I've just decided to get into her discography and I'm loving what I've heard so far. For anyone interested here were my thoughts on Impossible Princess that I posted elsewhere - prior warning that it's quite lengthy.
Impossible Princess
So earlier this evening, I started with Impossible Princess anyway, simply because I had always seen it compared with Ray of Light, The Velvet Rope, Butterfly, etc. as part of that real imperial phase when female pop really started to push its own envelope. And good God.
Too Far is like a palette cleanser - a strong, alcoholic one - that removes all preconceived notions of what Kylie's music should be or mean. It unnerved me a little; it's unfamiliarity is quite harsh and abrasive and I wasn't sure if I should have heeded the advice of some of you and stuck with the more digestible cornerstones of her vast discography first. But the majesty demanded by Cowboy Style took all of that away. The Alanis-meets-Kate Bush visceral nature of the song coupled with the gorgeous melody and lyrics washed all my doubts away. I had no idea Kylie could make me feel this way with her voice. I thought she was just poppers'o'clock bops and I take that all back.
I see a little semblance of Perfect Illusion in Some Kind of Bliss - a strange choice for a lead, especially for Kylie. I imagine quite a shock to the system at the time? It's definitely a great song and an album standout but outside of the album which it stands against, I'm not sure it would hold up. Then again, I get the impression she probably didn't give too much of a **** about that from my reading of the background of this record.
Did It Again is a song I've heard before definitely, I think as a younger child. It makes me feel very nostalgic and introspective, helped along by the fantastically inward lyrics in the third person. It's an incredibly relatable and personal song but that fresh yet hippie production keeps everything moving forward. And then Breathe is the perfect antithesis to the aforementioned song. It's a nice moment to, funnily enough, breathe after the very heavily produced previous trinity of songs. Say Hey nicely plays around with the space within a song, abandoning any standard pop writing techniques that may be expected from her, which I enjoyed. Good enough for an entire fan website to be named after? I'm not so sure.
Drunk picks the album up again, which I enjoyed greatly - a real whiplash of a song this one. It almost feels like it should be soundtracking a Mario Kart Rainbow Road level. The retro production and catchiness of I Don't Need Anyone is another breath of fresh air on the record, bringing us back to the sound from the start of the album and uniting it with the pace found on the previous track, but it's not a standout for me.
Jump's chorus is lovely, with the little echo on the 'jump!', and I like the sentiment of the song. I feel like the steam in the metaphorical engine of the record runs out a little with the slight repetitiveness of Limbo. A grower perhaps? It feels that the themes have been covered already, and the choice of that song on this position on the album feels a little off. Things are put back into place with Through The Years, which contains gorgeous production and the lyricism is also equally as pleasing. Her vocals are so smooth as well, absolutely unreal.
Dreams is a suitably ethereal closing song, with the soaring strings and gorgeous percussion that unites the modern elements of the record with the decidedly classic sound of the first half and the introspection that is very brave for a pop star of Kylie's caliber. The production techniques found on the album perhaps shouldn't be as surprising for 1997 as they seem, but they really work a lot better than a lot of the 'modern' music at the time was. The binaural effects on a lot of the songs really give the album an immersive experience - and between that and the inspired and innermost thought-provoking nature of the lyricism found across the record, it feels like Kylie has invited you into the middle of the light display on the album cover and given you a private show (buy Glory on iTunes now).
Overall a fantastic, interesting, ambitious and mostly well-realised record that I wasn't expecting to like so much. I've listened twice but it already seems like it will have a lot of replay value. It upset me reading that she considered Impossible Princess the low point of her career though - has she changed her stance on this?