KYLIE 2014-15 : The Kiss Me Once Era

[songanddanceman2]

I think people here in the UK are looking for something a bit more than this album when it comes to Kylie, she needs to change things up. The album had tanked here ( and around the world) and does not show any signs of bouncing back.

[HorseTears]

I LOVE the new video for "I Was Gonna Cancel". Not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. Kylie looks stunning and the vid's so wonderfully weird with her strange, jerky movements, her 10 yard stare and general sense of melancholy -- is the plane a hallucination? Is she a mad woman? The most exquisitely beautiful mad transient ever? And the whole thing is beautifully shot and edited. It's like a Gap ad from 1977 directed by Lars Von Trier.

[HorseTears]

Another new single. This one a charity single for the One Note for Cancer thingy wherein fans bid on individual notes from this song on ebay. Charity aside, I love the song. It's quintessential Kylie. A touch melancholic, a euphoric chorus and just the right amount of "shiny". Was co-produced/written by Babydaddy from Scissor Sisters and Dev Hynes (Blood Orange).

[EricMontreal22]

I love it! It has a touch of that chugging/sparkly Moroder synth line that I Believe in You (also from Babydaddy) had.

[Jungle Red]

I posted that on your Facebook page a few days ago!! I love it too! I wish it was on the album.

[songanddanceman2]

I quite like I Was Gonna Cancel but the single has flopped big time, this era had been a disaster for her. I think her career is winding down (when the UK and Australia have largely ignored her new album and singles) I think it's safe to say that it's coming to an end for her. I think she will take a break and then come back in a few years with a less commercial release.

[EricMontreal22]

Hardly. She still sells out concerts--like many acts of (I hate to say this) her age she'll probably never have a massive single again but she will do decent initial album sales to her fans and continue to sell well on tours.

[HorseTears]

Eric - I didn't realize that Babydaddy also produced I Believe In You. Makes a great deal of sense - they certainly have similarities. Not sure how much Dev Hynes contributed to "Crystlize", but I have to say Kylie's vocals are so assured and relaxed it does seem like he might have had a touch of influence in that regard. Either way, I love it, though I wish the last chorus was repeated at least once more. Keep you wanting more, I guess!

songanddanceman2 - I think you might be tolling the death knell on Kylie's career a bit early. I think you're probably right in some respects. It's probably unlikely that she'll ever have another multi-platinum selling album and she might not have another massive international single, but I don't think that signals an end to her music career. With the exception of artists who continue to sell gobs of albums, the big money in pop music these days is in tours, endorsement deals, co-branding opportunities etc. I mean, Madge hardly shifts that many units anymore, but with each successive global tour she makes more and more money. I don't think it's just Kylie's age that's perhaps preventing her from sustaining impressive chart performances these days, but it's her age as a pop singer. Pop is so fickle. It's pretty amazing that a woman, who could quite easily have been a one-hit wonder at a teenager, has managed to sustain a very successful career for more than a quarter century. Will any of today's big pop starlets - your Katy Perry, Rihanna, Gaga etc - still be selling millions of albums more than twenty-five years after their debuts? Probably not.

This is probably a time of transition, and, yeah, it would be awesome if that meant Kylie went for something totally left-field and weird, but between concert tours, moderately well selling albums, endorsement deals up the wazoo and a slowly blossoming film career, I don't think she's going anywhere.

[EricMontreal22]

Yeah, of course Jake Shears was involved with I Belive In You as well but apparently most of the production was Babydaddy. He also did the original uptempo version of White Diamond which of course has been performed in tours but (frustratingly) never releeased as well as the unreleased, but leaked demo track I Know.

Completely agreed on your take as to Kylie's career. For good or bad, however, I can't see her doing anything crazy different any time soon--she seems pretty content with how things are.

[EricMontreal22]

http://www.nme.com/news/kylie-minogue/77639#6YFs5YLZBO3OSa9h.99

[Jay Lerner-Z]

I'm loving Crystallize. Still listening to the album a couple of months later too.

I really don't a give a flying hoot whether she sells two million copies, or two hundred. It's absolutely no reflection on her talents or star quality, so I'm not falling into that trap. The big sellers like Katy Perry, Rhianna, Beyoncé etc. sell the amount they do because they feed into the celebrity culture and thus are force-fed to a public who know no better. That's my half-assed theory, anyway.

[EricMontreal22]

I am obviously biased, but I agree. She's now an "album artist" due, mostly to her age. And I think she'll remain at that...

[Jay Lerner-Z]

I think her success was always a little exaggerated in any case, truth be told. Certainly her last two or three albums didn't really have lasting success sales-wise, if I recall correctly. It's all relative I guess, but it didn't start with this album.

It's all cool, though.

[Addison D.]

Thanks for posting those vids, HorseTears.

I dig 'I was Gonna Cancel' only b/c it's Kylie and b/c it's unexpected. Lyrically/musically, my attention wandered before the end of the video. I'll just add that it's a Gap Ad, directed by Lars vonTrier, choreographed by Merce Cunningham. Fun!

But 'Crystallize'--Now that just warms my poor, old, dancing queen's heart. She looks--as always--divine, and the song just rings every Pavlovian bell for me. Makes me want to grab my hairbrush and sing to my stuffed elephant.

[EricMontreal22]

The Cancel video gives me vertgio. Literally--but that just may be my own personal problems with vertigo.

Addi--I agree with your take on Crystalize.

[HorseTears]

Eric, apparently Kylie is not leaving her label, Parlophone.

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/kylie-minogue-says-record-split-claim-false-20140603-39fqf.html