Kylie - Disco

The Guardian 80

(BMG)
In these dark days, Kylie steps up and delivers a shimmering stream of dancefloor bangers

It feels increasingly cruel that in a year when the New Normal dictates we all keep as far away from each other as possible, pop’s best practitioners have delivered sweaty dancefloor fillers. It started with Dua Lipa’s album Future Nostalgia and its fusion of sleek dance-pop and disco decadence, before Lady Gaga took us off to the post-EDM clubs of Chromatica after a few years of dabbling with guitars, “authenticity” and Mark Ronson. Following suit is Kylie – surname be damned! – who has eschewed the six-string instruments and stetsons of 2018’s country-leaning Golden in favour of something much sparklier on her 15th album.

Being bombarded with wall-to-wall bangers at a time when mainlining ITV’s The Cube constitutes a big night is frustrating, but the efficiently titled Disco is saturated in Kylie’s supernatural mix of high camp and total sincerity. Taking its cues from 1970s and 80s disco, all buffed staccato strings, lithe rhythm guitar and gold-plated choruses, the album works both as the soundtrack to an escapist glide around your kitchen or, on songs such as opener Magic and the timely lead single Say Something (“can we all be as one again?”), a heartfelt wallow in heightened emotions. Mainly written and recorded during lockdown, with Minogue engineering her vocals from a makeshift home studio, it comes with its own anti-working-from-home anthem in the shape of the sashaying, conga-line ready Monday Blues.

Related: Kylie Minogue: ‘It’s time to dress in sequins and glitter through the darkness’