20041121
Herald Sun
ENTERTAINMENT
Cameron Adams
18nov04
EVEN Kylie Minogue still has embarrassing Kylie moments. The most recent was when she sat down to watch all her old videos in order to compile a DVD companion to her new greatest-hits set.
"I braced myself," Kylie says, "but strangely enough it was quite compelling viewing. I thought I wouldn't last, but I managed to. But it's so long ago now."
Still, her cringe-o-meter definitely had a solid work out.
"It peaked with the hairdo in the Locomotion video," she jokes.
"The cringe-o-meter was in the red at that point, believe me.
"There were definitely a few moments . . . but it is time to throw them all together and enjoy them for what they were."
Which, in case you've been living under a rock -- or perhaps just for rock music -- are some of the simplest but most effective pop songs of the past 15 years.
Though Kylie has been a serial offender when it comes to releasing compilations (there have been more than 10 between her various record labels), Ultimate Kylie is the first to showcase her entire career to date.
The title is misleading: not every single is included, though surely there will be a box set down the line for that. But Kylie says the songs that are missing (Some Kind of Bliss, Finer Feelings, If You Were With Me Now, Where is the Feeling, What Kind of Fool and Word is Out -- her first dabble with R&B) are absent for a reason.
"Well, there are different reasons," Kylie says, though space isn't one of them. The Stock, Aitken, Waterman songs are so concise they'd all fit on one CD and rumours persist that her old record label thought that giving all her SAW hits on one disc would effectively stop sales of previous compilations.
"I know there'll be trainspotters and superfans out there going, 'Why isn't that song on there?'" Kylie says.
"We tried to have a formula where we had some kind of logic to hang it all on, as in, 'These are all Top 15 or Top 20 hits'.
"The list of songs went around and around, and we ended up deciding to put together an album that covers the scope of my career.
"It's a strange thing to put that many songs together so you try and make it run in the most pleasant form."
The back-to-back hits from Stock Aitken Waterman's self-proclaimed hit-factory production line can, with the benefit of hindsight, be seen as a feat few could achieve now. The statistics are impressive (19 consecutive UK Top 20 singles in her first four years) and the songs are even more so: Kylie points to Better the Devil You Know, Step Back in Time, What Do I Have to Do and Hand on Your Heart as her personal favourites.
"It's very peculiar for me to hear those early songs," Kylie says.
"It's because of my voice: it's like listening to someone else."
Then there is Kylie's difficult period in the '90s -- moving from classy dance (Confide in Me) to indie pop (Some Kind of Bliss) to an unlikely duet with Nick Cave on Where the Wild Roses Grow, for which the shady singer murdered Kylie in song and continued the bodycount in the video.
IT WAS 2000's Spinning Around that returned Kylie to pop and the No.1 spot. Her first UK No.1 in 10 years also put her in the same league as Madonna for notching up chart toppers in three consecutive decades.
Since then Kylie's pop second wind has stretched to 11 more hits, most notably Can't Get You Out of My Head, officially her highest-selling single to date. Pleasingly, it is also her finest single to date.
Ultimate Kylie also serves up two new songs: Giving You Up (written with Xenomania, hitmakers for Sugababes) and I Believe in You, another unlikely collaboration, this time with New York '70s-styled band Scissor Sisters.
"I love it," Kylie says. "It does everything it's meant to do and then some. When the idea of working together came up I thought, 'Well, I love their album but that is not the music I make'. However, we got on immediately; we were on the same wavelength."
It's a deliberate return to pure electro-pop after Kylie's previous album, Body Language. The follow up to Fever, the biggest-seller of her career, Body Language became one of the lowest-selling albums of her career.
Many fans felt the album's leanings to R&B (Kylie even rapped on one song) was not the direction they wanted her to move in.
How does Kylie herself see the record?
"Well, this whole 'greatest hits' period is forcing me to look at my career and it has been really good. It is a real trip down memory lane. And I've been looking at the overall view; the highs and lows. Body Language wasn't a low, it just wasn't as high as Fever. That's more than OK. I think it's actually necessary.
"It's impossible to stay in the red zone all the time. Not only from an artistic point of view, but from an audience point of view. You can't have things that are like, 'Great, great, great, gotta have it' all the time. It's a chance for people to chill out and hopefully the energy will come back with the greatest-hits album and the tour.
"I think the front cover and the look was probably a bit too fashion, too much of a look. That's OK, we did it. I thought it looked great.
"Sometimes it takes a while for something you've done to really find its place. The way people respond to Impossible Princess now is amazing. The way I respond to it . . . I look back and see the lyrics I wrote -- I'd never done anything like that before . . . I might never do anything like that again."
Earlier this year a rumour surfaced that Kylie had recorded a jazz album, the theory being that she was bored with pop. Then there's another theory that after her greatest-hits album and tour, she will close off the pop chapter of her career and move into a more mature genre such as, yes, jazz.
Kylie Minogue: discuss.
"Well, I might. I find it comforting that I have options. There are a lot of things I'd love to do and before people say, 'Like what?' I don't really know yet.
"I've done some different jazz and cabaret recordings, which I know sounds terrible when you say it . . ."
She previewed her jazz flirtations at a party for fashion label Chloe in Paris, performing cover songs including Peel Me a Grape.
Pushed, she admits to wanting to take an extended break, but not retire.
"I don't think I would retire from pop. I honestly don't know. I'm not good at projecting the future. There are a lot more pressing matters in the meantime, but when I reach that stage, that's what inspires me: the unknown. What will I do?
"But I enjoyed (jazz) and it is the most unlikely thing for me to do, but when I did it, it was received really well. And because it's so unlikely, it worked."
Kylie recorded a handful of jazz standards to see how they went.
"I had no intention of talking about it but they are done, just as demos. A lot of research has to go into recording any of those standards and in the process of doing that I felt really challenged, really inspired and, surprisingly, some songs I thought would suit me didn't and others I thought 'Hmm' worked really well.
"I had the internet going, books going, piles of CDs and DVDs -- you need to respect that genre and do your homework. I know there's a stigma attached to doing that kind of music, I'm sure some jazz purists would be up in arms, but I've had challenges and obstacles like that all along. I've just dabbled in it. It might lead nowhere, but at the time I had a week and thought that's what I would do.
"I mean, I know it's trendy now and you don't want to look like you're getting on a bandwagon. But even back to interpreting I Should Be So Lucky as a torch song or Better the Devil You Know as a big swing tap number, it started then.
"It's a strong a reference as rock and roll or dance music. As a vocalist it's so challenging to take a standard that's called a standard for a very good reason -- you don't want to veer off too much from it -- and yet the point is that everyone has to interpret it in their way.
"There's a contradiction there that is really compelling."
Until then, Kylie will get her hits out for a tour next year.
"At the moment we're faced with the problem that I've had so many hits you can't physically do them all in a two-hour show. But that's a great problem to have."
Ultimate Kylie (FMR) out Sunday.
ENTERTAINMENT
Kylie Minogue, queen of charts
Cameron Adams
18nov04
EVEN Kylie Minogue still has embarrassing Kylie moments. The most recent was when she sat down to watch all her old videos in order to compile a DVD companion to her new greatest-hits set.
"I braced myself," Kylie says, "but strangely enough it was quite compelling viewing. I thought I wouldn't last, but I managed to. But it's so long ago now."
Still, her cringe-o-meter definitely had a solid work out.
"It peaked with the hairdo in the Locomotion video," she jokes.
"The cringe-o-meter was in the red at that point, believe me.
"There were definitely a few moments . . . but it is time to throw them all together and enjoy them for what they were."
Which, in case you've been living under a rock -- or perhaps just for rock music -- are some of the simplest but most effective pop songs of the past 15 years.
Though Kylie has been a serial offender when it comes to releasing compilations (there have been more than 10 between her various record labels), Ultimate Kylie is the first to showcase her entire career to date.
The title is misleading: not every single is included, though surely there will be a box set down the line for that. But Kylie says the songs that are missing (Some Kind of Bliss, Finer Feelings, If You Were With Me Now, Where is the Feeling, What Kind of Fool and Word is Out -- her first dabble with R&B) are absent for a reason.
"Well, there are different reasons," Kylie says, though space isn't one of them. The Stock, Aitken, Waterman songs are so concise they'd all fit on one CD and rumours persist that her old record label thought that giving all her SAW hits on one disc would effectively stop sales of previous compilations.
"I know there'll be trainspotters and superfans out there going, 'Why isn't that song on there?'" Kylie says.
"We tried to have a formula where we had some kind of logic to hang it all on, as in, 'These are all Top 15 or Top 20 hits'.
"The list of songs went around and around, and we ended up deciding to put together an album that covers the scope of my career.
"It's a strange thing to put that many songs together so you try and make it run in the most pleasant form."
The back-to-back hits from Stock Aitken Waterman's self-proclaimed hit-factory production line can, with the benefit of hindsight, be seen as a feat few could achieve now. The statistics are impressive (19 consecutive UK Top 20 singles in her first four years) and the songs are even more so: Kylie points to Better the Devil You Know, Step Back in Time, What Do I Have to Do and Hand on Your Heart as her personal favourites.
"It's very peculiar for me to hear those early songs," Kylie says.
"It's because of my voice: it's like listening to someone else."
Then there is Kylie's difficult period in the '90s -- moving from classy dance (Confide in Me) to indie pop (Some Kind of Bliss) to an unlikely duet with Nick Cave on Where the Wild Roses Grow, for which the shady singer murdered Kylie in song and continued the bodycount in the video.
IT WAS 2000's Spinning Around that returned Kylie to pop and the No.1 spot. Her first UK No.1 in 10 years also put her in the same league as Madonna for notching up chart toppers in three consecutive decades.
Since then Kylie's pop second wind has stretched to 11 more hits, most notably Can't Get You Out of My Head, officially her highest-selling single to date. Pleasingly, it is also her finest single to date.
Ultimate Kylie also serves up two new songs: Giving You Up (written with Xenomania, hitmakers for Sugababes) and I Believe in You, another unlikely collaboration, this time with New York '70s-styled band Scissor Sisters.
"I love it," Kylie says. "It does everything it's meant to do and then some. When the idea of working together came up I thought, 'Well, I love their album but that is not the music I make'. However, we got on immediately; we were on the same wavelength."
It's a deliberate return to pure electro-pop after Kylie's previous album, Body Language. The follow up to Fever, the biggest-seller of her career, Body Language became one of the lowest-selling albums of her career.
Many fans felt the album's leanings to R&B (Kylie even rapped on one song) was not the direction they wanted her to move in.
How does Kylie herself see the record?
"Well, this whole 'greatest hits' period is forcing me to look at my career and it has been really good. It is a real trip down memory lane. And I've been looking at the overall view; the highs and lows. Body Language wasn't a low, it just wasn't as high as Fever. That's more than OK. I think it's actually necessary.
"It's impossible to stay in the red zone all the time. Not only from an artistic point of view, but from an audience point of view. You can't have things that are like, 'Great, great, great, gotta have it' all the time. It's a chance for people to chill out and hopefully the energy will come back with the greatest-hits album and the tour.
"I think the front cover and the look was probably a bit too fashion, too much of a look. That's OK, we did it. I thought it looked great.
"Sometimes it takes a while for something you've done to really find its place. The way people respond to Impossible Princess now is amazing. The way I respond to it . . . I look back and see the lyrics I wrote -- I'd never done anything like that before . . . I might never do anything like that again."
Earlier this year a rumour surfaced that Kylie had recorded a jazz album, the theory being that she was bored with pop. Then there's another theory that after her greatest-hits album and tour, she will close off the pop chapter of her career and move into a more mature genre such as, yes, jazz.
Kylie Minogue: discuss.
"Well, I might. I find it comforting that I have options. There are a lot of things I'd love to do and before people say, 'Like what?' I don't really know yet.
"I've done some different jazz and cabaret recordings, which I know sounds terrible when you say it . . ."
She previewed her jazz flirtations at a party for fashion label Chloe in Paris, performing cover songs including Peel Me a Grape.
Pushed, she admits to wanting to take an extended break, but not retire.
"I don't think I would retire from pop. I honestly don't know. I'm not good at projecting the future. There are a lot more pressing matters in the meantime, but when I reach that stage, that's what inspires me: the unknown. What will I do?
"But I enjoyed (jazz) and it is the most unlikely thing for me to do, but when I did it, it was received really well. And because it's so unlikely, it worked."
Kylie recorded a handful of jazz standards to see how they went.
"I had no intention of talking about it but they are done, just as demos. A lot of research has to go into recording any of those standards and in the process of doing that I felt really challenged, really inspired and, surprisingly, some songs I thought would suit me didn't and others I thought 'Hmm' worked really well.
"I had the internet going, books going, piles of CDs and DVDs -- you need to respect that genre and do your homework. I know there's a stigma attached to doing that kind of music, I'm sure some jazz purists would be up in arms, but I've had challenges and obstacles like that all along. I've just dabbled in it. It might lead nowhere, but at the time I had a week and thought that's what I would do.
"I mean, I know it's trendy now and you don't want to look like you're getting on a bandwagon. But even back to interpreting I Should Be So Lucky as a torch song or Better the Devil You Know as a big swing tap number, it started then.
"It's a strong a reference as rock and roll or dance music. As a vocalist it's so challenging to take a standard that's called a standard for a very good reason -- you don't want to veer off too much from it -- and yet the point is that everyone has to interpret it in their way.
"There's a contradiction there that is really compelling."
Until then, Kylie will get her hits out for a tour next year.
"At the moment we're faced with the problem that I've had so many hits you can't physically do them all in a two-hour show. But that's a great problem to have."
Ultimate Kylie (FMR) out Sunday.
Comments:
Post a Comment
