Fashion and attitude - right on the money.

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's Best Albums of 2020 list...

#42 : Disco - Kylie Minogue

The uber-Kylie album thunders through the genre’s history, from the Voulez-Vous-ing of Last Chance and sly references to Gloria Gaynor and Earth, Wind & Fire to its stylish 90s French touch reincarnation. More than simply disco literate, it is also a wonderfully meta exposition of Kylie’s pop identity, how she has embodied hope and joy and lived in service of the perfect pop song – its own bid for immortality. She had spent a few years off the pulse with try-hard Kiss Me Once (2014) and Nashville-inspired, retirement-tempting Golden (2018). But Disco didn’t just compete with this year’s surprisingly widespread revival of the genre; Kylie’s fantastical dancefloor, one of catharsis and community, resonated precisely with these weird times.

I'm not the world's biggest Kylie fan, but I admire the way she seems to have managed to stay reasonably normal despite having been famous for approximately forever.  And she's certainly kicked out the odd good tune along the way (as well as some absolutely appalling ones, of course) - and the only surprise that arises from the idea of her doing a disco album is that it's taken so long.  My suspicion going into this though was that a whole album would be JUST TOO MUCH.

But it's OK - it's not going to convert anyone to either Kylie or disco but conversely, it's also not going to drive away Kylie or disco fans (I have a suspicion there may well be a slight overlap between the two).  "Last Dance" stood out from the pack for me, but it's generally all pretty high-quality disco (assuming that you accept the concept that disco can be high quality!).  One observation (not a complaint - because I really don't care) is that the vocals often don't sound like Kylie which can be a bit off-putting at times.  "Customers also listened to" Sophie Ellis Bexter and Steps - which isn't exactly stretching the bounds of believability.

An interesting diversion I went down during this was "of course Kylie was born to make a disco album, but who really shouldn't have?"  Victim Of Love by Elton John is the one I've often heard mentioned (but have yet to be brave enough to listen to) but a couple of "interesting" other options thrown up for albums are Stephen Stills and Ethel Merman, with honourable mentions for singles going to Frank Sinatra, Kiss and John Denver.  The mind boggles.

Overall, I didn't mind the album but won't be rushing back to it.  However, I must admit it made me think of Christmas parties and how there won't be any this year - which made me a bit sad.  And then I remembered that I hate Christmas parties and slapped myself around the head - so normal service has been resumed.

#41 : Karma And Desire - Actress

Darren Cunningham cements his place as one of the great poets of club culture, spanning glacial ambient, UK garage, Larry Heard-ish deep house, bumping techno and high-speed rave, all rendered in monochrome, dirtied watercolours. Guest vocals can be either gnomic (“destiny is stuck in heaven blowing nitro”, Zsela intones) or collapsing (Sampha’s corrupted cries), though Loveless’s chorus of “don’t you want to know me better?” makes for his best earworm since 2010’s Maze. 

OK, I read the above and went "huh?!?".  "Spanning glacial ambient, UK garage, Larry Heard-ish deep house, bumping techno and high-speed rave" - really?!?  And having listened to it, I can't help but feel that garage and rave fans coming to this aren't going to go away satisfied.  In fact, it's not clear to me who would be satisfied by this album - it's not unpleasant, but it didn't really feel to have a lot of memorable content to me.  It's another album I wouldn't be surprised to hear at one of those trendy art installations I'm always going to - some nice enough noises, but so what?  If I had to pick a track, I'd go for "XRAY" - that seemed to flow a bit better than most of the others.  Also, at 78 minutes long, I must admit I found it a struggle to get through (it's possible that some of the tracks towards the end of the album weren't listened to in full)

"Customers also listened to" Oneohtrix Point Never, who I know nothing about but had to include because of their (his/her?) great name.  I knew nothing about Actress before coming to this and his Wikipedia page lead with the fact that he used to play for West Brom, which seemed so irrelevant that I didn't bother reading any further.  Sorry, Mr Actress!  

#44/43 - Two I knew nothing about (and still don't)
#40/39 - Ariana and someone else...