Dancing Queen

"I wanted a record with no ballads," Madonna says simply about "Confessions on a Dance Floor," due this week via Warner Bros. "I wanted there to be no breaks, with one song segueing into the next -- just like in a disco."

Led by the hit single "Hung Up," the 12-track album was inspired by the many remixes Madonna's songs have received over the years. "Whenever I make records, I often like the remixes better than the original versions," she says. "So, I thought, screw that. I'm going to start from that perspective."

In tandem with producer Stuart Price, Madonna took her music back to the place where she first made her mark in the early '80s: the clubs. But they did so in a way that, while wickedly retro, pushes the beats and rhythms into the future.

"Our intention was to give a nod and a wink to people like Giorgio Moroder and the Bee Gees," Madonna says. "Stuart and I didn't want to remake the past, but make it into something new."

"Confessions" was primarily conceived at Price's home studio. "I'd come by in the morning and Stuart would answer the door in his stocking feet -- as he'd been up all night," Madonna muses. "I'd bring him a cup of coffee and say, 'Stuart, your house is a mess, there's no food in the cupboard.' Then I'd call someone from my house to bring food over for him. And then we'd work all day. We're very much the odd couple."