Review: Kiss Me Once – Kylie Minogue

Quick facts… The year was 1988. After topping the charts for seven weeks in her native Australia with her first single “The Loco-Motion,” Kylie travelled to England to work with producers Stock, Aitken & Waterman. They knew little of Minogue and had forgotten that she was arriving; as a result, they wrote "I Should Be So Lucky" while she waited outside the studio. The rest, as they say, is history. Except it sort of isn’t. Because Kylie is back with her 12th studio album, “Kiss Me Once.” She’s firmly back in the limelight off the back of the fact that she also appeared as a judge on the third series of The Voice UK and the third series of The Voice Australia. But with her "Kiss Me Once Tour" scheduled to kick off in September, Kylie has confirmed she won’t be returning as judge.

 

Best tracks… “Into the blue” and “Beautiful,” a duet with Enrique Iglesias.

 

What others have to say… Kylie Minogue albums work best as blank canvases, the versatile singer herself smattered in the paint of whatever pop subgenre strikes her fancy. Her 12th studio album lacks cohesion, but that hardly matters. She easily adapts to each persona suggested by her treasure trove of contributing writers and producers — including Kelly Sheehan, who most recently co-penned Beyoncé's "Grown Woman," and the omnipresent Midas Touch radio saviors Pharrell Williams and Sia Furler, the latter billed as co-executive producer — and provides Kiss Me Once's only real through-line with the effortless intimacy of her voice and her incomparable ear for dance-floor gold, no matter how random it all feels. www.spin.com

 

What we have to say… Light and breezy, Kylie proves you don’t have to resort to F-bombs or swinging around on wrecking balls to still produce a decent album. Although not as chock-a-block with hits as some of her previous albums, “Kiss Me Once” is still miles better than other pop fare out there. 

 

It makes us wanna… “…learn how to make animal balloons…”  

 

In her own words… In an interview with Huffington Post, Kylie was asked about the process around putting the new album together: “I feel like I've taken the scenic route to get to the destination but at least I explored everything on the way and I learnt a lot working with different people... trying a different delivery and different sounds. But we got there. There were definitely a few points where I thought we're never gonna get there, thinking it's all too hard, thinking 'what am I doing?, I've lost track, I've lost confidence.' And Sia came on board about half way through the process and it was right on time because I already couldn't really see the wood for the trees. I had a lot of songs so she was able to help me get some clarity with those and be my buddy. I knew she was there for me, which was great.”

 

See the videos here: 

 

 

 

Score… Turn the volume up to 6.5