Niki N. Phaser

As I wrote in my review of Muse’s latest album, The Resistance, Undisclosed Desires is definitely single material and it would have been pathologically proggy of them not to use it as such. It’s a one of a kind track on this album, being the most mainstream on it, but we woun’t hold that against the boys, considering that they have ‘earned’ the right to be a bit poppy, once in a while. In fact, if you think about their catalogue, a track like this must be what they consider ‘experimental’. The total absence of a guitar and/or piano riff shows that they are more than a rock band, whether it is alternative, progressive, symphony or whatever else kind of rock there is.

It will be released on November 16 and it will be joined by two remixes, one by tour buddies The Big Pink and another (a really cool club cut) by The Thin White Duke (aka Stuart Price).  The video is, indeed, a bit strange and not necessarily in the good sense of the word. We have to admit, though, that it is quite a challenge to imagine a visual translation for this song. Still, the female dancer is really out of place there and she really seems to be moving to another beat. Maybe it’s a metaphor about how the song is out of place on The Resistance… 

See it on the MUSE’s MySpace

Confessions on a Dance Floor marks another stage and another successful comeback in Madonna’s career, bringing in record numbers all over the world and creating the inertia on which Hard Candy‘s triumph was originated. Lead single Hung Up also did its part of the job, as well as the other three that followed. If choosen as a single, Forbidden Love would have surely prooved to be a hit, but, truth be told, it’s not just pure dance energy like Hung Up, for example. This track holds the strange combination of being a very danceable serious song. It sounds as profound as some Gregorian piece and yet it’s filled with ethereal synths and powerful beats, which make the song seem like a really dirty ‘da-club’ remix, all courtesy of Stuart Price aka Thin White Duke. The somber electro moods do a great job in emphasizing the grandeur of the song’s theme. Love is regarded from a philosophical/existential point of view: “Are we supposed to be together, We seal the destiny forever”. It’s written so that it would fit any kind of ‘forbidden love’ and no matter how free-minded we think the world is there are still plenty of forbidden loves out there. Just think about it, there are plenty of loves you yourself would forbid… In live performances on her Confessions Tour, Madonna went for some religious meaning, brilliantly suggested through coregraphy as you can see in the following video:

LIVE PERFORMANCE OF Forbidden Love