<\/p>\n
\u201cM<\/span>adonna never reflects, she\u2019s always moving forward,\u201d Warner PR Liz Rosenberg told me in 2005, when after a frustrating few months laid up after a riding accident, Madonna<\/a> re-emerged \u201clike a bullet from a gun\u201d with the glorious disco-driven Confessions on a Dance Floor, produced largely alongside Stuart Price. Madonna has always been militantly anti-nostalgia: continual reinvention is crucial to her artistic identity.<\/p>\n But arguably, Confessions was \u2013 until last week \u2013 her last great record. Constantly trying to push forward has not always worked for Madonna, with the multiple producers and genres of her 2010s output often proving inconsistent and confusing: the muscular funk of 2008\u2019s Hard Candy<\/a>, the busy powerpop of 2015\u2019s Rebel Heart<\/a>, 2019\u2019s globe-straddling Madame X<\/a>. Leaving Warner Records in 2007 started the decline: Madonna had struck hugely lucrative deals with Live Nation and Interscope, but pressure to recoup that investment meant an element of compromise in her practice and adapting to another contemporary pop innovation: songwriting camps and production by committee. In 2015, Madonna complained to Rolling Stone about \u201cworking with people who can\u2019t get off their phone, can\u2019t stop tweeting, can\u2019t focus and finish a song\u201d.<\/p>\n Re-signing to Warner in 2021 has restored her leeway, particularly as that agreement gives her global rights to her entire back catalogue. With the newly released Confessions II, Madonna finally stopped chasing trends and allowed herself to do what she had long resisted: reflecting on her past, navigating the dance music that is in her DNA and finding creative freedom in looking back. Confessions II is the culmination of work that started with a now-shelved Universal biopic project about her life, and the 2023\/4 Celebration Tour, a moving spectacular that was less a triumphalist greatest hits and more a meditation on ageing, love and loss. One key moment was Madonna\u2019s languid, sensuous performance of Justify My Love, singing to her younger self as if in a faraway dream. Doing this work seems to have opened a portal. \u201cI feel like my brain is tuned into memory,\u201d she said recently. Perhaps the fact that she nearly died in 2023 from a severe bacterial infection made her realise there wasn\u2019t always a future to move towards. Reuniting with Stuart Price, the original Confessions producer and musical director of her Celebration show, has enabled her to turn memories into gold.<\/p>\n