Kylie Minogue - 'X' (Parlophone) Released 26/11/07

Other than the beauty that she was blessed with, the best thing about Kylie, depending on your standpoint is that she rarely disappoints. That is, if what you’re after is easy to follow glossy pop. Depending on your standpoint, ‘X’, the new album that marks her comeback is either triumphant or not. Triumphant in the sense that Kylie is back and any Kylie is better than no Kylie; and not if you were expecting or hoping for anything that that goes against the commercial pop grain or that even draws on her recent illness. But with a documentary film, perfume, children’s book and an exhibition at the V&A to her name, this is Kylie the commercial brand and to go against a previously successful formula is more a case of better the devil you know.

However it’s a harsh person who would dismiss ‘X’ outright and going on the Kish Mauve cover ‘2 Hearts’ that serves to roll out the red carpet in honour of her return to the Top Ten, it would be a foolish thing to do. It’s an instant hit and immediately it’s as if Australia’s pop princess had never been away. The only mystery is how this seductively strutting piece of pop gold only reached number 4 in the UK Singles Chart. Unfortunately for Kylie, this is as good as it gets and the rest is ever so slightly predictably pedestrian. She may have co-written over 50% of the new album’s material but ‘X’ merely re-establishes Kylie, almost exactly where she left off as opposed to reinventing one of the worlds most recognisable artists. Mechanical and robotic Kylie features heavily in songs such as ‘Like A Drug’ and the Calvin Harris produced ‘Heart Beat Rock’. Whereas the likes of ‘Speakerphone’, ‘The One’, and ‘Wow’ are predictable in their overtly yet expertly delivered dance-floor filling capacities.

Sexy Kylie also rears her gorgeous head throughout the album in the form of ‘In My Arms’, ‘Sensitized’ and ‘Nu-di-ty’. Once again it’s a winning formula but it’s a case of been there, heard that and got the Charlene Loves Scott T-Shirt. But there are also some moments of clarity. ‘No More Rain’, co-written by the woman herself and despite borrowing heavily from Madonna, witnesses her stunning vocals wash over you in waves whilst ‘Stars’ is a full-blown disco smash that is almost guaranteed to have top ten at least, written all over it. Finishing the brief forty five minutes of disc time is ‘Cosmic’ and with the opening lines “I wanted to write a song called Cosmic” its cringe worthy from the start, but Ms Minogue very quickly pulls it out of the bag and turns it into a song that’s sure to provide the backbone to as many countless break up compilation tapes as getiton songs over the coming months.

There’s not an awful lot to get excited about here, with nearly twenty years in the business and taking recent events into consideration you would have expected more but the one saving grace of ‘X’ is that it sufficiently marks Kylie’s return and that’s got to be a good thing.