Kylie Minogue - On A Night Like This
Perhaps she did go too far. Maybe the world just wasn't ready for IndieKylie(TM), for Manic Street Preachers songs, "serious" lyrics and sub-jungle beats. Maybe she should have just realised that "Confide In Me" was a peak, and quit then and there. But surely even
Impossible Princess's biggest critics would prefer that to her subsequent nosedive. Meet Kylie Minogue, this year's model: DanniiKylie.
Indeed, even more than the bland house of "Spinning Around", "On A Night Like This" confirms that Kylie's forthcoming album Light Years will reveal that she's finally arrived at the state her younger sister reached three years ago. Having exhausted all chances of creating a personality, she's going to co-opt any sound that has a chance of hitting the charts despite bland songwriting. Hence, single two is insipid trance on the order of Mel C's "I Turn To You", only, er, not as anthemic. Kylie's next single really should be a garage track, only she's not as savvy as Posh Spice.
Anyway, I'd pretty much be able to forgive this if it was even as good as Fragma's "Toca's Miracle" (which I strangely like more and more each time I hear it), but the sad fact is that I can't even remember the tune now it's not on. The problem with Kylie trying to resurrect the age of her golden run of singles ("Better The Devil You Know", "Step Back In Time", "Shocked" and "What Do I Have To Do?") is that the songs really only seem particularly good through the haze of fond nostalgia. Valorising them only worked in the context of how different Kylie was a couple of years ago
If they do have some value, it's because their fusion of cheesy pop with the era's skippy drum machine house was at the time peerless. But now Kylie's jumping on styles that are already in decline, and so any attempts at relevance is going to be even less convincing than Madonna trying to pretend to America that she invented Daft Punk. At least Madonna's got good producers.
What really annoys me about Kylie's desperate bid for chart success is that the songs she made just after Impossible Princess - "Free", "Take Me With You" - were the best of her career: appealing, idiosyncratic and lusciously produced. Light Years had the potential to be fantastic, and instead it's shaping up to be one of the most cringeworthy releases this year.