonna would return to doing more synth-pop & electronica.
What are your thoughts on rebel heart? X
@@oddieshow I love Rebel Heart. Especially if I count the songs that didn't make it onto that album.
Ray of Light and Confessions are also my favorite Madonna albums.
@@oddieshow Rebel Heart is good. Definitely her best of the 2010s.
@@Conejx666 yes 💯. I always say that.
I think she is in a similar position now after Madame X, I wouldn’t be surprised if she goes full dance for the next album. She still obviously craves success.
She's already done that with the remix release. Agreed she craves it. She has so much money at this point I don't know why she even cares anymore.
She craves popularity with the kids. Her new album will feature TikTok ready collabs with rappers. She will only sing through grillz.
She needs to go to rehab first. Unfortunately, for the first time in her career it appears she has a drug problem. On Jimmy Fallon, she admitted to liking opiates and now on her instagram, in every video, she looks high and acts really strange. Not sure what happened, it’s like she’s regressed in life.
& that album won’t be a success probably.
She's made mention of wanting to do just that. I can't wait, Madonna can create great dance hits
I literally skipped PE (my first period) in high school to go buy American Life at Target the morning it came out. I strolled up during the last ten minutes of that period with my album in hand, not in uniform, and my PE teacher is like "Why are you even here?" and I was like "Look, Madonna just released her new album!" he was not amused lol.
I love that story 😀❤️
Wow! 😂 😂 😂
Did you get in any trouble? I mean aside from your gym teacher not being amused.
@@EastSide-qc5oy Sorry I'm so late to notice this. No, I did not. I was in my Junior, year, and wasn't even supposed to be in PE, but was in PE because I had failed the previous 2 years of PE because I started smoking pot and just started skipping PE totally lol. Anyways, my PE teacher didn't punish me because he knew it wouldn't make me start attending PE, and I was 16 which meant truancy wasn't against the law, so there was no point anyways lol. He was actually a cool dude, I feel bad for being as difficult as I was haha.
Gay as f story 😝
It's Madonna's second best era for me, after Erotica. Those two era's are why I love her.
My favorite is Confessions in a tie with Ray of Light. I can listen to those two albums over and over again and I never tire of them. Her best work IMO.
yeah ROL is my favourite Madonna album.
This era was PERFECTION in every aspect
agreed😃
This is my number one album from Madonna so far. The chemistry between Madonna and Stuart Price is felt through the album and the Confessions Tour. Definitely a great Era for Madonna, successfully reminding the world that she is the Queen of Pop. Love it! 💚💚💚
American life sold over 5 million copies and became one of the best selling albums of 2003 despite being banned on MTV and the radios. It made many of us fans love and respect her more. It is one of her best albums and one of the best albums in the pop music history. Dance music is Madonna's natural home genre. But she also has a great folk voice and great social critical lyrics.
I really like the American Life album. Nothing Fails is my favourite song on there.
It was better than madame x
My greatest respect to the Queen Of Pop , for being so brave, especially in her albums Erotica and AmericanLife. Thank you MADONNA 👑
I'm craving either a true sequel to Ray of Light or a sequel to Something to Remember. If she is focused she can do a full on true ballad album in the pop scope
If STR was a studio album it would be the most perfect album ever. Every song is a classic 😀
Favorite Madonna ....ray of light, music and American life trio.
Three in a row 😀
Wow, I was 19 when "Confessions" was released 💕 totally great memories of my younger days on the dance floor 💃 Still LOVE to watch the Confessions Tour🪩 such a great album. LOVE Stuart Price & the lyrics on the album💙. Truly A Masterpiece✨ how could you go wrong with ABBA🕺
this is the last Madonna album I bought and truly enjoyed it . . .
Ha! Me too!…. Later on she came out with Give Me All Your Love…. I was like…. “Why is she trying to sound like a current day pop thing”
@@alejandromolinac she is hooked on being current . . . IMHO
For me, Confessions on a DanceFloor put her at a step above everyone else in her peer group. It was just that good for me! It Janet Jackson and Mariah Carey a few more years for me to really dig their stuff again!
I agree. Great Point!
Thank you for another highly informative and entertaining analysis! The mid-2000's was definitely the era for massively successful hip-hip infused pop albums by (mostly) white artists like Gwen Stefani, Mariah, Nelly Furtado, Fergie and Justin Timberlake. That's why I feel Madonna's next album, Hard Candy, was a big disappointment as she seemed to be reheating that "hip-pop" sound already stale in 2008. Yes, 4 Minutes became one of her biggest global hits, but it still sounds interchangeable with other Timbaland productions from that time. COAD is still considered by many her last epic album and era because she ignored current trends, followed her creative instincts and collaborated with lesser-known producers (at that time) to deliver a near perfect disco inspired dance-pop opus. 😎
I agree. It’s like she doesn’t trust her instincts anymore. 🥲 Regardless I still like some tracks from the albums released after COADF, the albums themselves don’t sound cohesive. Great songs mixed with bad ones.
I think she should have stayed on the EDM path. I'm not saying that she should have worked only with Stuart Price, but for example there were rumors that he was making a post-Confessions record with the Pet Shop Boys. The Hard Candy album sounded like Timbaland gave her the worse songs left off Nelly Furtado's album :)
confessions is the only madonna album I listen to until now. it was very ahead of its time and it feels very current
My favourite ever Madonna moment was 1985 Live Aid I was 16 then wow. She looked awesome, the auburn hair
An iconic performance 😀
Excellent video. I had no idea that Confessions was created due to a musical Madonna was writing.
Thanks 😀
A few songs from the musical she was working on have been leaked..like Is This Love (Bon D' Accord) which was later changed to Voices and Devil Wouldn't Recognize You
I love your videos, especially the ones on Madonna, her career spans such a long amount of time, and the work she put in to keep her relevance in the public spotlight is so incredible, when most faded away, She found new exciting and bold ways to keep everyone's interest
So true - how she just keeps going is remarkable. Thanks for your kind words btw 😀🙏
It’s late December 2023. Madonna is in the middle of her Celebration World Tour. The tour is spectacular and she looked as fierce, disciplined, happy and artistic as ever. Many here are speculating negatively on her like..she’s done, she’s on drug addiction and will likely OD, etc.-the acute hospital where she went on ER before her Celebration tour thoroughly checked her including blood lab and they concluded she had a very serious bacterial infection. It’s likely her immune system suffered from the stressful months of planning, organizing, practicing for her tour that she came down with an infection. She recovered, re-scheduled part of her tour and now she’s in the middle of it…performing 3-4 concerts per week traveling with her crew through Europe and back to North America. She’s already planning to complete her biopic as her next focus after this tour. Just amazing.
This is my Ultime Madonna !! I was fresh out of college when this came out. I played it non stop in my car and apartment. I have so many great memories tied to this album. I was living in Tampa, so close to the beach. All the gay clubs played the album but rarely, if ever, heard it on the radio sadly. 💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖
She revived it by doing dance music again. She needs to do that now.
Yeah I would like to see her get back to dance pop. But at the point I don’t think she has anything to prove.
@@jonnyharvey Absolutely agree; she has nothing left to prove. Even if she had retired after Confessions, she would be golden. I have all of her albums. Even though I did not like her last three albums, I would still buy a new album by her just to see what she has to say.
Hands Down One Of My Favourite Albums Of The Millennium.... Still On Heavy Rotation
It's a classic 😃
Another amazing video! You clearly put a lot of work into these clips and I thank you for this. So much research and so many interesting facts I didn’t know! Thank you from one your biggest fans, amazing job yet again!!
Thanks so much. Took me 10 days 😩😩😩
@@jonnyharvey Worth every minute
She did it with good music. As simple as that.
yep that's what it all comes down to really - the music.
Have to say have been a Madonna fan since the Confessions Era back when I was a kid and there are things that I didn’t know that your video was able to inform me on. I appreciate and thank you for your hard work, carefully thought out and well researched videos :)
thank you so much 😃Yeah I always try and 'bring something new to the table' so that's great to hear 🙏
Confessions is also my first Madonna era . I became a fan in 2006 and she’s my #1 fave artist!
I hope she’s able to revive her career like this again
Likewise but I think something significant has changed
She has nothing left to prove.
I feel like she doesn’t really care anymore. While she still has some good songs in the newer albums (which she realeases every 3-4 years), they don’t sound as cohesive as before.
@@jonnyharvey yeah but she still can make great music. It’s not like she’s dead.
Rebel Heart couldve been that album but it was poorly executed following the demo releases
Madonna will always continue to plow forward no matter what "lows" she has in her career.
I remember being 11 yo when Madonna came to Russia for the first time… and it was confessions tour in 2006… Gosh, I wanted to see that concert so much! And everyone was going absolutely crazy about her music at that time! Most commercials on TV, radio stations, news, her confessions music was featured everywhere. This is one of very few things that make me wish I was born 10ish years earlier so I could attend that concert myself, and not watch it on DVD years after…
Now I’m almost 27 and Confessions is my most favorite album of hers to this day 🪩
Thanks for sharing that. I missed quite a few Madonna concerts when I was younger also. Confessions was the first time I saw her live 😀
Thank you! For another one! Looking forward to listening to this on my commute home ❤
Enjoy!
Good job on providing detailed snip-its and fun facts about the album. Even I, a very long time fan have learned something new. Good job! Love Madonna… she is very much ahead of her time. Countless great hits, but Confessions…amazing album! ❤
Oh that’s good to hear 😀There’s no point in doing the video if I’m just re-hashing what’s out there so I try to bring something new to the table. Thanks 😀
LOVING the madonna videos, keep it up !!
Thank you 😀🙏
You should teach Madonna history in school. The future generations NEED to know this.
🤣🤣🤣
The way how You did direct this video, is so interesting and so entertaining, it was so much joy to watch it, and so interested !!! GREAT JOB!👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Thank you so much 😀😀 I did this video a year ago so I don’t really remember it & I’m too afraid to look back at it 😂
another great video, such indepth research and not just thrown together, keep up the great work
Thanks Peter 😀🙏
Fantastic recap! Loved it.
Thanks 😀🙏
Perfect job. Amazing video. Your content is so entertaining and informative.
Thank you 😀🙏
Thank you for another great video ❤
Thank you 😀🙏
Such a great sum up! Thank you for this review!!!
Thank you 😀🙏
Great video you present it that keeps me watching… you choose great quotes with info I don’t know
thank you 😀😀
More dance and more pop music are what the queen of pop needs!
Agreed!
Absolutely loved this!
😀🙏
THANK YOU VERY MUCH💜
She doesn’t need to revive anything . She’s Madonna untouchable
Your Madonna videos are amazing!! Long live the queen!
Thank you Zelijko 🙏😀
Well, I knew Madonna songs back then, I knew who Madonna was, I was a teen then, I saw the cd, bought it and it became a soundtrack for my life, I loved it... and confessions made me a fan.
Ray of Light made me a Madonna fan 😀
@@jonnyharvey I was a kid then, like I really became aware of Madonna in her music era, still a kid.
Confession on the Dancefloor 🪩 is my favorite album from Madonna. I can listen to this album on repeat.
a classic!
I enjoyed Madem X and I think it’s her best album in a really long time! What’s great about Madonna is that she diversifies herself which is smart to mee!
loving all the madonna videos 👍👍
Glad you like them! 😀
Hi from Belgium! I just subscribed to your channel! I'm very impressed by the quality and the time you spent making these videos. I'm a big fan of Madonna and also of Australian singer Kylie Minogue. You could make a video of her one day.
Thanks - yes I’m definitely doing a Kylie video in the next two month. I’m a big Kylie fan also 😀
@@jonnyharvey can't wait thanks
Kylie's the QUEEN 👑💯 I'd prefer Kylie to Madonna seen them both live , Kylie's much better live.... 🤟🤙👌👑💯🎤🎤
@@shaunhoward3166 lol I’m a fan of both too but AS IF 😂
@@danielhennessey4282 Kylie's got a much better voice then Madonna live... Plus Kylie's got class 😜🙏🤙👌💯
Just finished watching this video and upon checking your body of work I gasped when I saw Believe by Cher. Imma make coffee first then binge-watch on your channel. Cheers 🍻
Thanks - hope it meets your expectations 😀
Why do you only have 1.5k subs??? You should be blowing up, your content is interesting and well put together!
Thank you so much 😀🙏I will remember this when I’m having a confidence crisis 😂
Ray Of Light is her enlightened era ❤ William Orbit paired with Madonna’s writing is chef’s kiss
Great times ❤️
As a long time metalhead who enjoys Megadeth I got into Madonna through Metallica and Megadeth because they used to hang out with her Confessions is still my favorite Madonna album I can listen to that album back to front over and over again.
That’s so cool to hear 😀 It’s a great album
I remember 04, 05 & 06 being Madge crazy!!! Had the best times with friends going to her concerts in UK & Amsterdam. Best times ever 😅😅😅😅
😀
She needs to get back to disco!! we need that new disco album! Her new era needs iconic imagery too, she lost that. Her last good album was Rebel heart.
I do think a pure pop disco sound would be a good direction to go in. Get back to a classic Madonna sound but updated for 2024.
I loved American life! it was soooo weird random and so unlike her other albums.
Please make a video about Kylie Minogue’s Y2K renaissance. Your videos are sublime.
Thank you so much 🙏Yes I’m going to do a Kylie video in the next two months 😂
@@jonnyharvey omg the goddess of pop I can’t wait to hear about her Aphrodite era
One of the best albums ever
and one of her best albums:
American Life
Personal, innovative, artistic, edgy, courageous, prophetic and ahead of its time.
Even her fans still don't understand how supreme that concept album was.
2:16 she looks amazing
Love this vid.
Love your vids.
Love Jonny.
Thank you 🙏 😀
@@jonnyharvey 🙏👍
After the highs of Ray of Light and Music, American Life did irreparable damage to her radio wise. Hung Up should’ve been a number 1 in the States and all the other singles would have been top 10 hits.
Yes it really hurt her momentum
American Life is my second favorite album ❤ it’s art
AL does have a very loyal band of followers
Thank you so much for the videos!! Could we expect to see one about my personnal queen Kylie?
Yes I’m doing Kylie in January 😀🙏
@@jonnyharvey Great!!!
Confessions is a really good album and the demos too
Agreed 😀
Well said. 👌
Thanks 😀
This album is on my CD player.
A classic!
I love American Life so much❤️❤️❤️ but I understand that COTDF is her comeback album so as Mariah Carey's album that year.
Yes 2005 was a big year for comebacks.
really enjoy your videos
Thank you 😀
a sincere thank you. I always knew she worked with David LaChappelle*. I saw Rize and he had just done her calendar for the Drowned World album and then she used one of the girls featured in Rize for her Sorry music video. Thank you for giving us the full story of their working relationship, poor guy. But he got to work with her, however unpleasant at times
Yes they had a photoshoot together back in 98 aswell during the ROL era
Best album and tour ever
It was an exceptional era 😀
Confession on the dance floor is my favorite Madonna album.
The tour was AMAZING. Fuck radio she made her bank on the tour.
Not being funny this drop was everything when I would wake up to get ready for school on mtv . Hung up was sooooo huge growing up
I know it was everywhere, wasn't it?
I love American Life😍😭😭
Yeah I think it’s a great record 😀
My Queen Forever 👑❤️👑❤️
Queen of Pop!
@@jonnyharvey Yes Sure She Is The Queen Of POP👑👑
I agree that Confessions was a fantastic album from start to finish, and her last truly great one. Everything else she's released since then has been uneven, mostly few good songs among a bunch of so-so filler. Confessions was the last record where it seems she really put her all into it.
That seems to be an opinion shared by many
Great video. I hope you will do a Kylie video on the trajectory from Impossible Princess to Fever
yes defintely - great idea. Doing one in the new year.
About time lady.
Is that me?!?! 😂😂
In 2005 it was Pop Punk, Emo Rock & Rock music that ruled the airwaves in America. It was basically illegal to play Dance music at the time. Madonna's M.O. has always been Dance music or some type of Electronic music if she ever released a full Rock album then I would consider her daring. Even when Dance music was huge in 2012 she couldn't even top the charts. It's safe to say her career flatlined after Hard Candy. Her tours are successful because older/young fans want to see her perform the hits much like how The Rolling Stones can fill stadiums without charting albums or singles.
Yes dance music was not happening in 2005.
ALSO just to add… I think due to her illness people EXPECTED something VERY PERSONAL like when Madonna had a baby and suddenly gave us Ray Of Light… and you can hear about how much this life changing addition to her family changed her in the lyrics and themes… so X would be a fine pop album at any other time but people needed something PERSONAL and this album isn’t personal it’s very much standard pop
American life is a classic !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes it’s a real fan favourite
I feel like you missed a key detail. If you look at her singles from American life they all do very well on the US dance charts and we got probably official dance remixes for a substantial amount of album tracks. This really set the stage for her to double down on dance music for the next album.
Okay, thanks for that. I never said the video was definitive. I heard that recently about AL dance mixes. I didn’t really come across that in any of my research and she didn’t mention it in any interviews I read. But thanks for sharing anyway.
On release day in Toronto Warner Music had limos driving downtown with disco balls on them blasting Out Hung Up. Stating “”Madonna returns to her glorious roots’’!
Wow Warner Music Canada went all out by the sounds of it
@@jonnyharvey yeah was amazing. Madonna Returns to her Glorious roots. They sure right!
Fact that Mariah blowed the world too with her "The Emancipation of mimi"makes 2005 so iconic..
Mariah literally defeated all huge hits of 00's to have #1 biggest hit of 00's in USA
While Madonna had huge success in Europe..Mariah revived her North American markets with it...
Who is Mariah?
@@rf6724I don’t know her.
@@rf6724 All i want 4 Xmas is you singer
@@rf6724 the greatest living artist …
@@adiawasthi4589 the woman with 19#1s 😊
Whatever I may think of her now, when Hung Up hit the UK number one position, it could not be understated how incredible and unmatchable her commercial achievements in the UK had been.
By this point she had been having a string of top twenty (mostly top ten hits) for 21 years which was unprecedented at the time and remains so to this date.
The snobby music industry has refused to acknowledge this just in the same way that they fail to acknowledge DISCO and not punk changed the culture in the 70s or that House was a bigger cultural phenomenon than the 'swingy sixties' or brit pop in the late 80s , entire 1990s
Just because they ignore it doesn't mean it didn't happen
Yeah it was a huge achievement - to be dominating the charts almost a quarter of a century into your career is remarkable.
Hung up is a banger
Sadly, it was to be the last major time, mostly because menopause killed her voice around the end of the Confessions Tour.
While several singles from Confessions were strong, most songs suffered from lacklustre vocal melodies that could have easily have been tweaked to transform them from album filler flops into worthy classics (“Get Together,” “Let It Will Be,” etc.)
She would have been well served to put a bit more into COADF before releasing it and then focusing a bit more on dance versions of singles throughout her extensive catalogue and expanding the Confessions Tour into her last major/farewell tour. January 2006 would have been the winter to do a LIVE Super Bowl and cross that off her list like MJ did. She could have released a couple singles, say with a soundtrack for her 50th birthday in 2008 and given one size record-setting Central Park concert in 2008 at 50, but her voice hasn’t been able to handle a full set list and full itinerary since 2006.
Nothing to detract from her legacy; she’s just physically human, and a woman. Better to have gone out with a calculated and polished grand finale and bang than this fizzle into boob job and photoshop ridicule. Her 2005 facelift created the last time she really looked and sounded like Madonna.
Some interesting thoughts there - thanks for sharing 😃
Get Together is my fav Madonna song, it is a pure perfection.
those last phrases took me off guard so mean 😭
I always thought American Life was a richer and more complex album. Confessions always felt like a step down for the masses, as she needed something more basic to appeal to them.
Yes I guess Confessions did sound much poppier & commercial & was more appealing to her fanbase than AL
why this video its only 480p ?
Oh sorry - I’m doing all my new videos in 1080p
Confessions on a Dance Floor is the last great Madonna album.
Mi piaci sempre molto Madonna nel 1984 ai tempi di like a virgin col tuo look
The dvd is good.
No need for Revival in my eyes….🤷🏻♂️
American Life was my FAVE Madonna album. I love every single song.
The videos also.
Different Strokes for diff folks I suppose.
Well put - different strokes for different folks indeed.
Interesting to see how the rest of this your turns out. It wasn’t planned this way. She was starting in Vancouver in July and travelling through the US before Europe
Well it’s a huge success thus far
lol what's up wuth the 480p?! is it 2010 again?
As in the setting I exported in? I think sb told me use that setting cause it exports faster. What should I be making the videos in do you think?
I think she'd have more commercial success with an album along the lines of Ray Of Light. I understand the concept of reinventing and evolving but by constantly going after a newer younger audience, she will continue to alienate her long time fans
I wish she would go Hyperpop mode!!
Yeah it would be cool. Just get back to pure pop 😀