wowowowow

Kylie, X

Set the scene: i've never listened to an entire kylie album before. i have Ultimate Kylie which is basically a singles collection. my favorite tracks are, 'breathe' / 'did it again' from the deconstruction era, and the singles from Body Language (perhaps cos they were written with my heroines Emiliana Torrini and Karen Poole).

The journey: I wasn't really expecting much from X. Judging from afar as a non-fan I feel like deconstruction showed promise, light years went retrograde, and since then shes been clawing slowly back up to credibility. fever gave good singles but most importnantly gave us iconic images courtesy of will baker and Body language tightrope walked image was flawless, singles a little quirky for the mainstream. bring in xenomania and scissor sisters for two new greatest hits releases and who know which direction she would head next.

2 hearts: not knowing what to expect or indeed expecting much to like from kylie's latest, made me feel kinda unecessarily deflated that 2 hearts wasnt more amazing. but what did i want it to be? im not sure? i saw a lazy goldfrappian song replacing elector blips with guitars and it left me and the charts cold.

x: so entering X is unsignposted territory who knew where it would take us... and the verdict is: i really really like it. im stil surprised by that myself.

'i wanted to write a song called cosmic' is almost a microcosm of the entire album. she has taken that step back and evaluated what worked, what didnt, what she is admired for, the electro dance, the quirky pop expermients the heartfelt ballads, so that X seems to echo so much of her past that it feels truly like it wraps up all those strange falsestarts and misdirections of this huge pop career and points full focus on kylie.

'Like a drug' and 'In your arms' (and later 'Im the one') are to my ear, full of that specific fever dance style that Kylie perfected herself, but as potential singles they are kinda light and sub 'i believe in you' tracks that as the kylie show deomstrated would make lovely ballads as well as dance tracks but here seem to be a bit likefever rejects, fan pleasers maybe? (im the one , yes michaelangelo saves it, but i find the chorus to be weak and needy love me love me...)

'Speakerphone' is the bloodshy and avant track which channels so much of Uffies 'pop the glock' that its practically an illegal homage. kylie does it better. its less harsh more listenable and a nice quirky track that my subconcious, apparently, had been hoping for. i love this track anyway.

'Sensistised' is another ace track, chocolateesque its has a nice hook and breathy backing, its sexual kylie.

Checking the album credits its nice to see my quirky miss poole providing some nice co-writes with minogue herself. i feel like karen poole truly gets the dark erotic pop that i think kylie wants to create. i hear karen all over 'chocolate' and 'red blooded woman' and i always imagined she demo'd them for kylie and it was like she held a mirror up to kylie herself, and karen was both left huming in the backing track and aped in the lead vocals. here they give us some sublime tracks. 'heart beat rock' is solid filler, its another Uffie style track; probably written to make speakerphone less of a standout, but also a nice lead into Nu-Di-Ty later) 'Nu-di-ty' is probaly the dividing track i like it but its experimental nature can make it feel a bit too try hard. but i like my kylie avant garde i have now decided. also this dynamic duo provide 'no more rain' kylies new over the rainbow unapologetically hopeful cure-all, a little bit like pink elephants and lemonade... mm?

Most importantly they give us 'WoW' the best song on the album, its just huge. i hear B*witched echos for me early on i so have to find the track it reminds me of to prove it. (i think its rev it up?! or maybe 'never giving up') regardless this should be the big single from this album?

'all i see' and 'stars' are perhaps filler for me, but they are solid tracks and echo so much of kylies past that u suddenly find yourself having spent a pleasent 45minutes in the presence of kylie herself in all her incarnations. i think no matter what type of kylie fan you are there must be so much to love on here that shes really pulled it off. this is a perfect album and for those future generations, to whom kylie will once again mean boomerang and not much else, asking with wondering eyes what kylie was, what did she sound like, and why was she so revered, X will, for me, be the only response.

Girls Aloud: Tangled Up






link removed :)

clcik this and review it yourself....

i love close to love

girl overboard favourite at the moment

black jack has a great intro and is pipettes like/lyte

next single control of the kinfe i dont like until the daft punk robo voice kicks in

its one of the best albums of the year well worth the wait...even if we did have to have it the moment it leaked.

NB

leona lewis album review pending possibly indefinatly while this album is played on constant loop

its her

Britney Spears, Blackout Britney kicks off a month of big album releases, soon to be followed by Leona Lewis, Girls Aloud and then Kylie Minogue, so my blog will be temporarily be revived to spread my thoughts on them. Living on campus my blog editing buttons dont always display properly / youtube wont load and p2p filesharing is stricly prohibited so apart from kind record labels sending me albums to review im at a bit of a loss.

But here we have britney to guide us through these dark days. Ive never bought a britney album before but combine this with the greatest hits and i think you have the definitve collection.

on first listen the beats seemed relentless the vocals too processed and the hooks reduced to childlike repetition. 3days later and this is undoubtedly where its charm and coherence, its ingenuity and sheer dance brilliance lie.

gimme more sets the scene for much of what follows. critics have decried the artificial vocals and the stipclub imagery conjured by the lyrics, but those critics are not the ones going to be dancing to these tracks for the next year. regardless of britneys condition in the coming months, jive should stick to their guns an release plenty of singles from this collection.

pieces of me has the bold wit of a chorus that i wish brtney had written herself but it still works. track three is my favourite possibly becuase it gets a lot of flack for being so noisy but its definatly the best song to sing along too...

Heaven on earth is another favourite, while the critically lauded freakshow and toy soldier im really not buying...things go slack on the latter half of the album, but this is true of most pop albums and at leats britney gets us to around track 9 before things get to earnest.

This is a great album and will pass a pleasent week until Leona arrives. after that it will need to be retired becuase its in danger of being one of the only good albums from a whole host of big acts that hits the target and that makes me wanna overplay.

Shelly Poole, 'I Don't Need Anyone', In Gold



As shelly takes the next two months on hold to rework her album (heres a hint luv, just give us a double and then u dont need to keep scrapping any of these beatiful tracks)here is a potential track for u all to enjoy... x

This is halloween

Panic! At The Disco, 'This is Halloween'

changeback

Sugababes, Change

As my busy jobhunting/freshersweek draws to a close I've been listening to no new music and very little music at all...except this new album which is currently a bit disappointing.

While many people might concede that this one will be a bit of a grower, what that really means is that the Change the girls have opted for drags them over into easy listening territory rather than focusing on the great production theyve had in the past.

The Xenomania tracks: 'Never Gonna Dance Again' and 'My Love Is Pink' feel very lightweight especially compared to the high-octane stuff their giving to Girl's Aloud. In fact that opninon almost taints the tracks -theyre certainly not ace rejects.

The second half of the album slows way down with some mediocare ballads. Lyrically everything is on form and there are some catchy lines... but ultimatly the flaw of this album is the production, with so many tinny vocals overlayed on scratchy drum beats... if this turned out to be a demo version i wouldnt be surprised but its not... these are the 12 tracks theyre gonna be flogging to death over the next 6months of promotion.

I can't help drawing comparisons to My Decemeber, that album I love, but i agree they're is little that will work as a single... but here we have the single potentials already picked out 'Change' a great song out just before christmas and then its likely the Xenomania track out next spring. This is trouble bcause the singles will be overplayed on radio and get skipped and the bad tracks will get skipped and ill be skipping along to my faveourite track 'Denial' for the foreseeable future.

wooo

Jennifer Lopez, 'Do It Well', Brave

I haven't given this song a listen, i heard Miss Lopez though on This Morning talking about how bravely she has picked each sound, lyric and vocal for every track on her new album Brave. I guess this is her last chance to make a go of her music career after disappointing ReBirth.

Mika, 'Happy Ending', Life in Cartoon Motion

Can you believ Mika has released six singles from his ten track album...well he has and he finally releases one that wasn't anoying after 5 listens... luckily the video also makes u wanna hear this one a few more times too and maybe just maybe his next album will build on this potential instead of just coast on his hype.

hate that i love this song

Rihanna Ft Ne-Yo, 'Hate That I Love You', Good Girl Gone Bad
Those first few tracks on Rihanna's album really made me wanna turn off when this ballad got in the way of the kick ass dark n dirty pop, but now this song has become one of my favourites. The video just adds to its luscious vocals and its nicely understated and shows Rihanna looking hotter than ever.

Time to wake up

Alisha's Attic, Japanese Dream

I knew id seen this look somewhere before... While Gwen's LoveAngelMusicBaby carries a lot of the responsibility for awaking me to the wonders of Japan (where i spent the last twelve months...) it has to be said that in my formative years Japan was also a magical far away place where my favourite pop group was recognised as the genius they were to me.

So much so that Alisha's Attic even released a special mini-album -Mecha Kawaii!- its called Japanese Dream and is a collectors wet dream coming as it does wrapped in plastic with stars and glitter floating between u and the music inside. This rare song is now lost to me but ill make someone teach me how to steal it and snuggle it amongst my itunes.

The song is Japanese Dream.