What Are We Holding Onto?
Kylie Minogue and the quest for perfect nostalgia
Few artists are able to pump out a steady stream of quality music across four decades. Acts from the ’70s, such as Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel, stopped recording new material ages ago, and they now spend the remainder of their careers as professional tourists.
Elton John has dabbled in creating new music (mostly remixes with current pop artists), but even he’s largely stepped out of his musical career. Following his “farewell tour,” Sir Elton spends his days on Apple’s radio music program interviewing the new faces of music.
Bon Jovi still continues to put out new music, but their last release, “2020” is dated, bloated, and painfully uninspired.
Kylie Minogue stands out as one of those rare exceptions. In 2023, she brings an unmatched aura that retains the energy of her ’80s while slowing down the tempo, increasing the thoughtfulness, and opening the musical palette. Tension is Minogue’s first full-length release since 2020’s Disco, a vignette of the glitzy days of ’70s dance music. Disco was an escape from the stranglehold of Covid in 2020, released alongside a similarly inspired albeit more dramatic artist, Jessie Ware.
Tension is an evolution from Disco from a chronological frame of reference. Taking notes from various pop styles, there’s a tightly wound elasticity that strings the songs together. There are certain nods to Eurodance strewn across the project, like “10 out of 10”’s metallic vocals, the overdramatic undertones on “Vegas Highs,” or even “Hands,” a song that sees Minogue explore a rapping-like cadence in the verse.
The modern wave of pop is also acknowledged on the album’s title track, boasting a piano riff that wouldn’t be unheard of on a Dua Lipa song. The most obvious reference is “You Still Get Me High,” featuring a wordy performance that sounds almost exactly like pop artist Carly Rae Jepsen’s previous album runs.
While these moments may not be as riveting as other cuts, they still feature a playfulness to them that lends to the overall strength of the album: its confidence.
Minogue doesn’t shy away from mixing and matching those various pop styles throughout her wonderland. “10 out of 10” dips its toes in the Eurodance influence, but it owes a larger portion of its identity to the emerging genre of Future House, the mixture of House’s signature bass and EDM’s beat drops. (It’s also worth noting that Oliver Heldens, one of the pioneers of the genre, helped work on this song).
“Green Light” brings back backing violins from the ’80s for just a moment while also incorporating soulful samples that wouldn’t be out of place at a club from the same era.
With all of these moving parts, it is true that “Tension” may feel a bit disjointed at times, specifically in the middle of the album, where the songs tend to be overly wordy or feature jarring production choices. “You Still Get Me High” may have pretty instrumentation, but the tempo switch in the chorus feels discontinuous in the grand scheme of the song. The closing track, “Story,” also holds pitch-shifted vocals, which can distract the listener from the groove and lyrical content of the song.
Despite these occasional missteps on the dancefloor, it can’t be denied that Kylie still has plenty of fuel left within her. The highlight of this release is the opener, “Padam Padam,” a crown jewel that climbed the dance/electronic charts worldwide. It could possibly be something about the smooth heartbeatlike tempo or the willingness of Minogue’s invitation for the listener to come home with her that truly made this single stand out. If there’s a track that demonstrates her ability to match the bass-heavy production of future-house with a yearning desire for the sounds of the ’80s — “Padam Padam” is it.
Like Disco, the main draw of Tension is the comforting familiarity of the music presented. Unlike Disco, Minogue exceptionally dabbles in territory that’s remained untrodden even for herself in this release. Barring the few odd moments where she seems overly wound up in pushing the envelope, Tension is a wistful interpolation of all that pop offers in a neatly delivered package.
If Minogue can build off the momentum she gathered in this release, there’s no doubt that the release will build off the groovy highs she set on Tension. Until then, we can safely assume the safest thing to do is, as Minogue puts it, “hold onto now.”
