Friday, Jul 25, 2008
After two decades of Eurostardom, Kylie Minogue's brand of glossy retro-disco may finally conquer America. Good -- she's just what we need right now.
Mar 7, 2002 | I was in England during the Christmas season of 1987 when Kylie Minogue's first hit, a cutesy-poo version of Little Eva's "The Loco-Motion," became inescapable. I grumbled so predictably whenever it came over the radio or on "Top of the Pops" that the first few notes were enough to get my British then-girlfriend laughing at how much it irritated me.
So how, 15 years later, did I wind up standing in line at the Times Square Virgin Megastore, possibly the only straight man in the crowd, waiting for Minogue to autograph "Fever," her new CD? Although Kylie fizzled out in the U.S. after "The Loco-Motion" became a hit here, she went on to a huge career in Europe (30 million-plus records sold), first under the tutelage of Brit-pop schlockmeisters Stock, Aitken, Waterman and then, briefly, in a commercially disappointing fling with alternative rock. But apart from the occasional gossip column appearance, or a photo layout in some Euro lad-mag, in which she didn't look much like the perky teenager in cutoff sweats I remembered grinning her way through "The Loco-Motion," I had barely thought about her.
That is, until early last year, when a Welsh friend returned to New York from a Christmas visit home. My buddy, whose musical tastes overlap with mine, told me that several U.K. critics had listed the Minogue album "Light Years" on their year-end best-of lists. Since British music critics tend to be less embarrassed about the transitory pleasures of pop than their American counterparts (who seem more concerned about writing for the ages), I considered the possibility they might be onto something. But I didn't actually pick up "Light Years" until a couple of months later, after seeing Kylie as the Absinthe Fairy in "Moulin Rouge," a saucier version of that earlier movie sex fantasy, Walt Disney's Playboy Bunny-esque Tinker Bell.
Maybe this is too quirky and personal a reaction to have a lot of resonance. Maybe it's just a result of my own complicated feelings toward music right now. But I don't know if I can convey the sense of relief that swept over me listening to "Light Years." It was the overwhelming pleasure of being able to respond to a piece of pop music immediately, to feel as I were inside its beats even as I was hearing it for the first time, to be ready to hear it again right away as soon as it finished. A big, shiny, friendly piece of retro disco, "Light Years" brings back the utopianism of disco's heyday like nothing in years.
Something about disco has always put me in mind of the most lavish auto show imaginable, the type where scantily clad girls dance around new cars and trucks, showing them off, enticing buyers into the pleasure of material goodies. "Light Years" shares with Daft Punk's "Discovery" a sense of a being a perpetual-motion machine, the beats working like the axles of an 18-wheeler to keep you moving smoothly down the road. Kylie has a small voice -- a sort of nasal sinuousness she puts to good effect -- but "Light Years" was created by people who understand that the pleasure of disco has to do with size, with the hugeness of the thumpa-thumpa-thumpa beats. That's what contributes to the communal ecstasy of disco, the feeling of everyone joined in a party that's just getting happier as it gets bigger. "Light Years" is a travel brochure of a record, devoted to exotic good times.
Minogue's new album, "Fever," just released in the U.S. after premiering in Europe last fall, is a more streamlined version, not so expansive or cheery. A reviewer in Time Out New York noted that "Light Years" was "so gay that it didn't stand a chance in the U.S. pop marketplace." There's something to that. (The crowd gathered at the Times Square Virgin Megastore a few weeks back made it clear that Kylie has a huge gay following. Four male dancers, stripped to the waist, gyrated on platforms as she signed autographs. The two guys in line behind me pronounced these six-pack go-go dolls "scary.") At the risk of indulging a cultural stereotype, saying that a dance record has a gay sensibility is something like saying your watch was made in Switzerland or your shoes in Italy. It means it was put together by people who have perfected the form and know what they're doing.
Powered by the perfectly named single "Can't Get You Out of My Head" (a fate experienced by anyone who hears it more than twice), "Fever" is a little chillier than "Light Years." You might say it's the night lights seen from the back of a passing limo rather than from the crush on the dance floor. What's remarkable about it is how fresh it sounds. The album entices rather than commands your attention. You can put it on and listen with one ear and still find the spirit and rhythm of it carrying you forward, making you want to hear it again. Whether the music is retro-disco or house, there's still a dedication to fun that, for me, makes Kylie stand out. Especially now.
If you're still listening to pop music after you hit 30 (I'm 10 years past that, and still listening), you accept that you go through periods where your attention seems to tune out. Maybe there's too much going in your life to pay close attention, maybe the sheer amount of product is overwhelming, maybe the music -- for whatever reason -- just doesn't speak to you at that moment. Even allowing for all that, this seems to me a weird time for pop.
Get Salon in your mailbox!