Kylie - the Glory Years

Many younger audiences know Kylie as the singer who did "Can't Get You Out of My Head," but the truth is that she was a superstar years before this single. This hits collection has all the singles from her Stock-Aitken-Waterman years. Frothy, perfect pop that goes down easy. "I Should Be So Lucky," "Got to Be Certain," "Hand on Your Heart," "The Better the Devil You Know," and "What Kind of Fool" are slices of such well-crafted pop, despite the many critical blows S/A/W took in their heyday. This CD shot to No. 1 in the UK charts, and it's easy to see why. Celine may have the better voice, and Madonna may have more hits, but when it comes to down-to-earth charm, you can't beat Kylie. A diva with none of the divatude.

Kylie's Poptastic Past

Greatest Hits. Quite a generic title for a hits compilation, no? But despite, it really is some of Kylie Minogue's greatest tunes. Containing all her singles from her PWL period, including her three US top 40 singles from that time - "I Should Be So Lucky", "The Loco-Motion", and "It's No Secret". Her Japanese number one single "Turn It Into Love" is also present, amongst the rest of her UK smash hits. Great pop song after great pop song follow each other, with very few patches in between. The highest point of the album is the killer quartet from her third album "Rhythm Of Love", four catchy and fun dance pop classics - "Better The Devil You Know", "Step Back In Time", "What Do I Have To Do", and "Shocked". Those are some of the strongest of her career with SAW, while some of the other goodies include "Wouldn't Change A Thing", "Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi", and "Word Is Out". And as for the patches I mentioned earlier, be aware of dodgy cover versions of "Tears On My Pillow" and "Celebration", and an overly sappy duet with Jason Donovan on "Especially For You". If Madonna is the people's pop queen, this prove's Kylie is the people's pop princess, a collection of hits almost as essential as "The Immaculate Collection" it self.

Legacy of a pop legend-Kylie's early best

Following Let's Get To It, Kylie Minogue released a retrospective of songs comprising her hit-making years with British bubblegum pop machine Stock-Aitken-Waterman on their PWL label. A whole pack of bubblegum? Well, it wouldn't be such a big deal were it not for the fact that Kylie's first six singles debuted at #1 or #2, and her first 11 singles made the Top Five.

Six songs are taken from her debut, hardly surprising, as that album went diamond worldwide (10 mill. copies sold). Her cover of Little Eva's "The Locomotion" spent 7 weeks at #1 in Australia, her home, and darned if her cover outdid that of the original and Jackie and the Raindrops' rendition. The equally infectious "I Should Be So Lucky," simultaneously at #1 in the UK and Australia, broke her worldwide, while I first heard of Kylie via her UK #2 hit "Got To Be Certain." "Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi" French for I Don't Know Why, was another UK #2, and "Turn It Into Love" went to #1 in Japan.

From Enjoy Yourself, we have her first hit duet, the ballad "Especially For You," sung with Jason Donovan, which was the UK's first #1 song of 1989, the #1 UK "Hand On Your Heart," classic S-A-W, "Wouldn't Change A Thing," the vivacious "Never Too Late," and her cover of Little Anthony and the Imperials' "Tears On My Pillow."

The singles from Rhythm Of Love continue the formula, especially with "Better The Devil You Know," a song later covered by Welsh group Steps, and with its "I wanna funk, I wanna F-F-F U-N-K" intro and vivacious beat, "Step Back In Time," replete with references to 70's soul titles and even the O'Jays. "Shocked" became Kylie's 13th hit and 13th Top Ten single in the UK. Quite a record! What's not apparent here is that on some non-single tracks, Kylie actually began her hand at songwriting, co-writing with Steve Bray

From Let's Get To It, which showed Kylie co-writing some songs with Stock and Waterman, there's her best ballad, another duet, the regret of "If You Were With Me Now" with R&B singer Keith Washington, a strings and piano ballad that was a Christmas 1991 release. Another highlight: the bouncy horns in her cover of Chairman of the Board's "Give Me Just A Little More Time," a #2 hit that became her 15th UK Top 5, and another ballad, "Finer Feelings."

The new songs: "What Kind Of Fool (Heard All That Before)" harkens to the early bubblegum of her first two albums, with more sophisticated synths. This and the ballad, "Where In The World?," whose lush strings, horns, and drums recalls the pop of Petula Clark and Dusty Springfield, with a nod to 70's disco, were both written by Stock, Waterman, and Minogue. And what a way to end the album than with her cover of Kool and the Gang's "Celebration."

If anything this collection is quite a legacy. Kylie's a pop institution in Europe, Australia, and Japan, and while it's sad that she never broke through with most of these hits in the US, perhaps now there's some redress of the situation with her two most recent albums, Fever and Body Language, but this is the better material, people. Following this compilation, Kylie would enter a transition period, trying out new sounds with her self-titled album and Impossible Princess, before returning to disco, but sans Stock-Aitken-Waterman.