A Kylie Minogue Moment, 2003: The pocket-size superstar releases her ninth studio album, “Body Language,” perfectly blending sparse electro-pop with a new Brigitte Bardot-inspired image. It isn’t what the world had expected two years after it la-la-la’d huge to Can’t Get You Out of My Head — and its accompanying video, a nod to Kraftwerk and sci-fi — but whatever.
In 2004, she teams up with the Scissor Sisters on I Believe in You, a sprinkling of synths, gold dust, and good vibes from her second official greatest hits compilation. All of this takes place before Kylie is sidetracked by breast cancer and chemotherapy, something she will eventually liken to “experiencing a nuclear bomb.” This, oddly enough, will dovetail nicely with what the pop darling once told MTV Europe. On filming a video under not-so-great circumstances: “Pain is fleeting. A music video is forever.”
Fast forward to late 2007: It seems that the pop world is waist-deep in a Kylie moment yet again. It is, after all, Miss Minogue’s 20th anniversary in the biz. It gets harder to do something new the longer you’ve been around because you’ve already tried so many ideas. But from the ’80s – her Stock, Aitken and Waterman days — to the present, she has managed to consistently reinvent the dance-pop sound on which she has built a career.
X Marks The Sexpot
After contributing to the compilation album “Radio 1: Established 1967” — her version of the 1975 Roxy Music track Love Is The Drug is but one of 40 killer remakes — Kylie Minogue is holding steady with her 10th gem, simply called “X.”
The whole thing is Kylie gone indie electro, a collection that’s obviously mainstream and accessible but one that’s cousins with stuff by Ladytron, Roisin Murphy, or Fischerspooner. In fact, the opener, 2 Hearts, has Allison Goldfrapp written all over it, which can only be a good thing. (The Alan Braxe Remix has a goth lite, burlesque feel, making it a perfect sonic bookend to Goldfrapp’s Strict Machine. The Kish Mauve treatment, meanwhile, sounds like Groove Armada’s Song 4 Mutya.) Somewhere in the universe, Madonna is breaking plates at this development.
Producers on “X” include electro manipulators such as Bloodshy & Avant, a Swedish producing duo responsible for Britney Spears’ Toxic; Guy Chambers, the man behind Robbie Williams’ greatest hits; and remixing royalty, Freemasons. Scottish wunderkind Calvin Harris adds his robo-funk to several tracks, including the addictive In My Arms and Heart Beat Rock. The 11th track, Wow, casts a wide net and comes back with elements of Daft Punk, Justice, and Jacques Lu Cont. And then there are other songs that are, according to her, “very simple” like Cosmic with Eg White, who has written for Joss Stone, Natalie Imbruglia, and Beverley Knight. But here’s more from Kylie herself.
Rippin’ Up The Disco
SUPREME: After your last album, Body Language, the surgery and the recovery, the split with Olivier Martinez and all that, what was the most daunting part about going back to the studio?
Kylie Minogue: The most daunting part… well, initially there isn’t a daunting part for me. I was just excited to be back in the studios, so excited to have that opportunity to do this and knowing that some of it would be different than before. The basics aren’t. It’s the same old thing. It’s like riding a bike. You get in and you do it, but something had definitely changed in me and I think you can hear that throughout the album. And as I always try to, I tried to have a lot of fun doing it.
You’re already on your 10th album, so the process of recording one must already be automatic. When you’re getting ready to put together a new one, what do you do? Do you listen to tons of music or do you avoid listening altogether?
I don’t consciously do either. I trust that the people with whom I’m working… they’re the ones with the fingers on the pulse for that. They know what’s going on. They know the latest, greatest. I really like to work with my AnR [Artist & Repertoire, a division of a record company responsible for artist development] and I go in just doing more my bit, which is being myself and whatnot. I don’t want to be too swayed and go in and say, “I’d like to sound like this or like that.” What’s most important for me at that time is to make it mine.
Scandinavia, Spears, Simplicity
I read somewhere that “X” was recorded all over Europe. And some Internet message board posts claim that you came up with around 40 songs for this particular album. Is that true?
I started in Brighton, then I think it was London. New York, I did some there; Paris, Sweden, and that’s it. Back to London. Forty songs is possibly an understatement. I don’t know how many songs I have done for this album. I have not tallied up how many there have been, but I think 40 was the figure a little while ago, and I’ve done a few more since then. Yeah. That’s in a year and a half, with a tour. Not that I write on tour but that took up a few months and as I say, I wasn’t pressured. I was like a madwoman with the kind of fire and anger as well, just wanting to get stuff out. Well, we got there in the end.
How was it recording in Sweden? In Scandinavia? Bloodshy and Avant did Britney’s Toxic so do you think there’s a real difference in how different places sound?
Yeah, I think there wouldn’t be much point to go there if it didn’t sound… if it didn’t have it’s own sound and quality and we’ve tried to have a good balance on the album, of, particularly, that Bloodshy and Avant. It’s so production-led so I was happy to go there and do a lot of my performance knowing that they’re going to play with it and if it comes out sounding anything like me, that’ll be great.
So, why “X”? What’s the story behind it?
That’s quite a long story. The album has had various working titles along the way. The one prior to “X,” I won’t say what it was because it would just cause all sorts of chat. But that song didn’t end up on the album and then, at this late stage in the game, we thought, “Ooh.” It was all sorted. That was going to be the name and over the past few months a lot of the fans online had been calling the album, “Kylie X.” Whether they’d made that up or they thought it was called “Kylie X,” and so we thought, “Well that makes sense.” It’s my tenth studio album and there we go. “X” — nice, clean, and simple.
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Kylie X is distributed by EMI Philippines.