Madonna.

* Confessions on a Dance Floor * Maverick

She'll never be the baby-fat art-slut Madonna again. So take all press hype about her "returning to her dance-floor roots" with several dozen grains of kosher salt. These old songs were created by a different person, a cheeky young ambitio-sexual with a different agenda than that of the British mum obsessed with G-d that she is now.

Having said that, this is the most consistently entertaining and, yes, danceable album Madonna has released in years, possibly since You Can Dance. Produced and cowritten by Stuart Price (Los Rythmes Digitales), Confessions is sequenced for nonstop movement, and the songs are propulsive enough that lyrics become irrelevant--until you pay attention to them, that is, like on the annoyingly kabbalistic "Isaac," But the winners here, such as the lead single "Hung Up," with its giddy, gimmicky ABBA loop, and the minor-key disco urgency of "Get Together," are as bright and shiny and fun as any old-school "Burning Up" moment your memory can conjure. A mid-album techno sameness sets in right after the self-consciously goofy "I Love New York," and she can't fully resist the urge to visit her wet-blanket" Esther" personality, but it's clear Madonna is trying hard not to let that impulse ruin the dance party.