Kylie Minogue
The liner says that this album is a Stock Aitken Waterman Production, and 10 of its 11 songs were written, arranged and produced by Stock Aitken Waterman. Mike Stock plays keyboards and sings backup. Matt Aitken plays keyboards and guitar.
Hey, Kylie, you little Twinkie. Are you on this record anywhere?
Oh, yes, the singing. It does seem like an afterthought, though. Minogue has a mildly pleasant voice, but she seems like such a cog in a gray-noise machine that she projects practically zero personality. It’s no coincidence that the only song not written by the SAW apparatus, the Little Anthony and the Imperials hit “Tears on My Pillow,” is the only track where she seems at all substantial.
The rest of the tunes, including her duet with fellow Australian soap-star Jason Donovan on “Especially for You,” are cookie-cutter stuff, pure banality disguised mostly as bumpity-thumpity disco dance tracks.
Last year Minogue and her SAW patrons parlayed “Locomotion” into a U.S. hit on the strength of that irresistible old tune’s appeal and a video that exploited Kylie’s ability to go cutie pie. This album doesn’t so much expand on that success as attempt to exploit it in a particularly lazy, unimaginative way. (Geffen)
