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Madonna “Danceteria”

Madonna has spent much of the past 20 years artistically lost at sea, attempting to navigate a unique set of circumstances – trying to stay vital and relevant in the pop market in her 50s and 60s, attempting to live up to her own past successes, and competing against artists whose careers wouldn’t exist in the same way without her laying the groundwork. There’s very little precedent for what Madonna has been doing, and virtually none within the lane of pop music she pioneered.

And so it comes as a huge relief that Madonna is back on track, and figuring out how to be an elder pop icon on her own terms. It took some trial and error, but with Confessions II she’s found a way to balance out doling out the wisdom of age, looking back on what she’s lived through without cheap nostalgia, and finding fresh ways to be outrageous. And while she spent a lot of time in the wilderness trying to figure out new people to be in rather “hello fellow kids” ways, the answer to the problem was always obvious: She just had to be herself.

After all, who else has ever lived a life like Madonna? And when Madonna sings about her early career, her nostalgia is our history. “Danceteria” is an ode to the Manhattan club where she made her name, with all the lyrical emphasis placed on name-checking her friends (Martin Burgoyne, Haoui Montaug, Debi Mazar) and the various luminaries (Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, David Byrne, The B-52’s) who frequented the space. It authentically situates her at the center of an exciting cultural moment, a convergence of some of the coolest and most creative people who’ve ever lived.

She’s giving us a little window into something very specific and exclusive and genuinely historically important. And from our perspective in the smart phone era, it’s something that feels exotic and alien. An organic community of artists and assorted stylish people living in the moment, feeling the music, only performing for one another? It’s an aspirational existence that doesn’t seem replicable today.

I think that last point is part of why she feels compelled to sing about it now. There are moments throughout Confessions II in which she’s subtly or overtly begging us all to get off our phones, go outside, to dance and be fully alive. She knows from experience how amazing it can be, and she’s not giving up hope on younger people who’ve never had a chance to experience it as she has. She’s trying to help us!

Buy it from Amazon.