Madonna's new Confessions on a Dance Floor must rate as one of the more studiously soulless albums of the year.

It plays as one long segued together supposed dance groove. I say "supposed" dance groove because it's more like a long sleep groove. I don't know if there's a real, live instrument anywhere. It's slight variations on the same throbbing synthesizer beat. It's exceedingly tedious, and dull. My eyes glazed over after about two or three songs, and I was in fact falling asleep- even with a stiff cup of coffee in hand. Seriously.

What is the point of appeal to this utterly gray, mechanical sound? It sounds like just exactly the worst idea of disco that Bob Seger was properly denouncing in "Old Time Rock and Roll" lo those many years ago. She can afford to hire musicians to make some actual dance grooves. Crikey, she could hire Bootsy Collins Himself. Yet she comes up with this cold, utterly soulless soundscape.

Trying real hard to be fair and balanced, I'll give her some credit for the single and first song on the album, "Hung Up." There is a decent hook that might stick with you. "Every little thing that you say and do/ I'm hung up, I'm hung up on you." It's very mechanical, and has no real feeling at all, but it does at least halfway have a tune. She makes decent use of the Abba sample. It could pass for an acceptable pop song.

The rest of this, however, is just tuneless mechanized crap that all runs together. There are no ballads, or exotic pop songs, guitars, nothing to differentiate one of these turd logs from the other.

If you were looking for another song, probably "Push" would be the second pick. It's not much, but it's maybe halfway catchy. Separated out in an iPod mix, it might do okay.

"Isaac" was a particular disappointment. This is her attempt at generating some controversy for the album, as she's exploiting (some might say desecrating) the name of a Jewish holy man for a commercial pop song. In practice, it comes out as a bit of some Kabbalah prayer or some such dropped into the same overwhelming mechanical disco beat blender. It's not really enough to even amount to significant exotic color. The utter shallowness of this dumb pseudo-Kabbalah track speaks to the depth of her publicity campaign/spiritual quest.

It's been said by some that this album is a return to dance club roots. But really it is not. "Holiday" or "Borderline" were not assembly line mechanized crap like this. Those songs had unique personality and some kind of feeling and urgency to them. They had soul.

This album, however, is totally a contrived pop food product. Besides not being very melodically memorable, there's not even a hint here of having given something from her soul.

She's certainly focused on her task. You might could give her credit in a retarded sort of Nietzchean way for her continuing will to power, perhaps. But as music, this is highly forgettable.

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