Madonna's 'Confessions on a Dance Floor' is still iconic, 20 years later

Before Madonna released her tenth album, “Confessions on a Dance Floor,” on November 9, 2005, her relevancy was up for debate once again.

- By JANUAR JUNIOR AGUJA

Her previous album in 2003, “American Life,” was considered too political for a climate that was supportive of former President George Bush’s plans to invade Iraq in response to 9/11. Any public figure who disagreed with his rhetoric risked cancellation. Just ask the country trio The Chicks, who faced intense backlash when one of their members expressed her distaste for Bush.

She had already faced near-cancellation in the early '90s with her sex-filled, often misunderstood “Erotica” era. While she had no regrets, it took years to regain goodwill from the public, helped by her acting stint in the film adaptation of “Evita” and the subsequent release of “Ray of Light” in the late '90s, whose exploration of motherhood paired with then-unfamiliar electronica resonated with listeners.

At 47, Madonna refused to be classified as a “legacy artist.” She still had a lot to prove and believed she could compete with contemporary acts of the time, like Coldplay, Mariah Carey, The Black Eyed Peas, and Green Day.

It’s fascinating that at a time when R&B and rock were dominant in the mid-2000s, Madonna released a disco-inspired record shaped by the artists she grew up listening to and the club music she was immersed in while recording it. It proved once again that she refused to follow whatever sound dominated the charts.

As Madonna declares in the album’s opening line, “Time goes by so slowly.” It’s been 20 years since she released “Confessions.” Looking back, it could be argued that this is the last album where Madonna was truly original and unique. The albums that followed — the R&B-pop-driven “Hard Candy” in 2008 and the EDM-heavy “MDNA” in 2012 - saw the Queen of Pop leaning into sounds dominating the charts at those times.