runnerbird:: pop culture geek. html guru. humorist.

When did I become such a Kylie superfan and why hadn’t I noticed? I should have known my love for the former Neighbours, Locomotion Euro-pop queen was mutating into something out of control and airborne when, during a New Year’s dinner a few years back, I practically let out a “squee” at a Kylie concert flickering above my head on the restaurant’s flat-screen television. I think I might have uttered, “Like ohmigod, is this her Body Language tour? I love her!” For the record, I was the only woman singing along to the concert in a restaurant of beautiful WeHo gay men who probably uttered the same thing upon entering the establishment. Really, this should have been my first clue. My second clue should have been making the decision a few months ago to fore go a new pair of sneakers (a needed pair mind you, my old pair had a whole in them) to pay a handsome sum for Kylie tickets to her first U.S. tour ever. Like there was any other sensible choice. And now, a few short days away from seeing her live, I can say, I am a Kylie fan and proud of it.

For some reason, probably stemming from her association with the cheesetastic eighties hit, “Locomotion,” Kylie has never broken big in America, but in Europe and most of the known world where dancing is a religious experience, she is revered as pop royalty, uttered in the same breathe as Madonna and Cher (yep, in other words, gay men love her and rightly so). If you appreciate a good dance song, here is a Kylie guide and maybe one day, before you realize what has happened, you’ll utter, “ohmigod is that ‘Time Will Pass You By (Paul Masterson Mix)’. I love that song!” Okay, maybe not.

Fever + 6
As far as I’m concerned, in the genre of pop-dance albums, there is Fever and then there is everything else. Yes, even Madonna’s Confessions on a Dancefloor pales in comparison to this album. And y’all know how much I love Confessions. I don’t know if Kylie and her merry band of writers/producers, which includes former nineties dance queen Cathy Dennis, set out to craft a perfect pop dance collection that does not let up from beginning to end, but that is exactly what they did. Like most folks in America, I only knew one song off this album, the quintessential dance floor anthem “Can’t Get You Out of My Head,” (a song that always gets one of my friends going whenever we go out dancing). From start to finish, the album is one sugar pop confection after another. Aside from the utter masterpiece that is “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” (cheers to Cathy Dennis for that one!), there was the sweet, pop ditty “Love at First Sight,” the sexually laced, disco inspired “More, More, More,” and desperately infectious “Burning Up.” The import version of the album, titled Fever + 6 contains my favorite Kylie song that only people willing to shell out forty bucks for this album or hunt for her B-sides will ever hear, the lovelorn anthem, impossibly catchy “Good Like That”.

Kylie Minogue
With this 1994 release, Kylie threw down the gauntlet in the hopes of becoming the world’s next great dance queen. By in large, she succeeded in conquering the known world. While Madonna was shifting her attention towards spiritualism and the meaning of life, Kylie took over the mantle of pop diva for those who were just looking to dance for inspiration. More than ten years later, this album still sounds fresh. The beats, inspired by the trance/electronica sounds beginning to sweep the Euro dance clubs, wash over with the slow burn that makes you feel like you should be listening to it in a room full of smoke and strob lights. The songs aren’t lyrically strong. In fact, my favorite cut from the album, “Falling”, is a six minute song where Kylie breathy voice utters “Falling in love, all over again” ad infinitum. This is definitely a case of evocative style beating substance.

Impossible Princess
This 1997 album was a conscious attempt to try something different, unexpected and, perhaps, to silence music critics who have been predicting the demise of her career since 1988. Impossible Princess does not sound like Kylie album. Moving away from her comfort zone of dance floor queen, Kylie worked with a new batch of producers from other genres. The result is something quite unique. I am not sure the experiment was a complete success, but it does showcase a sound one might not expect from her, different facets of her vocal range. The first song, “Too Far,” sounds like something Fiona Apple might have written if she had thought of it. My favorite song, “Breathe,” sounds the most like old Kylie, yet it sounds different enough to feel new, the best of both worlds.

Body Language
The follow-up to the international smash, Fever, was probably hampered by unrealistic expectations, but this album showcases, in my opinion, a more mature Kylie sound, combining the pop goodness of Fever with the artistic aspirations of Impossible Princess. The result is a perfect marriage of style and substance. After Fever, this is my favorite Kylie album. There is the deliberately sensuous “Slow”, the ultra-catchy obligatory break-up songs “Promises” and “Obsession”, the ode to demos and the creative process “Sweet Music” and my favorite track, the crazy-sexy, hidden gem, “After Dark”. For some reason, it’s buried as the album’s second to last track, a position usually reserved for the “filler” songs.

Light Years
I am not sure if this album was even released in the U.S. since I could only find it as a U.K. import on this side of the pond. My only question, why are people in America denied the brilliance of “Spinning Around” and “Butterfly”? Have the terrorist have won? “Spinning Around” is my favorite Kylie song because it encompasses everything I love about her. It is fun, catchy, flirty, and about the very thing I love to do whilst listening to Kylie, dancing like there is no tomorrow. The video is the most delightful three minutes and forty seven seconds you’ll ever watch. If you watch and don’t want to memorize all the steps in a futile attempt to do the dorky dance (the butt slap really gets me) in real life at some point so people might think you are awesome and wonder aloud, “hey, where did you learn that dorky dance” while you play blithe ignorance, then… uhm, I can’t relate to you as a human being. How can one not love an album where the word “disco” is featured in two song titles? Obviously, Kylie knows which side her bread is buttered.

Browse Timeline