Saturday, January 10, 2009

Best of 2000s: Kylie Minogue - Light Years (4.5/5)

The '90s were not good to Kylie. While in the late '80s she ruled the charts in Europe and Australia, the '90s found Kylie jumping to the Deconstruction record label to explore a more experimental sound that except for the intriguing "Confide in Me," yielded few hits for the singer. For Light Years, the singer staged a dramatic return to frothy dance pop, reaching back not to the '80s sound that made her famous but to the '70s, and in doing so created the decade's best disco album. Working with big names like Guy Chambers, Kara DioGuardi--even Paula Abdul and Robbie Williams--Minogue turned out a blend of contemporary, dance-floor ready pop, like her #1 hits "Spinning Around" and "On a Night Like This," and campy '70s-influenced tunes like "Loveboat" and "Your Disco Needs You." Except for a few ballads, which she wisely avoided on this album's even better 2001 follow-up Fever, the album works splendidly as dizzy, silly disco pop.

Best: Spinning Around, On a Night Like This, Loveboat, Disco Down, Your Disco Needs You

6 comments:

J.Mensah said...

:) should i feel honored that we reviewed the same album in the same week :)

Cook In / Dine Out said...

The honor is all mine. Did I mention that this is part of a series? Each week I'm doing a short review of all of my favorite albums of the decade, working forward from 2000 to 2009.

J.Mensah said...

Ohh! that would explain the coldplay review out of no where! I can't wait to check out whats to come, on the topic of "coldplay" will you be revewing "a rush of blood to the head"... I just fell in love with it :)

Cook In / Dine Out said...

Rush of Blood to the Head will definitely appear. It's their best work.

Chris Baker said...

Why is it I only like Kylie's stuff from the early part of this decade? Her more recent stuff doesn't seem to appeal to me at all.

Cook In / Dine Out said...

Her most recent stuff is "electro" pop, while the stuff you like (Light Years and Fever) is more Europop--dancier, less edgy, more campy.