Incorporates Record Mirror

Music Week is the UK's top music industry 'bible'. Here follows a selection of some of their items about Kylie, an artist they have always supported...

08.97

After two years in the pop outback, Kylie Minogue is fast discovering that to return with an undeniably Britpop single takes some defending.

In fact the guitar-driven "Some Kind Of Bliss" - co-written with two of the Manic Street Preachers - is far from typical of her forthcoming album, "Impossible Princess", which is, for the most part, a dance album.

The 29-year-old singer explains, "I have to keep telling people that this isn't an indie-guitar album. I'm not about to pick up a guitar and rock."

"Impossible Princess" is light years away from the Kylie of old. Trip hop and off-beat dance collaborations with Brothers In Rhythm, Rob Dougan of Clubbed To Death productions and The Grid's Dave Ball sit alongside the album's brightest pop song, "I Don't Need Anyone".

Before her switch to Deconstruction for her 1994 second album, "Kylie Minogue", it was hard imagine the ex-PWL star, who has scored four No. 1 singles in the UK, staying away from the pop market for so long.

However that follow-up to her debut album "Kylie" and the acclaimed "Confide In Me" single set a new agenda for Minogue by establishing her as a maturing mainstream artist.

Her manager Terry Blarney says, "We're aiming very much for album buyers on these new releases, rather than the singles market." It's a strategy that reverses the whole philosophy of the producers who first broke her with the infamous No. 1 hit, "I Should Be So Lucky": Stock, Aitken and Waterman.

Deconstruction's head of marketing Roma Martynuik stresses Minogue's wide-reaching appeal. "We've set up press covers and features in every area of the market; broadsheets, the pop press, dance specialists, tabloids, gay magazines, style monthlies. She's a complete icon and we can cherry pick all the best offers," she says.

Out on September 8, "Some Kind Of Bliss", which was co-written with James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore of the Manics and produced by Bradfield and Dave Eringa, has been A-listed at Radio One and will be performed by Minogue on the first show in the new TFI series this Friday (Sept 5).

Minogue says she was approached to add the two Manies tracks, "Some Kind Of Bliss" and "I Don't Need Anyone" at the end of the sessions. "We were already mixing some of the other tracks and I'd stopped adding new songs," she says. "It was a fantastic thing for me, I was really excited because I had no idea they liked my music.

"I'm told that [Manics' bassist] Nicky Wire, who co-wrote the lyrics to "I Don't Need Anyone, used to wear Kylie badges when I had the big scrunch hairdo and that he got beaten up once for wearing a Kylie T-shirt."

"Impossible Princess", a title in a book of poems by Billy Childish, was initially intended to follow the style of the darkly-produced dance track, "Confide In Me". "I started working with Brothers In Rhythm once again, to follow through on what we'd done with that song," says Minogue of the early sessions for the album which date back almost two years.

Indeed, the dance-based production team make contributions to half the album and clearly encouraged the singer to indulge herself.

Meanwhile Minogue is sitting on another collaboration which will inevitably draw in the British media if it is ever released. Nick Cave, who duetted with her on his only Top 10 hit, "Where The Wild Roses Grow", wrote a track for the album, entitled "Soon".

"It's a beautiful ballad," says Minogue. "But I just didn't do it justice I'm afraid. He used lyrics that I'd given to him and I'm very disappointed with the way I recorded it. This time around at any rate."

Apart from the collaboration with Wire, she has written all the lyrics on the album, acting as a catalyst for some very peculiar musical interpretations.

She says, "I put as much of myself into it as I could and tried to explain what I wanted musically in terms of pictures and atmospheres. Then we just followed our noses. I think Deconstruction must have been wondering about us, especially when they heard things like "Too Far" which is easily the strangest thing I've ever written.

"The album even has some psychedelic-type stuff on it and there were many more songs that didn't go on which are all sorts of different styles - some weird, some more cheesy. I think the album inspired a certain amount of surprise at the record company when they first heard it, but they've been very supportive."

So far "Impossible Princess", which is out in the UK on September 22, has no release date in America, following the closure of her previous US label Imago, but her high profile and that of the Manic Street Preachers ensures that the stylistic risk-taking will be attracting enormous interest in the UK.

DID IT AGAIN

From Music Week (UK), 8 Nov 1997:
Kylie's vocals take on a stroppy edge on a track she co-wrote with Brothers In Rhythm. But it's not strong enough to do much better than the modest performance of Some Kind Of Bliss.
(3/5)

The Club Chart Commentary

From Record Mirror (UK), 8 Nov 1997:
[...] Kylie Minogue's Club Chart comeback "Did It Again" climbs 39-31 but may not fulfill its considerable potential as only about 250 copies have been mailed to DJs, a very low figure by today's standards. The mixes on the single come from the Trouser Enthusiasts, whose work has enlivened the last two singles by Kylie's sister Dannii [...]

SOME KIND OF BLISS

From Music Week (UK), 30 August 1997:
Kylie changes musical tack again with this dense, big sounding single, co-written with two of the Manics, which loudly announces she's back in style.
(4/5)

The UK Official Charts - Chart Focus (Airplay)

From Music Week (UK), 30 August 1997:
The Minogue sisters, Dannii and Kylie, both make impressive strides. Dannii's "All I Wanna Do" took some programmers by surprise when it debuted at No. 4 on the sales chart last week. They're doing their best to catch up, however, and both plays and audience impressions for the track nearly doubled last week, sparking a 23-7 leap. Meanwhile, Kylie's upcoming single "Some Kind Of Bliss" moves 48-30. Both are getting massive support from Radio One, where Dannii's single was played 27 times last week, four more than Kylie's. Both are in the station's Top 10 ("Some Kind Of Bliss" is a joint new entry at No. 9).

WHERE IS THE FEELING?

From Record Mirror (UK), 27 May 1994,
Kylie v. Aphrohead - House:
Much as the Kylieness dislikes comparisons to Madonna, it must be said that, had we not known better, we might as well have believed the minimal vocal on this latest Felix Da Housecat's 3-track promo was indeed you-know-who's. Irrelevant popstar trainspotting aside, this is the hard 'n' deep set of mixes you might expect and - though only one will be included on the commercial rlease - all three boast some of the most booming drums you'll ever be lucky enough to have your skull pounded by. Not commercial in the slightest but if "Don't Laugh" can make the charts, who knows where it will end?
(4/5)

From Music Week (UK), 10 June 1995,
Alan Jones Talking Music:
M People's deCon labelmate Kylie Minogue is back with "Where Is The Feeling?", expansively reworked from the album version by Brothers In Rhythm with heavy use of orchestra, an ambient swirl and spoken lyrics, this is very much a first cousin of Madonna's "Justify My Love", but less commercial.

From Music Week (UK), 1 July 1995:
deConstruction may have done a sound job in repositioning Kylie as a serious dance artist but for those who loved Ms. Minogue circa "Shocked" - the classic PWL period - this was always the strongest track on the album. A hit.
(4/5)

From TV Hits (UK), July 1995,
by a TV Hits reader:
I thought this was good to dance to, and I thought her voice was really strong on it. I'd heard the song loads though, because I've got the album - it's the sort of thing you either love or hate.
(3/5)