Madonna’s ‘Confessions II,’ Behind the Scenes: Stuart Price & Andrew Watt on ‘Discovering New Territory’

After reuniting with Confessions on a Dance Floor producer Stuart Price for her career-spanning Celebration Tour in 2023-2024 (he served as the trek’s music producer), Madonna realized she had something she wanted to talk about. And after their second studio session, she had a confession: It was time to make a sequel to her 2005 dance-floor classic.

“It wasn’t about going backwards. It was about discovering new territory,” Price tells Billboard of crafting Confessions II. “It reminded us how instinctive musical connection is, we enjoy making things together. When we went into the studio, there was certainly an awareness of what Confessions meant, but she wasn’t trying to manufacture a sequel or reproduce something she’d done previously.”

According to the English DJ/producer, “We were tapping into the same energy, from a completely different point in time. The first Confessions was very much about the freedom and release of the dance floor, but this record is much more about dance as a confrontation, and as acceptance and reclamation of self.”

Price wasn’t Madonna’s only creative collaborator on the LP – Sabrina Carpenter, Feid, Martin Garrix, Stromae and daughter Lola Leon are credited guest artists – but he was one of the few people to be part of Confessions II from its studio gestation to its vibrant stage life, joining Madonna for live performances from Times Square to the VMAs and in clubs from Amsterdam to London. “People obviously have a huge emotional connection to the original Confessions, but they’re not just responding to nostalgia,” Price says of the ecstatic fan response to Confessions II, which topped the Billboard 200 and earned the Queen of Pop her best reviews in years. “They’re connecting with something new, in the present. And that’s really the whole point of this record.”

Of the two-decade gap between the albums, Price notes that “technology and the world have changed, but our fundamental creative process really hasn’t. It’s still about responding to inspiration, to the moment, to laughter.

“She’s incredibly focused, curious and instinctive. There’s no sense of looking over your shoulder or second-guessing. You follow the idea and see where it takes you. You can hear the sound of people loving what they do. Madonna has an extraordinary ability to take whatever is happening in her life and turn it into something expressive.”

Video by Ricardo Gomes

For Confessions II, Madonna found inspiration not only in her life right now but in her legendary come-up as a broke, struggling artist in NYC. “I started talking to her about the club Danceteria because I’m a New Yorker and love the history of music in New York,” says “Danceteria” co-writer and co-producer Andrew Watt, referencing the now-shuttered Manhattan club frequented by everyone from Madonna to Jean-Michel Basquiat to Keith Haring in the ‘80s. “No one has a cooler story than Madonna and as she was telling me about it, we had her doing it on the microphone over the track. She then took it home and wrote her entire origin story down on three pages,” Watt recalls of the sessions that grew into the Confessions II anthem. “It was one of the coolest in-studio experiences of my life.”

While Watt has worked with everyone from Paul McCartney to Post Malone to the Rolling Stones, he says Madonna occupies a rarified air. “She wrote the book on being a pop star. She is one of the greatest producers and songwriters of all time.”

Video by Ricardo Gomes

For more behind-the-scenes looks at how Confessions II came together, check out the videos above and below featuring Madonna, Stuart Price, Andrew Watt and Stromae. Four more behind-the-scenes episodes will be released on Thursday (Oct. 15).

Video by Nuno Xico