Madonna in a dancing mood on new set

Madonna will not let a few cracked ribs and broken bones spoil her party. Weeks after falling from her horse on the grounds of her English estate, Madonna is in the mood to dance. Not surprisingly, she wants the world to know.

After the serious tone of her last album, 2003`s "American Life," Madonna wanted this collection to be happy and buoyant. "It was like, honey, I want to dance," she told Billboard during an interview in her New York hotel suite. "I wanted to lift myself and others up with this record."

The new album, "Confessions on a Dance Floor," is due November 15 from Warner Bros. (one day earlier internationally). A special edition, which includes a picture book and bonus track, arrives in December.

"I wanted a record with no ballads," Madonna says. "I wanted there to be no breaks, with one song segueing into the next - just like in a disco."

The 12-track album was inspired by the many remixes her 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."

"Confessions" closes on a deeply personal note, with Madonna singing, "This is who I am. You can like it or not." In this way, the album follows the musical arc of a club DJ`s nightly set, which becomes more intense as the evening progresses.

Consider it Madonna`s way of reeling in the listener. "I was only hinting early on, but then I tell it like it is," she says of the album`s song order. "It`s like, now that I have your attention, I have a few things to tell you."

BACK TO THE CLUBS

For her 10th studio album, Madonna collaborated primarily with producer Stuart Price, who was part of her touring band for the Re-Invention and Drowned World treks.

Together they took Madonna`s 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.

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