Kylie (1988)

Album Score: 7

One quality that separates Kylie Minogue from the vast majority of pop divas from the mid-'80s onward is the fact that she is 100 percent hot, and she doesn't need to wear that much make-up. Ouuuuuuch!!!!! Believe me, if I was 14 in 1988, I would have been watching MTV a lot that year (with the volume low so that my parents wouldn't know I'm doing it).

What perplexes me is why Kylie was never well celebrated in the United States. She's a superstar everywhere else in the world. Her music, though usually trite and throwaway, has that fun, carefree vibe that Madonna managed to create in her debut. The most important point (according to me) is that I never get any feeling that Minogue is pretentious, which is a feeling that I get FAR TOO MUCH from post-1984 Madonna albums.

But anyway, this music wasn't written by Kylie. It was written by the songwriting team of Stock, Aitken & Waterman (also referred to as SAW). Naturally, these guys are out to make millions of dollars, and ... well, they succeeded. They made a great choice choosing Kylie, who was already a big soap opera star in her homeland, Australia. She's a good singer and she has a good pop image. And, well, they didn't know it at the time, but she had staying power. Plus, the people love her! ... Except for Americans. They don't really care about Kylie. But I care about Kylie, because I think she's pretty. My weak heart!

Since this is her debut, and she wasn't even 20 years old, the producers wanted to give her the "girl next door" look. But like Britney Spears would repeat 10 years later, Kylie wanted to break that mold and start showing some skin and wiggling her hips seductively. She started doing this by her third album in 1990. I can only respond to that in a Homer Simpson kind of way. ......ggguguguguuguguhuuguhuuhuh....

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Kylie

Enjoy Yourself (1989)

Album Score: 7

The title of this album is Enjoy Yourself. That's quite an unprentious goal for a dance-pop album, and Stock Aiken and Waterman (SAW) always aim very low on the artistic spectrum. However, even though I would like to make fun of SAW very much for doing nothing but create songs for the mass population, one does have to admit that they can come up with a very good pop song when they feel up to it.

This is Kylie Minogue's second album and SAW doesn't fail to give her another hit. The hit this time was "Hand On Your Heart." Much unlike Kylie's previous big hit, "I Would Be So Lucky," this one doesn't have an infectious melody. But people still bought it because, after all, SAW has great PR people working for them.

Nonetheless, SAW still delivers a fine pop song in the album appropriately called "Never Too Late," which is the third song of the album. With slight disco undertones amidst a techno beat, the song is yet another happy-go-lucky, infectiously catchy pop song in which Kylie delivers another highly spirited vocal performance. Like that song very much, I do.

The title track, "Enjoy Yourself" isn't bad, but it's almost light years away from matching "Never Too Late" despite the fact that they are only one notch apart from each other. (Well, "Never Too Late" is a high A- and "Enjoy Yourself" is a low B+.) Naturally, since SAW was creating music for corporate profit, they fill the rest of the album with a lot of mediocre nonsense. Songs like the dance-pop "Wouldn't Change a Thing" and "Heaven and Earth" are nothing but half-hearted probes for radio hits. Likewise, the ballad "Especially For You" is especially awful!

All in all, this is about the same quality of Kylie's debut album. There's nothing quite as catchy as the song "I Should Be So Lucky," but one comes kind of close. That's nothing to feel sad about.

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Enjoy Yourself

Rhythm of Love (1990)

Album Score: 7

Have you seen the music video to "Better the Devil You Know?" Ouch!!!! That's all the words I need to say! Anyway, we're here to talk about this Kylie Minogue album and not about how much of a sex goddess the woman is.

And ... OK, this is another spotty album. It contains precisely two good songs on it. The first is the drag show classic "Better the Devil You Know," which has such a great spirit to it. That song is a top-notched dance song with a great little melody and, more or less, constructive arrangements. (Dance pop songs aren't always arranged very well, but I suppose this is about as close as it gets.) But the best song on the album is called "Shocked." It's a dance song that reminds me more of a poor man's version of the prestigious synth-pop band Depeche Mode than a pop song. Trust me, that's an extremely high compliment from me and a testament to the talent of the SAW team.

But a testament against the SAW team is stronger. Unfortunately, they were only good for those two songs. They do muster up another OK song called "Step Back in Time" that tries to feed on our nostalgia for the disco days. (I'm not nostalgic, though! I was born in 1982 after disco went out of style. I am also cool because of this.) The remaining songs range from mediocre to crappy.

This album not only marks the arrival of "Sex Kylie," but also the beginning of Kylie's songwriting career. ... Well, all I'm going to say is don't expect much out of songwriting Kylie. Her co-written song "Rhythm of Love" was OK, but the other four songs she had a hand in are just as bad as the poor SAW songs.

So, I hate to report that this really isn't a good album although I do speak highly of two of these songs. And, I'm sure, you can find these songs on a greatest hits compilation. That would be the wisest finanical decision.

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Rhythm of Love

Let's Get To It (1991)

Album Score: 8

The funny thing about corporate pop music is the moment they give their artist a little more legroom for creative development (if they want it, that is), the quality of the music almost always seems to get better. Minogue continues to snatch more and more creative control over this album, and there's only one full-fledged SAW composition here, "Word is Out." She co-writes most of the other material.

OK, Kylie doesn't help co-write any of the album's best songs with radio hit potential, but there really isn't an all around abysmal moment. Sure, "I Guess I Like it Like That" is a difficult song to sit through at times, but at least it has some "charisma" if you will (it sounds like they were goofing around, but I can't tell for sure).

That and the bland pop number "Finer Feelings" is the album's only weak point. The rest are usually good or fair, but that's a bit of a step up from her previous albums, which had some unrelenting cheese in it! For some reason, I can't get over liking the title track. True, the instrumentation is pretty cheap, but it's charming. It's unusual in the sense that it doesn't sound like Minogue is a pop diva. The hook is catchy, so what's not to like about it?

Another notable song though certainly not perfect is an acoustic track, of all things, with "No World Without You." "Too Much of a Good Thing" is a fun samba styled track although it's similarly imperfect. The cheesy ballad "If You Were With Me Now" isn't so bad as it is dated ... the melody is passable enough. "Right Here, Right Now" is recognizable as one of the album's hits, but it's a little bland for my taste. It seems like it could have been more.

All in all, this is a lacking but much improved effort. As you might know, Kylie would sever her ties with SAW and start taking even more control of her image later on...ohhhh, yeah..........

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Let's Get To It

Kylie Minogue (1994)

Album Score: 8

Now that the SAW team isn't holding her hand, she has some room to express her artistic independence. That doesn't explain why she only co-writes one of the tracks ("Automatic Love") but she has the ability to choose what goes on the album and I assume a say about the production. Along with it, SAW staples such as "Better the Devil You Know" and "The Word is Out" are unfortunately no more. The good side of the deal is SAW's wasteful throwaway songs are out the door, too. We got a small taste of that already in Let's Get To it when Kylie was allowed to co-write most of the songs, but this is where her "artistic freedom" was really given the test.

Unfortunately, I don't have real great news about the quality of songwriting. The songs, from outside composers, mostly are completely devoid of hooks. The big exception is the hit track, "Confide in Me," which is by far the album's strongest point. (Oh, if she only had been able to keep that up.......) This shows why she wanted to move away from SAW. It's atmospheric complete with thoughtful and "artistic" instrumentation and even a good melody to boot.

Even though no other song comes close to matching it, they usually have nice enough instrumentation to keep it interesting. "Where Has the Love Gone?" is a good example of that; it has a nice 'trance' beat and the instrumentation contains a few goodies to keep it from growing dull. Unfortunately, there's also the occasion where the instrumentation is desperately dull, and the song suffers greatly as a result. "Surrender" is so bland that it reminds me of Madonna, and "Falling" (despite that the Pet Shop Boys wrote it) is like a barren trance wasteland.

I do greatly appreciate Minogues' willingness to break out of SAW's grasp, and I applaud her attempt to put some art in her music, but the quality of the album just wasn't up to that challenge. At the same time, this is still a notch above most of her SAW albums.

It's also worth mentioning that Minogue's vocals have a more difficult time being meaningful here. Minogue thrives when she's singing party-time or feel-good material, but most of these tracks aren't meant to enact such passions. She was always good for singing loudly over the SAW music, but it's showing weakness here with this new 'artsy' style. Oh well!

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Kylie Minogue

All reviews are written by Michael Lawrence.