Madonna’s ‘Confessions on a Dance Floor’: All 12 Songs Ranked

Released on November 9, 2005, Confessions on a Dance Floor found Madonna ready to party.

“When I wrote American Life,” the singer said, referencing her previous album in a 2005 interview with MTV, “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.”

21 years later, the sentiment still tracks. With a lot of madness in the world around us, Madonna is about to release Confessions II, a follow-up to the 2005 masterpiece that delivered the hits “Hung Up” and “Sorry” while it returned feathered hair and leotards to the zeitgeist. Confessions on a Dance Floor spent a week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and 13 weeks at No. 1 on Top Dance Albums, ultimately winning the Grammy for best dance/electronic album in 207. It has now registered 1.9 billion official on-demand streams globally and 315.1 million in the U.S., according to Luminate.

These statistics exist because the album was an instant classic that brought together the clubland influences of Madonna’s earlier work into a dozen songs centered in disco and dance pop, genres related to but different from the acid house explored on her 1998 essential Ray of Light. Created alongside producer Stuart Price (who Madonna is also working with on Confessions II), these inventive productions were elevated by lyrics both defiant and vulnerable, with Confessions on a Dance Floor altogether presenting hard-earned wisdom via music that’s still as fun now as Madonna designed it to be then.

Ahead of the release of Confessions II this Friday July 3, here’s a ranking of every song on its predecessor, Confessions on a Dance Floor.