It definitely displays a new side to Kylie and perfectly showcases her voice, which over the years has grown stronger and more confident. The production is top notch, but some of the tunes are rather lackluster like Surrender and If I Was Your Lover. The songs are fine but it would have been nice to have a couple of dancier numbers in keeping with the Kylie that we fans have grown to love.

Highlights, that more than make up for the duds, are Confide In Me, Put Yourself in My Place and Dangerous Game. Of the dancier tunes, Where Has the Love Gone goes on for about 1 minute too long but has a great piano and Time Will Pass You By is a good one for lifting the spirits.


Classy pop   February 2, 2004
H. R. Trigg (Swindon, Wilts United Kingdom)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

Kylies move to the Deconstruction label proved to be a good move as this cd proves.
She moved away from throwaway pop, to classy pop tunes (there is a difference!).

The gorgeous Confide In Me - which is without a doubt one of her best ever singles, starts with those remarkable strings.
The beautiful Put Yourself In My place, her best ballad to date (and still in my opinion!), Where is The Feeling, Falling (written by the Pet Shop Boys) and the M-People penned track Time Will Pass You By.

My only criticism is some of the tracks are over long, and would have been best in edit form.

Classy.


A new Kylie and a new sound   December 9, 2003
Daniel J. Hamlow (Narita, Japan)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

Well, her first four albums with Stock-Aitken-Waterman represented one phase of her career. With her self-titled album, Kylie Minogue found herself in a transition period that included this and her next album, Impossible Princess. It's not at all bad, showing her trying new sounds and pop other than the bubblegum she felt had lost its flavour and had thus spat out, and some of Kylie's sensitive and nurturing side comes out as well.

The mid-paced "Confide In Me", the first single, sports a mournful violin, later strings, which then gains a backbeat of an industrial-type drum machine. As a prelude to the title, she sings, "We all get hurt by love, and we all have a cross to bear, and in the name of understanding now, a problem should be shared."

"Surrender" and "If I Was Your Lover" have the similar sound but without the strings. The latter incorporates a more funky soul sound and backup singers. Given the rest of the songs, these are filler.

Stylistically, the near-7 minute happy "Where Is The Feeling" is the closest to the disco Kylie cut her teeth on, but the fresh style of Brothers In Rhythm's production, the bass rhythms, and some of the keyboards puts it above the S-A-W's bag of tricks. "Everytime you want me too, I can make you happy" she avers.

The soulful "Put Yourself In My Place" is another great ballad sporting airy keyboards and thumping drums, and asks for some kind of empathy "before saying you won't be mine." Another standout cut.

Another standout cut, the contemplative, melancholy and dominant strings ballad "Dangerous Game," and the name of the game is love, of course. Only Mariah Carey and Kylie Minogue can make the lonely waiting game so poignant, as well as falling under "the power to make or break my day." The emotion in her voice has improved since "If You Were With me Now": "I'm so alone/I feel so lonely/here on my own/I've lost my way" she sings in the chorus.

The lush "Automatic Love" is proof enough that drum machine ballads were done way before Dido hit big with "Here With Me."

"Where Has The Love Gone" asks Kylie in a near eight-minute dance opus with a steady drum machine and piano-synths. Her voice nears Madonna's and as for its similarity to "Deeper And Deeper" by the latter, well, Kylie scores head over heels by having better instrumentation, the soulful backing vocals, and to keep the energy going with that piano.

"Falling" was written by Tennant/Lowe of the Pet Shop Boys and it's another filler track, bad considering the talent involved in the songwriting.

Kylie always was a present-oriented gal and that's proved here in the affirmative thumping disco of "Time Will Pass You By," which seems a template of the material she would in her second disco era, starting with Light Years. She offers people to take her hand, showing them how to live, to give themselves a better chance. A great track to end the album. Despite the obvious filler, Kylie Minogue is a brave step in moving away from the S-A-W playroom.


Some career-highlight recordings   September 15, 2002
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

OK, so this was the first release in the post-PWL phase of her career and she pursued a somewhat-throwaway pop/R&B sound on this record. No matter: "Put Yourself in My Place," "Confide in Me," "Falling" & "Automatic Love" make this an essential purchase for anyone interested in Kylie Minogue.

Great songs by anyone's standards, they each explore dreamy & haunting territory she hadn't visited before - from nouveau/retro soul ("PYIMP") to deep house ("Falling") to dreamy electronic/pop the likes of which one never hears on the radio ("Automatic Love").

And the rest ain't half bad either - very respectable filler.

"Kylie Minogue" and Kylie Minogue are worth it.


KYLIE AT HER BEST!   May 28, 2001
Ian Phillips (Bolton, Lancashire, UK)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

Perharps Kylie Minogue's most indispensable work. After a succesful stint on PWL Records under the guidance of Stock Aikten & Waterman, she shed her previously squeaky clean, girl-next-door image and decided to re invent herself. She signed to Deconstruction Records, a major dance label, in 1994. This album, her debut on the label, saw her most certainly maturing as an artist with her vocal delivery sounding slightly stronger and far more self assured and womanly.

Her previous style was completley abandoned on the album's opening track, Confide In Me. The track is hauntingly atmospheric and fantastic at that and really stands out as the albums very best recording and is even possibly, still the greatest recording of her career. The track was a huge success in the U.K where it peaked at No.2 within its first week of release. Surrender is a sultry, mid tempo number whilst the funky, If I Were Your Lover, is where the limitations of her singing show up. Where Is The Feeling? is a fine blend of dance and pop and is another standout track whilst the tempo is then slowed down with another great recording, Put Yourself In My Place, which was another big U.K success, where it climbed to No.11.

The second half of the album is even better. The joy in a lot of these tracks really lies in the musical arrangements especially on the stunning Dangerous Game, which is a haunting ballard and although Kylie's vocals do have appealing qualities, her vocal strength wanes slightly on this track but still it's a thoroughly magnificent track. Automatic Love seems to compliment Kylie's voice a lot more. Second to Confide In Me as a stand out track is the stunning, Where Has The Love Gone? which steers into more mainstream club/dance and is absolutley fantastic at that. Falling is a pleasantly mellow dance number, produced by The Pet Shop Boys but what seemed to leading up to a grand final is let down by the surprisingly lacklustre, Time Will Pass you By, which was produced by M People and does sound too similar to their own material.

All in all a very good album with it being a significant improvement on her previous studio album, Let's Get To It (1991). She was certainly moving in the right direction. Recommended!