In her 30-plus years of stardom, we’ve met many Kylie Minogues. First came vintage-pop Kylie (“The Loco-Motion”), followed by sophisti-Kylie (“Shocked”), dance Kylie (“Confide in Me”), indie Kylie (Impossible Princess), disco Kylie (“Spinning Around”), and of course Kraftwerk Kylie (“Can’t Get You Out of My Head”). While she’s never attained the imperial reach of her contemporary Madonna, she’s one of very few modern singers whose skill at reinvention merits mention in the same immortal breath. Nor is she done dreaming up new costumes: Minogue recorded much of her 14th studio album, Golden, in Nashville, with collaborators including phase-one Taylor Swift alumni Nathan Chapman and Liz Rose. There’s even space for a banjo on one of the singles, “Stop Me From Falling.” Ready or not, here comes country Kylie.
The idea for this detour apparently came from Kylie’s long-standing A&R. “I’ll try just about anything, so when he said, ‘Think of a country inspiration element,’ I said, ‘Sure!’” she recalled in a recent interview. There’s a certain record-company strategy-meeting logic behind this plan in the era of pop/disco/country hybrids from Man of the Woods to Golden Hour. For both better and worse, though, Kylie’s excursion into Nashville sounds little like either of those contemporary extremes. Instead, she borrows from the sledgehammer-subtle EDM Americana of Avicii’s “Wake Me Up,” where fingerpicked guitars meet thundering bass drums and teeth-rotting synths in the year of our lord 2013.
The music on Golden sounds ill-fitting and even cheap at times, like a deathtrap ride that has been painted bright pink to distract the potential customer. The worst offender in this regard is “One Last Kiss,” which uses what sounds like a Casio country preset rhythm for its basic structure, the cheap plastic claps throttling what is otherwise a decent piece of songwriting. The previous song, “Sincerely Yours,” is similarly lightweight, thanks to flimsy strings and a vocal hook which suggests Kylie wanted to go full “Where Are Ü Now” dolphin flute but couldn’t quite find room in the budget.
Elsewhere, Kylie gives the impression she’s trying too hard. The title track opens with a yodelling vocal line that appears to reference Ennio Morricone’s theme song to The Good, the Bad and The Ugly, in a broad, meaningless nod to American culture that ranks right up there with Europeans who get really into the NFL. Minogue’s vocal delivery sometimes seems to ape a Southern U.S. drawl, notably on the verses of “Stop Me From Falling.” The album’s lyrics, meanwhile, reference burning rubber, rodeos, and rocking—hardly home territory for a London-dwelling Australian entertainer.
The real shame is that when Kylie stays true to the dance-pop sound that has adorned many of her greatest hits, she cooks up some moments of genuine brilliance. “Dancing” has a wonderfully funny one-liner chorus (“When I go out, I wanna go out dancing”) that perfectly sums up the way a great pop song can defy mortality. “Raining Glitter,” meanwhile, combines lilting acoustic guitar, deep house beats, a whooping vocal effect, and a fabulously overblown chorus to create an exuberant cousin to the classic Spiritual Life / Ibadan remix of Beth Orton’s “Central Reservation.”
Unfortunately, these high points are never quite enough to get over the strained lonesome cowboy-isms that dominate Golden. It’s not that pop stars have to be “authentic,” whatever that means. But they do need to make us believe in them, if only for three minutes. Kylie Minogue made us believe in the spurned lover of “Tears on My Pillow” and the obsessive flirt in “Can’t Get You Out of My Head.” But on Golden, she sounds like someone playing at country music, rather than someone who understands it. Her star will doubtlessly endure this awkward release, but let’s hope country Kylie is short-lived.
