Bathed in the glow of a green light on the cover of her sixteenth album, Tension, as she holds a diamond (“Chasing my diamond on the horizon,” she sings on “Vegas High”) over her right eye, it’s only expected that Kylie Minogue should have a song on the record called “Green Light.” Yes, she dares to title a song as such after what Lorde did with 2017’s “Green Light.” But Minogue can carry it off, earnest with her audience as she opens with the chorus, “Just give me the green light/And I can make you feel better/Spinnin’ ’round in circles I could do it forever.” Functioning as the first verse and a portion of the full chorus, Minogue later adds to the latter, “Let me be your highlight/Dancin’ all night together/Just give mе the green light/And I could be yours forevеr.”
That exact setup has been what’s happening between Minogue and her fans for decades as she serves dance bop consistency no matter what’s going on in the world. With Tension, Minogue proves that being on the dance floor provides the ultimate tunnel vision to tune out whatever “bad time” is occurring outside of it. To open her audience up to that sentiment, Minogue begins Tension with her global smash hit, “Padam Padam” (what she’s referred to as being her second “Can’t Get You Out of My Head”). More than just a track that solidifies how Madonna paved the way for female pop stars to sing about “frivolous twenties shit” at any age, it is an invitation into the escapist world of Tension. Granted, all of Minogue’s albums provide that kind of escapism, it’s just that it seems as though it’s never been more needed as a numbing agent than now. Indeed, as Minogue reminds her listeners, “now” is all we have. So why waste it intensifying anxieties about the latest environment-related catastrophe or dictatorial derangement? At least, that’s what it sounds like on the second track, “Hold On To Now.”
With its 00s-era dance floor sound, Minogue transports us back to a time and place when things felt more carefree (even when people didn’t think it could possibly get worse than George W. Bush). But just because the sound is carefree doesn’t mean Minogue avoids getting “way existential” as she sings, “Baby, what are we holdin’ on to?/Baby, where do we wanna run to?/Oh, we’ll figure it out somehow-ow-ow/Keep holdin’ on to now, now/Dreamin’ we’ll be dancin’ forever/Floatin’ on this feeling together.” As though addressing the time prior to when the pandemic forced everyone to stop in their tracks and “reassess” (before getting right back to capitalism and the “tenets” of it that will inevitably furnish yet another pandemic in the near future), she says, “We’re all just goin’, goin’ ’round/So where we goin’, goin’ now? (hold on to now)/The world could all be fallin’ down (hold on to now)/But we’ll be holdin’ on to now.” Spoken like the Britney Spears of 2012 when she urged, “Keep on dancin’ ’til the world ends/If you feel it, let it happen/Keep on dancin’ ’til the world ends.” Because, really, what else can you do? Certainly not make a concerted effort to change the behavior that will lead to the world’s end (or rather, the end of humans). Which is why, when Minogue assures, “We’ll figure it out somehow,” what she really means is: people will be forced to learn to live with the discomfort that they assisted in creating.
Like “Hold On To Now,” “Things We Do For Love” also has an accompanying visualizer video. One in which she returns to the 70s aesthetic of her Disco album (far more tired and less listenable than Tension) by way of a sequined jumpsuit. And yet, the sound of the song is pure 80s (as Minogue put it, “It’s got a bit of a Footloose feel”), filled with the kind of hopeful synths and blithe notes that betrayed how dark the decade actually was. Which just goes to show that, in the darkest times, people still want to believe in the possibility of a light at the end of the tunnel. With its Springsteen-y intonation (sonically speaking), Minogue chants, “Should I stay?/Should I go?/Maybe you could be my unconditional/Oh, there’s nothin’ that I wouldn’t do/For love, for love, the things we do for love/Tell me, how far would you go?/When you hear our song come on the radio.” The latter line reminding us that Minogue’s music still exists in a realm where people listen to the radio (and not some kind of streaming platform). And one where toxic relationships are still romanticized. For she alludes to such toxicity in the first verse with, “Every time (every time)/That you come close, I can’t shake it/Oh, the feelings that I have/Oh, we’re never done.” How Katy Perry in “Never Really Over.”
But one thing she’s truly never done with is bringing the masses dance-pop perfection. To that end, “Tension” (arguably more of an earworm than “Padam Padam”) is among the most standout songs of the album…and not just because Minogue wields sorbet and chili as similes in her verses. Opening with “piano stabs” that reek of 90s club culture, the hyper-sexualized lyrics of the single also serve to transport us through time. Specifically, to an era when people were actually more sexual and less repressed (apparently, only on the dance floors of 90s nightclubs). This being why Minogue seems determined for the musical tone to mimic the lyrical reference to orgasming, describing how “with the piano stabs, it takes you up and up, closer and closer to the climax, it gets so edgy…then it drops.” The effect is one that will definitely have listeners playing the song on repeat.
What follows is another upbeat, uptempo track that does, not so coincidentally, bear similarities to something out of the Daft Punk canon. For Minogue takes another risk on naming a song the same way as an iconic track that already came before: “One More Time.” Although she can’t one-up what Daft Punk did with that title, the track is a solid enough dance ditty. And, like most of the songs on Tension, it’s co-produced by Biff Stannard, Duck Blackwell and Jon Green, lending a dance floor cohesion to the record that wasn’t present on Disco. She even gives a nod to her album title and cover in the lyrics of this song, urging, “Release the pressure, ah, you know it’s special when we/Slow down, shake it all out.” For, as she remarked of featuring a diamond on the cover, “The diamond is a subliminal image: that of the creation of beautiful things under pressure. I think people could feel it through the cover, especially if they know how diamonds are made, that is to say, under the constraint.”
And humanity, it would seem, loves to operate under the constraint of pressure-filled capitalism. A system that hardly leaves much time for romance, though it does sell the concept oh so well (simply look at the Jay-Z and Beyoncé campaign for Tiffany & Co.)—just as Minogue does when she insists, “You know there’s somethin’ ‘bout you and me/One more time, one more time, one more time/Rewind it back, we got history/One more time, one more time, one more time.” Her frequent mentions of returning to the same person are present here, too (as it was on “Things We Do For Love”). As is the insistence on slowing down…a running theme in Minogue’s career (hear also: “Skip a beat and move with my body/Yeah/Slow”), despite the fact that her songs are created with a fast tempo. Even when they might start out, let’s say, “gently” enough. This is the case for “You Still Get Me High,” during which the mood of the record slows down briefly at the beginning of the track (while continuing to drip in the 80s musical tones that Minogue knows like the back of her hand). With an Arcade Fire-y/stadium performance vibe, it then picks up the tempo at the forty-eight second mark as Minogue belts the chorus, “Baby, baby, goodbye/Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh/Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh/Maybe it’s the moonlight/You still get me high (high)/Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh/Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh/Shine on me all night/You still get me high.” This, to be sure, is how her devoted listeners still feel about Minogue after all these years. Until she shows her penchant for releasing an occasional clunker onto the record. That assignation certainly applies to “Hands.”
That’s right, here she goes again, naming a song after something another singer already made famous: Jewel with her own “Hands.” To boot, this is definitely the most cringeworthy song on the record. The reason why really boils down to one fatal flaw in the track: its pre-chorus. Resembling something that wants to emulate “white girl rap” but can’t quite achieve the delicate balance required to successfully execute it, Minogue faux raps, “Right, yeah/Everything I do is so right [not in this case, though], yeah/Barbie, I’m that cherry on top of the cake/All up in your face/I’m about to give you a taste.” Apart from the mention of Barbie, everything about these lyrics are completely irrelevant. Not to mention utterly cliche in the worst possible manner. At least Madonna went all-out in her daringness on the rap of “American Life.” Here, Minogue plays it safe while still flopping. Which is the worst possible way to flop.
But at least there is the consolation of the song that follows, the aforementioned “Green Light.” Having been given the green light for decades now, Minogue feels particularly in her element on this track, branding it as “a cousin to ‘Spinning Around’ [from 2000’s Light Years]—it’s not as overt, it’s quite breezy and chill.” That much is corroborated by the dazzling saxophone solo throughout. Because, again, Minogue is an unapologetic 80s girl.
Nonetheless, “Vegas High” finds Minogue going more “90s dance” again as she offers a pulsing beat to describe, “Losin’ track of time/We’re rollin’ on the night/And fallin’ to the sky/Make my eyes roll back when I feel that Vegas high.” Incidentally, Minogue had initially planned to call the album Vegas High to align with her More Than Just A Residency show at the Venetian in Las Vegas. Minogue eventually settled on Tension instead, choosing to ignore her fear that, with the world already being such a tense place as it is, people might not respond well to the title. Obviously, however, the masses are far more amenable to Kylie’s kind of tension than the tension wrought by political clashes.
Swapping out a Vegas high for a regular one on “10 Out of 10” featuring Oliver Heldens, Minogue not only reminds us that she does constantly give us ten out of ten (save for the intermittent “mehs” here and there), but also returns to the sexually-charged lyrical tone of “Tension.” This much shines through when she teases, “Wanna kiss me where the sun don’t shine/Wow, wanna devour/Me boy, I might get wеt, bring a towel/After we’rе done, let’s hop in the shower.” And yet, since we already know how well Kylie can “do sex,” she seems to want to remind listeners of her more vulnerable side on “Story,” the song that closes the standard edition of the album. Coming across like an unwitting love letter to her fandom, Minogue announces, “You’re part of my story,” in addition to, “You said/Turn another page/Baby, take the stage/You know the stars are comin’ out for ya/Ebb and then they flow/Baby, feel the glow.” Which Minogue so clearly does throughout this levity-filled record.
What’s more, as though wanting to reiterate that, no matter how 80s she is, her heart will always belong to the 70s, Minogue kicks off the deluxe edition with “Love Train” (yes, The O’Jays have a more well-known 70s single titled that). Another “catchy little ditty,” Minogue nearly ruins it by vaguely pronouncing Mario like “Mare-ee-oh” as she commences, “Ninety-nine lives, Super Mario/Wanna be with you and spend ’em all/I got a ticket to ride.” As we all do for this thing called the slow apocalypse. So it is that her post-chorus mimics the sound of a “choo-choo” as she croons, “Ooh, ooh, la-la-la-la-la” and later makes things innuendo-laden once more with the declaration, “All aboard my love train/I can take you to the moon in the fast lane/I need a passenger, baby, don’t wait/Yeah, you better buckle up, it’s a beautiful view.”
As it is on “Just Imagine,” a song that was given to Minogue all the way back in 2006 for consideration on X. And, like The Weeknd saying, “I feel it coming,” so, too, does Kylie pronounce, “I can feel it comin’/Oh, my heartbeat’s out of my hands/Don’t what it is, but, oh/Just imagine/All these words I’m thinkin’/And I know that you understand/What if we could say ’em all?/Just imagine.” Being a song about “imagining,” the sonic landscape is accordingly suffused with a dreamy, lush tone that, to repeat, smacks of something straight out of the 80s. Just as the final track on the deluxe edition does. And, though Jefferson Airplane claimed it before, using already iconic song titles doesn’t faze Minogue if you couldn’t tell by now (made immediately clear by taking the title of “Padam Padam” from Édith Piaf). Hence, concluding the album with “Somebody To Love.” On it, Minogue cautions of that bastard, Cupid, “One day, the arrow’s gonna get through/Nothing you can do, it’s automatic/You won’t know what you’re gettin’ into/But when it happens, it’s cinematic.” Until it just becomes full-stop dramatic amid the inevitable unraveling of the relationship. Nonetheless, Minogue warns that, like Dawson and Joey, you can’t control it when you end up going from “strangers to friends and to lovers/Open your heart [#MadonnaSaid] and let solo go/We could be good for each other/Don’t have to do it alone.” The irony of that statement being that it embodies both capitalist and anti-capitalist philosophies. For, on the one hand, Minogue reinforces the narrow-mindedness of monogamous yearnings and, on the other, alludes to how no man is an island a.k.a. Rand-ian objectivist.
And yet, when the end comes (whether individually or collectively through a cataclysm), perhaps we’ll all find that it’s true what’s been said: you’re born alone and you die alone. So why not keep on dancin’ till the (or your) world ends to try to forget, as much as possible, that that’s the reality? Minogue being the great creator of an alternate one through her dance-ready distractions on Tension.
