Stuart Price, aka Jacques Lu Cont, has been previewing some of the tracks off Madonna’s new dance album Confessions on a Dance Floor while DJing at club gigs around Britain. The tracks he has been using, according to Rolling Stone, are dub versions without vocals, and convey the “future disco” sound that is the hallmark of the forthcoming album. Says Price, “I had my camera with me, and the next day I’d tell Madonna, ‘This is what a thousand people in Liverpool looked like last night dancing to our song.’ You can work on a song for twelve hours, but I guarantee you’ll know within the first ten seconds of putting it on at a club whether it works or not. So these songs were tested on unwitting subjects throughout Europe.”
“Jacques Lu Cont” has recently put his mark on some extraordinary remixes for Gwen Stefani (“What You Waiting For?”), The Killers (“Mr. Brightsides”), and Missy Elliott (“Lose Control”). About his collaboration with Madonna, he said “There’s a bit of a danger with dance music that you can create something that’s cool but doesn’t have much substance to it. Every few months, a club record comes along that hits a nerve with people, and they connect to it. They don’t know why, but there is something magical in it. That’s what we were trying to make.”
Madonna turned 47 over the weekend turns 47 tomorrow. Her album’s first single is due in October. “Hung Up”, according to Price, is “a big feel-good song. You put it on and you want to get in your car, turn it up and drive around smiling.”
