FEATURE:
The Digital Mixtape
PHOTO CREDIT: Warner Bros. Records
Confide in Me: Kylie Minogue at Fifty-Five
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WITH 2020’s DISCO…
PHOTO CREDIT: Erik Melvin
still ringing in the ears and buzzing in the brain, we have another Kylie Minogue album on the way. DISCO was remixed and got a special edition (Guest List Edition) with extra songs featuring well-known artists. It was an album that deserved this treatment. It showed that the Australian music icon was not somebody who is in any danger of dropping the quality! Minogue announced on social media that another bold-type album, TENSION, will be out on 22nd September (most have put the album title as lowercase, but Minogue uses all upper case on her Twitter feed, so I am going with that!). Here is the news via Music Week:
“Kylie Minogue has confirmed details of her new studio album, Tension, which will be released on September 22.
The album continues her successful relationship with BMG, who helped Kylie Minogue secure No.1 peaks in the UK with her two previous studio albums, Golden (2018) and Disco (2020), as well as the collection Step Back In Time (2019).
According to the Official Charts Company, Golden has UK sales of 166,699 and Disco is on 176,116. BMG managed to grow global streaming on Disco compared to their first release with Minogue.
According to the announcement, Tension is a record of “euphoric, empowered dance floor bangers and sultry pop cuts”, which should delight her fanbase.
Padam Padam, which opens the album, will be the first single to be released from the record.
Kylie Mingoue said: “I started this album with an open mind and a blank page. Unlike my last two albums there wasn’t a ‘theme’, it was about finding the heart or the fun or the fantasy of that moment and always trying to service the song. I wanted to celebrate each song’s individuality and to dive into that freedom. I would say it’s a blend of personal reflection, club abandon and melancholic high.”
Minogue has worked with a number of producers on the album with seven of the tracks being produced and co-written with her long-time collaborators, Biff Stannard and Duck Blackwell.
Discussing the recording process, Kylie Minogue said: "I loved being back in the studio with my collaborators but was also able to benefit from remote recording, which we have all got used to – my mobile studio never left my side for a year and a half! The album is a mix of songs I have written and songs which really spoke to me. Making this album helped me navigate challenging times and celebrate the now. I hope it accompanies listeners on their own journeys and becomes part of their story.”
Tension tracklisting:
Padam Padam
Hold On To Now
Things We Do For Love
Tension
One More Time
You Still Get Me High
Hands
Green Light
Vegas High
10 Out Of 10
Story”.
If DISCO was very much what the title implies in terms of sound, then TENSION seems to be something a bit more modern. DISCO was modern in a lot of ways, but it nodded back to the past. Minogue’s sixteenth album is shaping up to be something special. It has no theme, but it continues DISCO’s Dance and Disco-themed direction. In a year already dominated by female artists, one of music’s legends looks set to keep the standard sky-high and full of gold! The first single from the album, PADAM PADAM, was released this week to huge acclaim and ecstatic reaction online! I am not sure what else TENSION will offer when it comes to flavours and themes, but we are enjoying this run of different-sounding albums that show that you cannot predict Kylie Minogue – and she is definitely not the same artist that released her debut album in 1988. That album, Kylie, is thirty-five in July. From the days of Kylie, the Melbourne-born queen has come a very long way! There is another reason that I am putting out a playlist spanning her entire career. On 28th May, Kylie Minogue turns fifty-five. It is a big birthday and, coupled with this new album news, it is as good a reason as ever to compile her songs into a playlist! To mark her upcoming birthday, and the new single and exciting album coming along in September, below are Minogue’s singles and some great deeper cuts (a massive thanks to Charlotte Bond for her advice and guidance when it came to the best Minogue songs to include!). It shows that there is nobody in music who has a catalogue like her! Let’s hope that we see many more albums from an artist…
WHO has redefined Pop music.