“X” by Kylie Minogue
April 5, 2008 – 8:06 amKylie Minogue has never commanded the zeitgeist like Madonna or stalked a stage with the queenly cool of Beyoncé or hurtled across octaves like Mariah. But in a two-decade career, the pint-size Aussie has ruled the British and European charts by supplying nonstop fizzy fun — she’s pop divadom’s party planner in chief.
Minogue’s tenth album arrives on the heels of her battle with breast cancer; thankfully, the experience hasn’t made her mp3 music discernibly deeper. X compiles wall-to-wall club thumpers — the clomping electro-pop single “2 Hearts” has been a dance-floor smash for months — and songs about sex, dancing and sexed-up dancing. In “Nu-Di-Ty,” one of two buzzing, percolating tracks by Swedish beat wizards Bloodshy and Avant (Britney Spears, Madonna), Minogue commands her man to perform a striptease: “Just pop that zipper for me/And work that thing out.”
Minogue has a pipsqueak voice to match her diminutive frame, and she wisely cedes the mp3 musical spotlight to her producers, allowing her vocals to be processed and thoroughly T-Pained. But she permits herself the occasional moment of subtle diva hauteur. “Wow” opens with perky house-reminiscent keyboard chords that nod to her big hits of twenty years ago — like Madonna, she has stuck around long enough to revive her own Eighties sound.
Also named on the Queen’s coveted list is chat show king Michael Parkinson, who will be knighted in 2008, and Lord of The Rings star Sir Ian McKellen, who becomes a Companion of Honour.