Whether it was intentional or not, it happened: Kylie Minogue looks like a botched version of Olivia Newton-John on her latest album cover. Indeed, the entire affair could be billed as an attempt at Xanadu, which, let’s be honest, only had value after enough time passed to redeem it in the eyes of Camp. To that end, the hit single from the soundtrack, “Magic,” is also the title of the song Minogue wields to commence her fifteenth record, called, generically (though some defenders would say “simply”), DISCO.
“Magic” is accordingly formulaic, with Minogue ripping off an array of sounds and cliches before transitioning into “Miss A Thing.” Here, Minogue sees fit to disco-ify the basic chorus to Aerosmith’s 1998 power ballad, “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing.” Produced by Teemu Brunila and Nico Stadi, the repetitive track relies on the standard-generated disco whoosh created by string synthesizers.
Things turn more mellow on “Real Groove,” also produced by Brunila and Stadi, while still maintaining the staples (read: banalities) of the disco genre. Minogue’s voice is manipulated around the halfway point before returning to reminding the object of her affection, “She know how to party/But nothing like me and you/Got that perfect body/But she ain’t got the moves/We got something better/Got that real groove, baby.” Funnily enough, there is no “real groove” to DISCO, for it’s all entirely ersatz in terms of trying to force its audience back into the decade without the Madonna or Dua Lipa revamping tricks of Confessions on a Dance Floor or Future Nostalgia, respectively. In this sense, it feels as though Minogue has created the record for the sole purpose of getting it played at the Liberace-inspired lair of an older gay gentleman.
Sticking to the “from a bygone era” vibe, the next song is called “Monday Blues”–when that meant something pertaining to having a “steady 9 to 5.” As opposed to waking up every day miserable in a lockdown state involving rolling over in your bed toward your computer to get on a Zoom call. Filled with a more guitar-centric sound, Minogue sings as though she’s just taken a bump of speed, “Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday/It’s the weekend.” Uh, no it’s not. ‘Cause every day has a weekend quality now, without the perk of going out somewhere. Oddly enough, Minogue herself was aware of the incongruity of writing a song about the notion of concrete days as she remarked of the process behind coming up with this track, “I became quite insular in lockdown and didn’t really go out much, but I listened to a version of this during a rare walk and it started to make sense.”
It’s notably at the moment we hit track five, “Supernova,” that we get the sense this is the type of song (and overall album) Andrew Cunanan might have murdered someone to. While dressed in an open-chested Versace shirt, of course. “Borrowing” from Madonna’s “Lucky Star” rhyme scheme, Minogue sings (occasionally with a vocoder), “Baby, all I need is just a little bit of your starlight/Shining on me/I never knew an aura was so bright, so bright.” Yes, “starlight, star bright, first star I see tonight” indeed. In any case, if you’re looking for a song with the word “supernova” in it, maybe stick to Oasis’ “Champagne Supernova.”
The most passable track on the album in terms of being pure and true “Kylie” is its first single, “Say Something,” which did give one high hopes for the overall sound of the record. For it is an actual attempt at revising the generic disco sound and making it Minogue’s own (just as she’s done with previous records, including Fever and X). The video even offered more Xanadu vibes with its limitations in lockdown than the trite, “Sorry” wannabe offering that was “Magic.” Alas, the quality of “Say Something” quickly devolves into “Last Chance” with its Shaft theme song-esque interpolations and blatant Donna Summer snatches. Though Minogue claims all the inspo came from ABBA (with a splash of the Bee Gees), no song called “Last Chance” intending to be disco-flavored can be anything other than a riff on Summer’s “Last Dance.” And, sure enough, Minogue is wont to use the rhyme, “This is the last chance/For the first dance,” as opposed to Summer’s signature, “Last dance, last chance for love.”
More ripped off synthesizer strings show up on “I Love It” (darling, Icona Pop and Charli XCX sort of have the monopoly on that title), a third single that does little to buttress the goodness of “Say Something.” Doing her best to speak to the dark times we’re living in–with the disco ball as the emblematic light in the darkness–she assures, “Dance through the darkness/Together eternally.” But, as anyone knows, the disco ball light must dim out eventually, leaving nothing but the cold, hard reality of non-soft lighting.
To that point about the “end of the night” blues, “Where Does the DJ Go?” opens with slowed down piano notes before picking up with more synths and vocoders. Of course, Minogue must sing Gaynor’s line, “I will survive” in between asking, “Where does the DJ go, go, go/When the party’s over tonight?/I didn’t get all dressed up for nothin’ (nothin’)/Wanna chance another dance before morning.” Considering Minogue wrote the song right before the first lockdown went into effect, there was a sense of knowing that going out and having a good time would soon have a moratorium on it, creating a feeling far worse than the DJ merely packing up his equipment at the end of the night.
Still, Minogue is doing her best to keep the party going. Hence, the most Giorgio Moroder-esque song of the record that follows, “Dance Floor Darling.” Frivolous and frothy (which describes all of the songs), Minogue is more prone to admitting about this track that it “doesn’t have any real depth to it… we wanted escapism, and we committed to it.” And it’s true, that’s always been what disco is about, and why it cropped up during the recession/stagflation period of the 1970s. Everyone wanted to forget their cares, their economic woes and escape into the music (as only drugs could help with). The same goes for the present, except it’s a slap in the face for Minogue to try using disco as a means for escape. Because there is no dance floor anymore. Save for the ratchet one you create in your apartment.
The mid-tempo pace of “Unstoppable” continues to ricochet the bromide phrases and disco sounds of the past, with Minogue insisting, “Unstoppable love/Unstoppable love (ooh, darling)/It’s lifting us up/Forever and ever.” Sure, whatever you say. So it is that we find ourselves at “Celebrate You,” the final number of the non-bonus track edition of DISCO. Intended to speak to the “everyperson,” the name Mary is chosen for Minogue to relate to her “common” listeners as she croons, “Mary, Mary, I’ll bе with you through the pain Mary, Mary/I know that you’d do the same.” But would she? Especially if she’s as drunk as Minogue is making her out to be at the end of the night. Classified as the “wind down” song of the record (the way “Break My Heart [Moodymann Remix]” is on Dua Lipa’s Club Future Nostalgia), Minogue explained of its placement on the album, “I’ve introduced you to this stellar landscape, we’ve gone to supernova, but we’ve come back down to Earth.”
Naturally, for those with the bonus edition, things continue after hours with “Till You Love Somebody,” which still possesses a calm, laid-back sound. Keeping the cheese going, Minogue reuses the Sonny and Cher platitude in her own words by noting, “If I got you and you got me, we’ll be alright.”
Just when you think Kylie really is slowing the music down for good, along comes “Fine Wine” to pick up the beat and tone as she touts, “beep beep” with Donna Summer’s “Bad Girls” slant and then declares, “Strike a pose,” as though “Vogue” is pertinent in this instance. Then again, no one has been more innovatively inspired by the 70s than Madonna.
“Hey Lonely” is an admittedly endearing song with its allusions to how loneliness can always be forgotten on a dance floor–and then you’re left to be reminded once again that there are no dance floors currently open. Sigh. “Spotlight,” the final song, is also, incidentally, the first track on Madonna’s 1987 remix album, You Can Dance. Settling for another mid-tempo to truly conclude, Minogue’s sentiments echo what’s happening in Dua Lipa and Angèle’s recent video for “Fever” (a title both Minogue and Madonna are well familiar with) as she sings, “It’s a vibe, wanna stay out/Don’t lie, I know that you’d do the same damn thing, baby/Hang tight, let your hair down/’Cause tonight, I’m gonna change your life.” It’s a big promise that never really gets delivered on DISCO.
Having received critical acclaim for the most part, there’s a certain irony to the fact that, like Xanadu, the album probably would have been panned if it actually came out in the era it’s trying to emulate. What’s more, “throwing it a bone” for being so jubilant and optimistic at a time when “hopefulness is at a premium” doesn’t actually come across as high praise at all so much as, “Well, fine, since it’s so chirpy, how can we possibly hate on it?” Which doesn’t even add up since plenty of critics found ways to hate on Ariana Grande’s Positions, a 90s R&B love letter that amounts to a new genre called lockdown pop. As opposed to the tired disco Minogue is peddling here.
