“Name me Kylie-lie-lie, don’t imitate-tate-tate…”
It’s been a somewhat surprising 12 months for The One, True Kylie™, following her attractive, heart-racing return to trendy electro-pop again in Might, “Padam Padam.” (Have you ever heard it? Do you know?)
The Rigidity lead monitor brought about what might solely be described as a collapse of worldwide proportions – sheer Padamonium throughout the Web – which really nobody noticed coming.
Kylie is many issues: a legend, an icon, the second. However a viral meme queen? That was undoubtedly new for all of the Lovers.
Our Mighty Aphrodite humbly, fortunately welcomed all the “Padam Padam” appreciation from new followers and outdated – using the wave of consideration Cowboy Type with a peaceable smile – all by the summer season months.
She’d preserve the momentum going with a handful of reside performances, prolonged variations, remixes, interviews, Siri spoken phrase renditions, and bodily format releases. And in the long run, Kylie ended up with what many would proclaim to be the Track Of Summer season 2023™. (Certain, we will debate who took that crown, however in sure Pop Nerd and/or Chronically On-line Homosexual circles, there’s no denying the tune’s a powerful contender for the highest spot.)
With her sixteenth studio album (!) now set to reach in only a few brief weeks, there’s no higher time for our devoted Crimson Blooded Girl to unleash the follow-up: the album’s namesake, “Rigidity,” a good tougher, odder, club-edged digital minimize that deserves to be blasted from the audio system.
Having already heard the album in full (sorry), dancing to it for the primary time instantly in entrance of Kylie Minogue herself inside a tiny membership (so, so sorry), I can confidently attest that “Rigidity” is greatest served laborious and loud.
Co-written with the ever-trustworthy Richard “Biff” Stannard (of “Love at First Sight” fame, say no extra), Duck Blackwell, Jon Inexperienced, Anya Jones and Kamille, the verses are fairly sill-lay, lay, lay, stuffed with sing-song syllables aplenty-ay-ay as Kylie saunters throughout effervescent electronica and Home piano melodies.
“Cool like sorbet, bay, bay,” she proclaims, “Sizzling like chilli, lay, lay.” ChatGPT might by no means produce this type of prose. “Name me Kylie-lie-lie, don’t imitate-tate-tate.” Pictures fired at a secondary tv persona? Perhaps so!
The monitor slowly however certainly builds (“All night time, contact me proper there)” …and builds… (“doo, doo, doo-doo“)…and builds, supplying loads of – anticipate it – stress. After which, in the end: the breakdown.
“Oh my God, contact me proper there…virtually there, contact me proper there…”
That vocoded bass-heavy blast of unleashed, “Speakerphone” adjoining robotic lust is genuinely jaw-dropping upon first hear (mouth agape, actually), and immediately seals the deal as one of many report’s standouts.
As Biff precisely famous, it’s Women Aloud-esque in its madcap, multi-song development, as nicely merely being an absolute blast of a tune, and additional proof of Rigidity‘s brilliance.
After which, there’s the music video.
The accompanying visible was directed by fixed collaborator Sophie Muller, who’s labored with Kylie for years, and it’s delightfully odd – her most weird, self-referential video in a very long time, certainly.
Suppose “Did It Once more” alter egos, a splash of the “Come Into My World” MCU (Minogue Cinematic Universe), a little bit of “GBI” experimentalism and Fever-era futurism, combined with Dr. Who, a splash of The Fifth Factor – and the Moulin Rouge inexperienced fairy, for good measure.
And now, a full video evaluation.
“Padam Padam” Crimson Kylie, having grown bored with “Padam?” tee-wearing F-words coming as much as her in tears begging for a selfie, has opted to flee society by making a midnight escape to the neon-lit Svalbard World Seed Doomsday Vault, now working as a portal to the Rigidity Dimension.
An X-era type Robo-Kylie is diddling with some dials and monitoring the state of affairs.
In the meantime, Disco-era Kylie-turned-Cher-slash-“Contact Me (All Night time Lengthy)” Cathy Dennis beams in from the glittery “Say One thing” galaxy, overlooking the shattered disco dance flooring whereas delivering some TikTok-ready choreography.
“Padam Padam” Kylie, having settled into her very “Padam Padam” room, is immediately delighted by the Disco show, and rapidly learns the strikes in her room.
Having caught wind of “Padam Padam” Kylie’s arrival (and subsequent dance celebration for one), Robo Kylie tracks down the power’s new customer, and there’s some form of a desk interrogation and/or tackle Marina Abramović‘s The Artist Is Current.
A teeny-tiny Showgirl-era Kylie abruptly seems in a Moulin Rouge-style absinthe and/or Kylie Wine hallucination in entrance of them, yellow feathers and all, prepared for her Voltaire residency in Las Vegas.
The assembly of the Minogue minds leads to full and utter Kylie overload, as all of them come collectively in a kaleidoscopic (Kylie-doscopic) “Your Disco Wants You”-esque camp explosion of sight and sound. Ohmygodtouchmerightthere.
Having simply had the dance celebration of a millennium contained in the Doomsday Vault, Kylie realizes she will’t simply go away the F-words alone for lengthy. She finally decides to return from whence she got here, with a renewed ardour for the dance flooring, able to deliver the teachings of the Rigidity Dimension to the locals.
And there you could have it: a fairly simple idea, actually!
One factor’s for sure: the Rigidity period is lots weirder than beforehand imagined. There’s an actual sense of playful abandon with this marketing campaign, and we’re all higher off for it.
Rigidity is out on September 22.
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Picture Credit score: Erik Melvin
