While Kitty Farmer (Beth Grant) may have doubted Rose Darko’s (Mary McDonnell) commitment to Sparkle Motion (the seemingly JonBenét Ramsey-inspired dance troupe their daughters are in together), there can be no arguing against Kylie Minogue’s more literal interpretation of that commitment in the video for “Say Something,” the first single from her upcoming record, Disco. And with a title such as that, Minogue shows us there’s a reason why she’s the reigning queen of neo-disco in the twenty-first century (sorry Dua Lipa).
So it is that within the first frame of the video, Minogue serves us all manner of Xanadu (un)realness and spectacle as she appears atop a statuesque horse orbiting through the star-pocked galaxy. The two radiate a shared glow as Kylie looks into the distance while wearing her très Madonna during the “Erotica/You Thrill Me” portion of the Confessions Tour look.
Set against the background of “the cosmos,” glittering apparitional dancers complement her goddess-like persona as she wields the stars for some arcane purpose of beneficence. That noble intent of “lighting up the dark” in a “remote” location accented by the lyrics, “We’re a million miles apart in a thousand ways/Baby you could light up the dark like a solar scape.” Lying prostrate in glittering galactic ecstasy while sporting yet another shiny ensemble that Mrs. Farmer would’ve taken as proof of her commitment to Sparkle Motion (unlike Mrs. Darko), Kylie seems to want nothing more than to transform into a human disco ball (even if Taylor Swift has claimed to want the same on “mirrorball” from Folklore). One that might shine some much needed light upon Earth.
She even appears at one point in what looks like a tin foil blanket after wielding a light saber that makes one think she could easily be auditioning for a part in the umpteenth Star Wars (sort of how Madonna conceived of the “Take A Bow” video just to audition for Evita). But Princess Leia material or not, an orgasmic burst of stars gushes forth nonetheless as the video reaches a, what else, climax. It all illustrates Minogue’s earnestness as she sings, “‘Cause love is love/It never ends/Can we all be as one again?”
Well, Kylie, if the dance floor can never be a sweltering throng of bodies again, how is such a request really possible? Perhaps only in space.
