Ok, So...

[Future Lovers 7,700]

14 hours ago, ANVEEROY said:

 

I think it shouldn't be called 'Confessions II'

It absolutely should have been. It's the perfect title. The reason the album is called Confessions II is because it is a perfect mirror image of the first one. Made under nearly the exact same circumstances and representative of nearly the exact same thing within her wider catalogue. 

1. It is a return to dance music following several consecutive releases of diversions into other sounds, and is the immediate follow up to a major sound diversion that was received with a heavily mixed response due to how much of a diversion it ended up being.

2. It immediately follows an overtly political record that, while in the process of being made, pushed her toward a more introspective and emotionally driven place.

3. It was a reunion with a former collaborator who noticed this and pushed her further in that direction and encouraged her to use dance music, her most comfortable and mastered wheelhouse, as a tool to discuss topics she has typically avoided.

4. It followed a particularly challenging period in her life that completely shifted her artistic and personal mindset, and that ended up reflecting in the material itself.

5. It was made with a desire to reprove herself, not necessarily to the public, but to herself personally. 

Hell, to throw in a bonus, it's the album that followed up what was viewed as a greatest hits tour that led to many questioning whether she was well and truly out of new ideas! It gets forgotten today but Re-Invention Tour at the time was seen as a Madonna hits show and many speculated it was going to be her last tour. Same thing with Celebration. 

People have assumed it was called Confessions II because it was going to sound like the first one, or to artificially enhance hype. But the reality is it was called that because she and Stuart both recognized at the very beginning just how similar the scenario of it's creation was. She realized at some point she pretty much exactly in the same spot she was in at the end of the American Life era in terms of how the culture viewed her and how she was viewing herself. 

That's why calling it Confessions II to me was such a brilliant move. She recognized the first one as a massive creative renaissance after being on her backfoot in the eyes of the world, and she recognized she was about to go through that same process again. 

They're sister records through and through. Just not sonically. She elected to touch on different kinds of dance this time instead of disco. But thematically? They're EXTREMELY related to each other. 

[Sneaky Oliver 23,020]

I agree about the title, I think this album has its own personality, it could still be promoted as Confessions part 2 even with a different title 

I have always imagined Revelations, it references Confessions in a way, like a little wink and fits the album perfectly thematically for me