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}} ''Confessions on a Dance Floor'' is the tenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Madonna. It was released on November 11, 2005 by Warner Bros. Records. A complete departure from her previous studio album ''American Life'' (2003), the album includes influences of 1970s and 1980s disco, as well as modern-day club music. Initially, she began working with Mirwais Ahmadzaï for the album, but later felt that their collaboration was not going in the direction she desired. Madonna took her collaboration with Stuart Price who was overviewing her documentary ''I'm Going to Tell You a Secret''. The album was mainly recorded at Price's home-studio where Madonna spent most of her time during the recordings. Musically, the album is structured like a DJ's set. The songs are sequenced and blended together so that they are played continuously without any gaps. The title arrived from the fact that the album tracklisting consists of light-hearted and happy songs in the beginning, and progresses to much darker melodies and lyrics describing personal feelings and commitments. Songs on the album use samples and references of music by other dance-oriented artists like ABBA, Donna Summer, Pet Shop Boys, Bee Gees and Depeche Mode, as well as Madonna's earlier work in the 1980s. Most critics lauded the album calling it a return to form for Madonna, ranking it alongside her best albums. Madonna was honored with a Grammy Award for Best Electronic/Dance Album in 2007, as well as International Female Solo Artist at the 2006 BRIT Awards. Commercially, the album peaked at number one in 40 countries, earning a place in the 2007 ''Guinness Book of World Records'' for topping the record charts in the most countries. Despite being available for sale during the last one and a half months of 2005, the album's success was such that it still ranked as the world's sixth biggest-selling of the year. ''Confessions on a Dance Floor'' has sold an estimated 12 million copies worldwide. Four singles were released from the album. "Hung Up", the lead single, became Madonna's most successful single worldwide by topping the charts in a total of 41 countries. It was followed by "Sorry" which was another chart topping success. It became Madonna's twelfth number-one single in the United Kingdom. "Get Together" and "Jump" were released as the third and fourth singles respectively, both becoming top-ten hits in several countries. To promote the album, Madonna embarked on a small promotional tour titled Hung Up Promo Tour. The album was further promoted on the 2006 Confessions Tour, which became the highest grossing tour ever for a female artist at that time. ==Development== ''Confessions on a Dance Floor'' merged elements from 1970s disco, 1980s electropop and modern day club music. Madonna decided to incorporate elements of disco in her songs, while trying not to remake her music from past, instead choosing to pay tribute towards artists like Bee Gees and Giorgio Moroder.〔 The songs reflected Madonna's thoughts on love, fame and religion, hence the title ''Confessions on a Dance Floor''.〔 It was the complete opposite direction from her previous studio effort ''American Life'' (2003). The songs on that album were a form of diatribe directed at the American society. However, Madonna decided to take a different direction with this album. Regarding the development, Madonna commented: "When I wrote ''American Life'', I was very agitated by what was going on in the world around me, () I was angry. I had a lot to get off my chest. I made a lot of political statements. But now, I feel that I just want to have fun; I want to dance; I want to feel buoyant. And I want to give other people the same feeling. There's a lot of madness in the world around us, and I want people to be happy."〔 She started to work with Mirwais Ahmadzaï with whom she had previously developed her eighth album ''Music'' (2000).〔 However, that collaboration did not suit Madonna's musical direction. According to Madonna, "() Mirwais is also very political, seriously cerebral and intellectual. All we did was sit around, talking politics all the time. So, that couldn't help but find its way into the music. I think there's an angry aspect to the music that directly reflects my feelings at the time." Hence after recording tracks with Mirwais, Madonna decided to stop the project and start fresh. It was then that she turned to Stuart Price who had served as musical director on her two previous concert tours and co-wrote one song on ''American Life''.〔 In 2004, after the release of ''American Life'', Madonna began working on two different musicals: one tentatively called ''Hello Suckers'' and another one with Luc Besson, who previously directed the music video for her single "Love Profusion"., which would portray her as a woman on her deathbed looking back on her life. Madonna collaborated with Patrick Leonard, Ahmadzaï and Price to write new songs, the latter being assigned to pen disco songs sounding like "ABBA on drugs". However, Madonna found herself dissatisfied with the script written by Besson and scrapped it.〔 Hence Madonna and Price decided to use the compositions for the album instead.〔 According to Madonna, it was easy for her to shift from her previous album's sentiments, since she included those political views in her documentary ''I'm Going to Tell You a Secret''. She elaborated: "I was running back and forth, literally, from the editing room with (documentary's director ) Jonas Akerlund to working with Stuart, who was also mixing the music in the film. We were together, non-stop, all of us. Cutting 350 hours of film down to two hours. There are a lot of serious aspects to the movie. I needed a release. When I would go to Stuart's, and we'd go up to his loft, it was like, 'Honey, I want to dance.' I wanted to be happy, silly and buoyant. I wanted to lift myself and others up with this record. So, yes, the new album was a reaction to all the other stuff I was doing, which was very serious in nature. I hope that doesn't imply that I wanted to make a superficial record, because it's not. I want people to smile when they hear this record. I wanted it to put a smile on my face, too."〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Confessions on a Dance Floor」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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