Recorded at a 2006 show in London, The Confessions Tour is Madonna's second concert CD+DVD set in eight months. The first, I'm Going to Tell You a Secret, supported her American Life album and had the distinction of being both the first live album of her quarter-century career and her greatest musical fiasco. While similar in staging, this new set supports a much better album, 2005's stronger Confessions on a Dance Floor, and that alone makes it the better of the two. Viewed together-- their quick succession makes it impossible to assess them separately-- this pair of releases signals the beginning of a new stage in Madonna's career, one in which director Jonas Åkerlund has become more crucial than musical producer Stuart Price, and music has become secondary to the dizzying, dazzling, slightly nauseating spectacle of her live show.
That spectacle has eclipsed music in the Madonnaverse is readily apparent on the Confessions tracklists. The DVD contains a full concert, with 21 tracks running more than two long hours. The CD has a mere 13, including two versions of "Sorry" and several of Stuart Price's instrumental interludes, which demand visuals to explain what the hell is going on. Instead of "Live to Tell", the CD contains songs like "Confessions", during which Madge's dancers describe life-changing experiences. One tells of an abusive father, another of her belief in angels, the third of his "decision to gangbang." Without the performers' hyperactive and not unimpressive moves, the song sounds aimless and exploitive, group therapy set to music.
Instead of presenting herself as the art-school activist of Secret (which was recorded during an election year, after all), on Confessions Madonna plays the part of a self-help guru-- Tony Robbins with a Farrah 'do and an ugly leotard. The recurring theme is self-empowerment, which she means to be universal, but which ultimately is specific to Madonna. On the lively "Jump" she extols the virtues of self-motivation and sisterhood. She confidently masters the simplest guitar riffs on "I Love New York" and "Drowned World" and doesn't care what you think of her clumsy dances moves.
Granted, empowerment is easy when you've got thousands of fans applauding your at every turn. And why shouldn't they? Madonna has the power to put on a ludicrous, obscenely expensive stage show-cum-counseling session year after year, as well as the brand name to make Confessions one of the top-grossing tours of 2006. She has the body of her much younger self, so she can still rock a leotard or a feathered collar, no matter how ill-advised such wardrobe choices may be. And her voice has aged surprisingly well. She can't sell the girlish giggle of "Lucky Star" or "Like a Virgin", but she's got a deeper, heartier range that works best on ballads like "Drowned World/Substitute for Love" and "Paradise (Not for Me)". We are left, however, to imagine how commanding Madonna would sound on a good ballad, like "Oh Father" or "Something to Remember". "Live to Tell" might have fit the bill here, but she delivers it perched uncomfortably on a mirror-covered cross, which limits her breathing and phrasing as well as our ability to take her seriously.
Let's talk about that disco crucifixion. Nothing says "I've got a messiah complex" like performing on a cross, and this notorious routine, which begins as a comment on the travails of fame, sure enough turns into a plea to end AIDS in Africa. That's a serious issue, and it deserves better than this confused, self-aggrandizing pitch. Nevertheless, this segment will likely be a selling point for many fans and bystanders alike: It was cut from the original NBC broadcast of the show following the expected avalanche of Catholic uproar and outraged punditry.
But it's a polite curtsy compared to what happens when Madonna's politics go global. During "Forbidden Love" two male dancers appear with symbols of Islam and Judaism painted on their abdomens, locking arms stoically in a choreography that makes them look like two children fighting in the backseat. But that's just silly, not insulting. The show's nadir comes during "Isaac". Centerstage stands a giant cage in which a burqa-clad dancer twirls and gyrates. When the gate lifts, her cage dance becomes a striptease. From one oppression to another...
As always, Madonna is at her best when the stakes are low and the music frivolous, an approach that seems natural for the frothy disco of Confessions on a Dance Floor. The live show's best-- and consequently most meaningful-- moments come during the closing disco-kitsch set, which begins with a mash-up of her underrated single "Music" and the Trammps' "Disco Inferno" and closes with a medley of "Lucky Star" and "Hung Up". Despite the tacky travel-agency brochure vibe of "La Isla Bonita", these songs achieve the sort of gaudy pop transcendence that justifies the month's-pay ticket price.
Still, it's too little too late to salvage Confessions, which, with Secret, feels like a failure of imagination. Åkerlund gives you everything you don't want from a concert film: incessant quick cuts that you give you no sense of space or stage, overdubbed music and vocals that give you no sense of performance, and only a few shots of the audience to gauge their excitement. But Madonna herself is mostly to blame. On stage, she draws from a deep well of amazing pop songs and has the money and power to reinvent this sort of traveling circus. So why not try to break down the wall between performance and audience and hold a gigantic rave? Or, better yet, launch a small-club tour and share the spotlight with some musical collaborators. Work with Timbaland or even Xiu Xiu. Let other people write songs for you. Reinvent yourself for real this time. Until Madonna comes up with something completely new and makes her shows as exciting to watch as they are to perform, her spectacle will never be as fun or as world-changing as her music.
