Kylie Minogue
Aphrodite

Aphrodite....the Goddess of Beauty. And Miss Minogue knows a thing or two about beauty. Even the most superficial and less sensitive individuals of the male gender recognize in this petite woman, who barely manages to reach five feet tall, with a warm, delicate voice, almost inspiring that pure innocence of a young girl (of 42 years), a beauty that can outshine many illustrious colleagues in a nanosecond.

New release, therefore, for Miss Minogue who has made the crucial decision to create a totally dance-oriented album, from the first track "All The Lovers" to the last "Can't Beat The Feeling". A tour-de-force of dance tracks created with the valuable collaboration of Stuart Price (the creator of Madonna's "Confessions On A Dance Floor") and other beat wizards like Calvin Harris, Sebastian Ingrosso, and even the Scissor Sisters' leader Jake Shears. The result is a compact, homogeneous, very good work, although it lacks the experimentation that characterized her previous album X, where retro sounds of 2 Hearts were combined with the electronics of "In My Arms", "Speakerphone" and "Like A Drug".

It's a well-known fact that dance, more specifically electro-dance, has been dominating the elaborate and imperfect music biz context for more than a year now, and that this record might seem to many as yet another dance mishmash in the style of mostly flop artists trying in every way to collaborate with the Guetta of the moment just to ensure fleeting mainstream dance-floor hits and thus, high sales. What needs to be emphasized is that Kylie Minogue, ever since Spinning Around (2000), through the various Can't Get You Out Of My Head (2001), Slow (2003), and I Believe In You (2004), has embraced those sounds, making dance and electronics her personal "trademark" and, therefore, she doesn't represent the classic dilettante who made a qualitative leap into the Guetta and Gaga world only for the convenience of the moment. Her music has long been based on a specific creative path, even if founded on mainstream pop-dance.

Let's return to Aphrodite. For this musical era, Kylie opted for the "ancient Greece" theme, and in the photo shoot created to launch the album, she is depicted in her original beauty, without sparkling glitters and such. A simple, natural Minogue, made even more sensational by the setting styled after the Cyclades Islands and the Aegean Sea.

The sound show begins with the first single "All The Lovers", a delightful 80s-style dance track, summery and sunny, where unnecessary electronic distortions are avoided, enhancing Kylie's warm and seductive voice. The song's music video is worth viewing: a multitude of "lovers" unite in a voluptuous and original human pyramid on which the radiant Miss Minogue stands, who conceived this video as a concrete representation of her conception of love and sensuality. In short: it is possible to make a great video without Gaga-style exaggerations.

Alternative, exciting, and "ecstatic" (sometimes hyperbolic words pop up from my mental dictionary, so I apologize to the DeBaserians for this) is "Closer", where Kylie successfully marries her vocal tone with an energetic and engaging beat.

The classic Kylean track is "Get Outta My Way", simple but not trite, very "club-friendly," likely to serve as the second release, while "Put Your Hands Up (If You Feel Love)" requires mention once again for its not banal simplicity, and good dance involvement. "Everything Is Beautiful" represents the least dance-floor example of the album, yet it allows Kylie's romantic and sensual side to resurface, presenting to the world the modern reinterpretation of Greek Beauty, which in Aphrodite had its feminine "messiah".

The work done by Price for Madonna in "Confessions On A Dance Floor" (2005, ed.) is well summarized in "Looking For An Angel", a song in which "Sorry", "Jump", "Hung Up" and "Get Together" are skilfully mixed. And "Aphrodite" represents the aggressive side of the Australian singer, a song that combines bursts of rock in a dance reminiscent of vintage 80s and 90s sounds.

A work all to dance to, a simple and original dance, which aimed to leave out much of that dominant electronics, heavy beats, distortions, and now trite and annoying vocal modifications. Rediscovering that pure dance-floor music, which in Kylie Minogue has found a great custodian and defender. Recommended for those nostalgic for Dance free from the Guetta contaminations.