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Kylie Minogue: Body Language

(Parlophone)

Helen Pidd
Friday November 14, 2003
The Guardian


Buy Body Language at Amazon.co.uk

Kylie is so rock'n'roll. In her 16-year reign she has pooh-poohed every rule in the pop realm, yet still has her tiny bowling-ball booty parked firmly on the throne. Quit while you're ahead? Don't accept film roles in video game spin-offs (Streetfighter, for instance)? Never be photographed wearing a brim-only hat with your perm poking out at a jaunty angle? Pah! Such maxims mean nothing to Kylie. She is the ultimate music industry Weeble - she'll wobble, yes, but never fall.
For her ninth studio album, she has chucked out the chintz once more, turning her back on the dancefloor disco that filled 2001's Fever to create a slower-burning record that seems unlikely to spark any nationwide dance routines. Then again, it is all too easy to underestimate pop's own Thumbelina by judging her songs before you have heard them 50 times a week on the radio, down the wine bar and in the gym. Especially when Cathy Dennis is on the songwriting team.

Body Language finds Kylie partying like it's 1987 all over again, only minus the dubious millinery and Jason Donovan, taking inspiration from the likes of Kool and the Gang and Prince to pleasing if not always memorable effect. Still Standing is a magnificent blend of Prince's Kiss and Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer, littered with minxy little oohs from Kylie, rather as if she was watching some particularly foxy fireworks. Secret (Take You Home) boasts more than enough writing credits to form a netball team, yet somehow avoids the too-many-cooks pitfall with its Goldfrappy jerkings and 1980s vision-of-the-future sound effects. It does, however, feature what may well be Kylie's rapping debut: it may not be cripplingly embarrassing (see Geri's woeful attempt on the Spice Girls' Love Thing), but let's hope it's never replicated in a live situation.

Chocolate seems a likely future single, packed with saccharine innuendo and breathy vocals, but somehow sounds too dated to pack any punch in the age of Beyoncé and Missy Elliott. On Obsession, Kylie drops her trademark helium trill to adopt a gravelly rasp, as if she has gone back to her roots with Madge from Neighbours.

I Feel for You, meanwhile, melds Beat International-style breaks and a bit of crazy electric piano to make for a soulful number. Someday, featuring the lilting and loopy loveliness of Scritti Politti's Green Gartside, is as close to a chill-out track as Kylie has ever made, and indeed co-written. With its disorientating chord progressions it doesn't quite go in the direction you expect, and as such it is the album's stand-out moment. Problem is, as with the majority of other tracks - including, most disappointingly, the Dennis-penned After Dark - you would be hard pushed to dance to it, which could well be Body Language's downfall. Are we ready for a Kylie album to sit down and listen to at home?

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