It is impossibly easy to root for Kylie Minogue. The Australian pop princess is funny in interviews – see her dry, casual dismissal of the idea that Kylie Jenner could trademark their shared first name. She is also remarkably private – rarely, if ever, whipping up hokey, pseudo-emotional backstories for her records or trying to claim that she is some kind of pop auteur. In this sense, she is a rarity in the modern pop landscape, in which bleeding-heart confessionalism and grand posturing are de rigueur. Her wine brand is pretty good, and while her 2010s and 2020s output rarely holds a candle to her unimpeachable 90s and 00s run, she has continually released enough great singles, and mounted enough fantastic tours, to keep fans interested (and stay in high rotation at drag bars).
This surfeit of goodwill meant that when her career began to genuinely reignite on a mainstream level last year – after the single Padam Padam took on a life of its own thanks to its kooky lyrics and insistent hook – many were swept up in the “Padamic”. That song’s associated album, Tension, also had the huge benefit of being Minogue’s best full-length in many years: a euphoric EDM-pop record that also indulged her long-established love of glittery French touch and hazily remembered 80s nostalgia. Songs such as Hold on to Now, with its Robyn-esque slow build, and the robotic sex jam Tension are among Minogue’s best tracks in ages – capturing, perfectly, the heightened mix of cheekiness and steeliness that wasn’t even totally nailed on, say, Padam Padam, which, despite its success, also felt a little bit anonymous.
Now, like any self-respecting dancefloor queen, Minogue wants to keep the sesh going. Her 17th album, Tension II, isn’t a deluxe reissue of last year’s set but an entirely new record featuring nine new tracks plus four previously released collaborations with the Blessed Madonna, Diplo and Orville Peck, Bebe Rexha and Tove Lo, and Sia. Unfortunately, like all too many fabulous parties, this is one that should have been called early. Tension II is sometimes sparky and sometimes gratifying, but for the most part it fails to recreate the highs of its predecessor, instead choosing to replicate the animating ideas of Padam Padam – anonymous, sledgehammer-subtle Eurotrash beats; nonsensical vocal hooks; self-aware attempts at camp – over and over, until those ideas have all been worn down to nothing.
A lot of these songs feature great, quintessentially Kylie moments: the verses of Someone for Me are sultry and confident but get bulldozed by a plasticky Ibiza hits playlist drop. Good As Gone begins as a brilliant tribute to/update of I Will Survive, Minogue embodying a wounded disco diva, but little of that persona carries through to the chorus. It’s frustrating to be teased, over and over again, with the sparkle and charisma that made Minogue a star, before she and her collaborators dutifully return to ideas better left on dance music radio. Ironically, the album displays a lack of self-belief – something you never want to hear associated with Kylie. A song such as Shoulda Left Ya, on the other hand, despite its resigned, post-breakup haze, has the kinetic thrill of many of Minogue’s best tracks; a soaring electro-pop ballad, it’s an outlier on this record, and it makes you wish that she would experiment more with this kind of pathos.
In a classic case of nominative determinism, the jewel of this set is titled Diamonds. It’s casual but effortlessly glamorous, silly but steadfast in its commitment to the bit; when Minogue speak-sings the lines “I see the diamonds in your eyes/ We’re getting close to paradise”, she issues them like commands, and you can instantly imagine tens of thousands screaming along, ready to submit. It’s a shame that this highlight is sandwiched between Kiss Bang Bang and Hello, two boilerplate EDM-pop tracks that offer little of the same high. While the latter, at least, flirts with a Jersey Club beat just long enough to maintain interest, the former is pure pap, the kind of track that would only really be at home during a transition shot on the Netflix reality show Selling Sunset.
It may have been easier to let Tension II slide were it not a sequel to an excellent predecessor; comparison was always inevitable, and I doubt many will choose to hit play on part two when they can just spin part one instead. That said, Minogue is an artist who has always been able to mount unexpected comebacks and has shown a preternatural ability to select surprising, avant-garde collaborators. (Which other A-list pop star has made a song with Deee-Lite’s Towa Tei and Yellow Magic Orchestra’s Haruomi Hosono on which they take the guise of a personified typeface?) Still, Tension II mostly fits the late-period Minogue criteria: a couple of songs here are absolutely fit for a greatest hits set list – or, at the very least, a high-energy 2am drag show.
