Intro for July 6, 2026

Dear Gossips,

The celebrity I thought about the most this weekend was the one coming through my headphones, in her FIFTH DECADE of coming through my headphones – in the 80s, 90s, 2000s, 2010s, and now it’s 2026 … and what’s coming through my headphones aren’t her old bops but brand new tracks on a brand new album that is, incredibly, not just her best album in 20 years, but is already widely considered to be among her best, PERIOD.

Madonna, of course. Who else?

Confessions II dropped on Friday and it’s been my only playlist, no skips, all bangers. MC will have more on this tomorrow in his weekly column but for now, this is about Madonna yet again surprising the f-ck out of everyone with the quality, the profundity, the riskiness, and the goddamn fun of this record. It’s an album for the club and the gym, and a kitchen dance party, and definitely the car. It’s an album to sweat to and an album to think about. And gossip about! Because when you’ve lived through this much, when you’ve seen and been seen this much, and then when you almost die, well, she has some stories to tell, some tea to spill, some confessions to make. All while refusing to become a nostalgia act. Or, rather, as the Mother of Reinvention, reinventing what it means to make nostalgia artistic.

Confessions II is Madonna at her most nostalgic, daring, and vulnerable. Most of us who have f-cked hard with Madonna since our youth will recognise the references immediately – in the lyrics, in the anecdotes, but also in the music. She self-tributes some of her biggest hits through the album, in a completely fresh sound that is more experimental that any artist who’s been around as long as she has has any right to be! A legacy idol taking big swings in production and arrangement and pushing dance music forward, again, still, just like she did with Confessions on a Dance Floor 20 years ago. To the point where the sequel isn’t just on par with the original, you could make the case that it’s better!

Imagine being described as “back in peak form” at 67 years old with a set of songs that serve a new groove to the kids in the club?! The gay boys will be grinding to her voice not just this summer but probably for years to come, just like the first Confessions album. This year in particular, though, when fall arrives, we are going to be talking about Madonna and the Grammys. Nominations in the dance categories will be a given. But given the industry reaction to Confessions II already, an Album of the Year nomination should also be in play – an award she’s never won, which is demented. Like a Prayer wasn’t even nominated at all, the album that included the title track and “Express Yourself”, “Cherish”, “Oh Father”, and “Keep It Together” was completely shut out. But that was the state of the Recording Academy in 1989…

Madonna ran so that future popstars could run alongside her. And this bitch hasn’t stopped!

Yours in gossip,

Lainey