Kylie Minogue is no pop star. She can't be. Minogue hasn't flashed her naughty bits getting out of a car, hasn't had any drug addictions and isn't tossing around a fake British accent (though I guess for her it'd have to be a fake American or, I don't know, Italian accent).
Considering she's in the business of disposability, she handles her role with a grace more like a Hepburn than a Hilton. You could argue that this comes from her age, that her 40-years on planet earth and 20 years making music allow her to be classy yet sexual instead of an over-publicized sorority girl. But then you have to look at the mid-life contemporaries. Janet Jackson is singing about incest-rape play and Madonna is freebasing "special" bottled water.
After beating breast cancer, critics have called X Kylie's comeback album, as if she ever really went away. If anything it's a reinvention, which is even more of a risk. After a spat with cancer, a Kylie coming back with a straight face and musings on the meaning of life and the fragility of blah blah blah wouldn't have been an impossibility. But Minogue has returned with a new lust for life. Lines like "drop your socks and grab your mini boom box" won't change any lives, but it sure as hell might make you want to live a little. X is poppy, dancy, flat out fun.
The voice is still the same; it's a little nasally and not impressively strong, but Minogue has always been great at cherry-picking tracks that fit it well. The hooks do their jobs wonderfully and most of the rather expansive production team hit it out of the park, even if they were committing a bit of creative theft. "In My Arms" and "Like A Drug" ring with a familiar uptown Euro-dance synth that can be found on any Justice track. "Speakerphone" is campy Daft punk where Kylie's silly lyrics get the vocoder treatment. Is that a Timbaland beat on "Heart Beat Rock?" No? Could've fooled me.
Considering she's in the business of disposability, she handles her role with a grace more like a Hepburn than a Hilton. You could argue that this comes from her age, that her 40-years on planet earth and 20 years making music allow her to be classy yet sexual instead of an over-publicized sorority girl. But then you have to look at the mid-life contemporaries. Janet Jackson is singing about incest-rape play and Madonna is freebasing "special" bottled water.
After beating breast cancer, critics have called X Kylie's comeback album, as if she ever really went away. If anything it's a reinvention, which is even more of a risk. After a spat with cancer, a Kylie coming back with a straight face and musings on the meaning of life and the fragility of blah blah blah wouldn't have been an impossibility. But Minogue has returned with a new lust for life. Lines like "drop your socks and grab your mini boom box" won't change any lives, but it sure as hell might make you want to live a little. X is poppy, dancy, flat out fun. The voice is still the same; it's a little nasally and not impressively strong, but Minogue has always been great at cherry-picking tracks that fit it well. The hooks do their jobs wonderfully and most of the rather expansive production team hit it out of the park, even if they were committing a bit of creative theft. "In My Arms" and "Like A Drug" ring with a familiar uptown Euro-dance synth that can be found on any Justice track. "Speakerphone" is campy Daft punk where Kylie's silly lyrics get the vocoder treatment. Is that a Timbaland beat on "Heart Beat Rock?" No? Could've fooled me.
