Album: Madonna <!-- none onestar twostar threestar fourstar fivestar -->

I'm Going to Tell You a Secret, WARNER BROS

If I'm Going to Tell You a Secret seems awfully familiar, that's because it is, in effect, a rerun of the earlier Truth or Dare/In Bed with Madonna backstage documentary from 15 years ago, featuring the singer, once again, as confidante and house-mother to a troupe of dancers on yet another world tour - in this case, 2004's Reinvention jaunt. Released as a CD/DVD package, it's basically just a promotional adjunct to the Confessions tour that recently opened in America and should reach the UK in August, with its own backstage documentary following a few months after that, and so on, ad absurdum. Judged purely on musical content, the CD exposes just how much her inspiration has shrunk since the glorious "Like a Prayer", which shames the raddled old Euro-trash techno-disco stomps that comprise the bulk of the set, imposing a more brutal, martial attitude on even such innocuous early hits as "Into the Groove" and "Holiday" - which now sounds more like a command than a vacation. Worst is the sluggish mush she makes of "Imagine", for which the estate-owning, god-bothering star requests that we mere mortals "please listen to the words" of a song questioning both property and religion. You couldn't make it up.

DOWNLOAD THIS: 'Like a Prayer', 'Into the Groove'