REVIEW - Kylie "Aphrodite"
October 10th 2010 07:00
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Those of you who have visited Pop Is Not Dead! before will know of our love of Kylie. Her digitally released live album Kylie – Live in New York was our first album review and we named her 2007 album X as the best album of the noughties.
So to say that we were excited about her new album Aphrodite was an understatement (check previous posts for examples!!). I’m very pleased to inform you that it was worth the wait and I believe that it could be the best pop album of the year!!
After an introduction from Scissor Sisters lead singer Jake Shears (Kylie has previously worked with Jake and band member Babydaddy on her songs “I Believe in You” and “White Diamond” and provided backing vocals on “Any Which Way”, which is the current Scissor Sisters single) Kylie organised a recording session with the amazing Stuart Price (Madonna’s “Confessions on a Dancefloor”, Scissor Sisters’ “Night Work”), who then became the albums’ executive producer.
One of the things that I loved so much about her previous album X is that it bridged different styles of pop and you could hear the different producers at work. Interestingly, this was one thing that drew criticism from not only critics but from fans as well. For Aphrodite, it fell to Stuart Price to ensure that the album did not sound disjointed and although Kylie did work with different producers for the album, it was all brought into the studio and given the Stuart Price touch of magic. I must say that one of the things that I love about this album is that it sounds whole and you hear that it is complete body of work, without compromising the individual songs.
Written for Kylie by Kish Mauve who had previously worked with her on “2 Hearts”, “All the Lovers” was actually one of the final songs recorded for the album. At the time the single was released Kylie said of the song:
"As I was recording it I knew that “All the Lovers” had to be the first single; it sums up the euphoria of the album perfectly. It gives me goose-bumps, so I'm really excited to hear what everyone thinks of it."
With an accompanying video that explored sexuality and sensuality, it has gone down as one of Kylie’s most daring videos!!
Second single “Get Outta My Way” proves to be an instant classic Kylie song and one that the majority of her fans seem to have embraced as their new favourite. With great defiance Kylie demands that you “Get Outta My Way” cause she clearly wants to tear up the dancefloor. Interestingly, this song was a slow grower on me. I liked the song from the first time that I heard it but it wasn’t an immediate favourite. That has certainly changed and with its infectious chorus and awesome grooves, is now one of my all time favourite Kylie songs. And with the remixes that are available as part of the single, it is a true club thumper!!
Speaking of club thumpers, the Nervo sisters (Kelly Rowland’s “When Love Take Over”) co-written “Put Your Hands Up (If You Feel Love)” is just that. The absolute dance track on the album, it builds and builds until it explodes and you just can’t help but dance around with your hands in the air. Not only can I imagine some awesome remixes of this song but I can just see a whole arena of fans with their hands in the air when Kylie performs this song on her Aphrodite Les Folies Tour next year.
The tone is taken down a bit for “Closer” and “Everything is Beautiful”, both songs reflecting darker and lighter moments on the album. “Closer” touches on being underground electro-pop while “Everything is Beautiful” (co-written by Keane’s Tim Rice-Oxley) is everything that the title suggests, with a slow groove and beautiful lyrics.
The album then slams back into gear with the amazing title track “Aphrodite”. Written especially for Kylie by Nerina Pallot and Andy Chatterley (who also wrote “Better than Today), it features some of the strongest, most self confident lyrics of her career that will just be magic when performed live!! The audience will go absolutely wide as she sings:
I'm fierce and I'm feeling mighty,
I'm a golden girl, I'm an Aphrodite
Alright!
I'm fierce and I'm feeling mighty,
Don’t cha mess with me, You don’t want to fight me
Alright!
Almost as if we can’t handle too much of a pop high, “Illusion” is another darker track that, like “Closer”, has more of an underground electro-pop feel to it, but it creates a real flow to the album. It almost sets you up for the final pop onslaught of the album and what better way to begin it than with “Better than Today”.
Having been previewed by audiences during Kylie’s North American tour in 2009, “Better than Today” is unabashedly pop!! With its catchy lyrics of wanting tomorrow to be better that today, its fun and a real throw back to the songs produced by Stock, Aitken & Waterman, who produced and wrote most of Kylie’s early albums.
Check out Kylie performing "Better than Today" during her North American Tour below!!
I think that my favourite song on the album is “Too Much”, which Kylie wrote with Jake Shears and Calvin Harris. As with the other songs that Kylie has written with Jake Shears (see above), it has such wonderful lyrics and such great production from Calvin Harris. It packs a punch from the start and just doesn’t let up!! I would so love it if this song was released as a single, as it is not really like anything else that Kylie has released but has the potential of smashing the charts!!
Another song that has become a fast fan favourite is “Cupid Boy”. With a thumping beat, strong guitar riffs and great lyrics, it is another song on the album that has a real build to it so that it almost bursts at the end!! The first song to come out of the writing sessions between Kylie and Stuart Price, “Looking for an Angel” is probably the closest thing to a ballad on the album. Fun, catchy and up-lifting, with lovely sweet lyrics, the song could almost be about the relationship between Kylie and Stuart Price as it was after these writing sessions that Stuart was brought on to be executive producer on the album and with his influence took the album to greater heights!! He is defiantly the angel on this album!!
The album is perfectly finished with “Can’t Beat the Feeling”, another track that just builds so that by the end of it you just can’t help dancing around with your hands in the air. As Stuart Price had previously worked with Madonna on her Confessions on a Dancefloor album, a lot of critics have compared Aphrodite to Madonna’s album and this is probably the only song on the album that really sounds like anything on Confessions. In saying that, it is still undeniably Kylie and, like so many songs on the album, is a potential single and would have some brilliant remixes!!
Debuting at number 1 on the UK album chart, on the same week as her debut album Kylie debuted 22 year ago in 1988, Aphrodite is Kylie’s fifth album to reach number 1 in the UK and has made her the only female recording artist in UK chart history to have a number 1 album in four consecutive decades (80s, 90s, 00s and 10s)!! The album hit number 2 on the Australian ARIA Albums Chart, unfortunately held off from the number 1 spot by Eminem’s new album Recovery.
For me, this has become my new favourite Kylie album and the one that I will compare all others. The work that Stuart Price has done to create a complete album is amazing!! Every song works so well with all of the other songs on the album, that to not listen to one of the songs would almost throw the album out of sync. But with his brilliance, has made it so that individually the songs are still awesome!! I truly believe that most of the songs on the album could be released as singles!! If you don’t already own this album, your life is not complete!!
***** Kylie Stuart Price = Pop Brilliance!!
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