JCS On Kylie's The Albums 2000-2010

Kylie Minogue The Albums- 2000-2010

Reviewed by James Christopher Sheppard

Having just completed her massive ‘Aphrodite- Les Folies World Tour’, Kylie Minogue is releasing a stunning boxset of all five of her studio albums released since her career-changing monster hit ‘Spinning Around’ in 2000. Better than any Greatest Hits from the past ten years could be, this literally includes every track released by Minogue since signing with Parlophone in 1999.

Light Years

Including her first Top Ten hit since 1994’s ‘Confide in Me’, Light Years catapulted Minogue back to the forefront of pop. Following almost eight years of musical experimentation and collaborations with Nick Cave and Manic Street Preachers, Minogue put her shiny stilettos and hot pants back on and produced the most unashamedly camp disco album of her entire career. ‘Spinning Around’ hit number 1 in the UK and Australia and similar success followed for singles ‘On a Night Like This’, ‘Kids’ with Robbie Williams and ‘Please Stay’. The album also features live favourite ‘Light Years’, and possibly the campest song ever recorded, ‘Your Disco Needs You’.

Fever

‘La la la, la la la la la…’ Fever was released in 2001 and saw Minogue not only top the charts in five countries and go multi-platinum, but also had top five success in the USA. The classic single ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head’ now has iconic status and remains one of the biggest selling singles in the world over the past decade. ‘Come Into My World’ won a Grammy and ‘In Your Eyes’ and ‘Love at First Sight’ were also phenomenally huge successes. Following Fever, Kylie was considered an international superstar. Other stand out tracks from the album include ‘Love Affair’, ‘Burning Up’, ‘Fragile’, ‘More More More’, ‘Give it to Me’ and… basically the entire album is flawless electro pop.

Body Language

Never one to unleash the expected, Kylie’s Body Language stunned many, as it did not follow in Fever’s footsteps, or any other record’s footsteps really. The overall sound of the album is the most urban that Kylie has ever sounded, featuring a more American R&B sound than the electro pop people had come to expect from Minogue. While the album scored Minogue her seventh UK #1 with the understated electronic hit ‘Slow’, the rest of the album had a sound of being directed towards an American audience. As a result, the album underperformed in most territories as it just didn’t quite sound like authentic Kylie. Saying that, ‘Red Blooded Women’ and ‘Loving Days’ are treasures that would doubtfully exist without the rest of the album.

X

Mid ‘Showgirl Tour’ in 2005, Kylie was forced to dramatically cancel the remainder of the tour following her cancer diagnosis. For over a year, the world waited to hear of Kylie’s recovery, and finally rejoiced in late 2006 when she hit the road to complete the tour. Four years after the release of Body Language came X, with first single, ‘2 Hearts’ hitting #4 in the UK and #1 in Australia. X is packed full of electro club tracks, like ‘Like a Drug’, ‘In My Arms’, ‘The One’, ‘Wow’ and ‘Speakerphone’. While some criticized the comeback album as lacking the heartache that could have been expected from a post-illness album, the collection was a success and hugely popular with fans as it demonstrates what Kylie does best- electro dance pop.

Aphrodite

Kylie’s tenth studio album came in summer 2010 and landed at #1 in the UK exactly 22 years after her debut album hit the same spot. The Goddess of Love themed album also hit the Top Ten in dozens of countries around the world, as well hit the Top Twenty in the USA. First single ‘All The Lovers’ is literally like a slice of Kylie heaven, it’s euphoric dance perfection.  Other hits include the club strutting anthem ‘Get Out of My Way’ and feel good dance number ‘Put Your Hands Up (If You Feel Love)’. Some of the album’s top moments were not released as singles however, as ‘Aphrodite’, ‘Cupid Boy’ and ‘Can’t Beat The Feeling’ prove. Aphrodite is the album Kylie has always been destined to make- it’s confident, upbeat, positive dance excellence.

With a low price of £11.99, you can’t really go wrong with this box set. The collection comes in a neat white box, which includes all five albums in their own cardboard sleeve and a fold out inlay. For anybody that doesn’t own even a few of these albums, this is money well spent. Fans will also love this as it’s such an awesome collector's item- with each disk printed to reflect the artwork. The Albums 2000-2010 is better than any Best of could hope to be- for the same price you get 63 tracks, some of which are iconic, a lot are brilliant and some are pretty damn good.

10/10

The Albums 2000-2010 by Kylie Minogue is available now through Parlophone Records.

JCS is Eyewear's Music Critic.