Taste Like Honey: Reminiscences from the Αlbum Εra

 

Madonna - Confessions on a Dance Floor

 

 

Once upon a time, Madonna’s “Secret” dominated my lustful teenage thoughts. But no one had to know. Publicly I went along with Shirley Manson from The Garbage.

To confess is to unburden yourself. People come clean inside a church talking to a priest, or even Saint Onuphrius directly, in a forest hugging a tree while crying a little bit, in the offices of a newly founded counter-terrorism unit and, last but certainly not least, in their bed lying gratefully next to their mistress/misteress:

to make a clean breast is to take the air in the era of ‘I Can’t Breathe’.

Madonna’s “Confessions on a Dance Floor” came out in the summer of 2006. “Hung Up” almost instantly became the song I listened to when I needed a fix of make-believe good vibes. Before long, I was forced to admit to myself that gone were the nights I had to play the Smiths DVD (“This Charming Man!”) when I needed to boost morale ahead of another electrifying Saturday night. A new dawn was rising.

In the end, I stopped feeling “Sorry” for dancing to the rhythm of my veiled longing for mainstream pop. After Madonna, came Kylie Minogue with “Can't Get You Out of My Head,” Nelly Furtado with “Say It Right,” and many more.

I had finally escaped the self-imposed penitentiary of so-called guilty pleasures.

Later, I was informed that guilt was anyway imported from the North of Europe. We, Mediterraneans, got shame; Germans got guilt. To put it clear, it is certainly not my intention to contest the unwritten laws of geography.