In May 2005, while promoting the 'Ultimate Kylie' album with the Showgirl: The Greatest Hits Tour, Kylie Minogue was diagnosed with breast cancer, and so immediately cancelled the remaining concert dates and starred to undergo treatment. Her hospitalization in Melbourne garnered intense media coverage, and following her recovery, she worried about not having sung in some time and whether she could return to performing so soon after her treatment. However, she did reschedule the remaining dates of the cancelled tour for 2006, renaming it Showgirl: The Homecoming Tour, and traveled around Australia and the UK. In July of the same year it was revealed that she was in the studio recording new material, and once the tour ended in January 2007, she returned to the studio to complete the album, feeling that finalizing it was a personal goal she had set. 'X', as the album was to be called (being her tenth release), was the first album where she'd consciously prepared for the recording process, as up until then it was a cycle of record, release, and tour for much of her career. The production took a year and a half to finish, with more than 40 songs recorded, some of which were written about her experience during her recovery from breast cancer, but they were not distressing and were composed to a disco beat. However, most of these tracks did not make it to the record because she was not inclined to release too many songs about her cancer recovery. She worked with producer Eg White, and Jake Shears and Babydaddy of Scissor Sisters also co-wrote some songs with her, including 'Singing In My Sleep' and 'White Diamond', neither of which appeared on the final tracklist.
London group Kish Mauve re-produced two of their own songs for Minogue, 'Lose Control' and '2 Hearts', and she loved '2 Hearts' the first time she heard it, recording several takes on the verses to make it sound more effortless and lazier, with it eventually opening the album. Danish producers Cutfather and Jonas Jeberg forwarded a demo of 'Like A Drug' to Parlophone and later flew to London to record the track with Minogue within a day, and while there they also recorded 'All I See' and 'Rippin' Up The Disco', although only 'Like A Drug' made the final cut. Minogue collaborated with her longstanding co-writing team Biffco, including Richard Stannard, Julian Peake, and Paul Harris, and together they wrote 'Stars' (which made it) and 'I Don't Know What It Is' (which didn't). Sessions in Stockholm with songwriter Karen Poole and Swedish producers Bloodshy & Avant resulted in the tracks 'Speakerphone', 'Nu-di-ty', and 'Cherry Bomb', and although they also attempted to work on 'No More Rain', their production-heavy style did not work well with the song. On a trip to Ibiza with Karen Poole and producer Greg Kurstin, they set up a studio booth in a villa to put the final touches to the album, and they also recorded demos for new songs that they wrote there, including 'Wow', 'King Or Queen', 'Carried Away', 'Do It Again' and 'Magnetic Electric'. Several tracks with other songwriters and producers were rejected during the production process, and Scottish musician Mylo was shocked when his recorded tracks with Minogue were scrapped, despite being told that 'Spell Of Desire' and 'In The Mood For Love' were being sent off to be mixed and would be on the final record.
Shortly before the album was due to be released, two songs were leaked online, with 'Excuse My French (French Kissing)' originally being incorrectly labelled as Kylie's new comeback single. As soon as Parlophone found out about the leaks they panicked, and informed all parties questioning the song that it was actually an 'old demo', and that in fact it wasn't Kylie singing, claiming that it was a session singer used to sound like Kylie for demo purposes. This does happen, but the leaked 'Excuse My French' is very much Kylie's vocals, and it was a new demo, recorded in 2006, and not an old one as Parlophone were saying. A day after the leak of 'Excuse My French' came another leak in the form of clip of a song entitled 'When The Cat's Away', with Parlophone repeating the same denials, compounding this with a statement on 9th March 2007 referring to 'Excuse My French', saying that 'Kylie is not singing on the track and she has never recorded a song by that name', which completely contradicts their earlier statement that the song was a 'old demo'. You can make up your own mind when you hear it. When 'X' was eventually released it garnered generally favourable reviews, with Sharon O'Connell of Yahoo! Music describing it as a "savvy, shiny, slyly sophisticated set of thoroughly modern dance floor exercises" that Girls Aloud might make, and BBC Music's Chris Long calling it "a fine selection of pop gems" that captured the trend for electro music. Over the years nearly 50 demos and early takes have found their way online, and this collection features most of them, many of which have been mentioned above, along with a few choice b-sides, which make up a companion to 'X' which to my ears sounds the equal of it's parent album. As with 'Excuse My French', there are some major online disputes over whether Kylie is actually singing on some of these demos, so it's up to you to make up your own mind when you listen to 'To The 9's', 'Give Up To Love', One To One' and 'Never Be Lonely', but to be honest, 'To The 9's' is such a great track that I don't really care.
Track listing
Disc One
01 Spell Of Desire (demo with Mylo)
02 King Or Queen (b-side of '2 Hearts')
03 Lose Control (demo with Kish Mauve)
04 Magnetic Electric (demo with Greg Kurstin)
05 Sexual Gold (demo)
06 White Diamond (demo with Jake Shears and Babydaddy)
07 Excuse My French (demo.....or is it?)
08 In The Mood For Love (demo with Mylo)
09 Do It Again (b-side of 'Wow')
10 Something 2 Believe In (demo)
11 Rippin' Up The Disco (demo with Cutfather and Jonas Jeberg)
Disc Two
01 To the 9's (demo)
02 Down Down (demo)
03 When the Song Comes On (demo)
04 Ooh (demo)
05 Cherry Bomb (b-side of 'Wow')
06 My Love is Real (demo)
07 Classical Transit (demo)
08 I Can't Help That (demo)
09 Acid Min (demo)
10 Osmondosis (demo)
11 Fall For You (demo)
12 Never Be Lonely (demo)
Disc Three
01 Guess Who's Back (Interlude) (demo)
02 Carried Away (b-side of 'Wow')
03 Ruffle My Feathers (demo with Cutfather and Jonas Jeberg)
04 What's It Gonna Take (demo)
05 Thing Called Love (Right Here, Right Now) (demo)
06 I Don't Know What It Is (b-side of '2 Hearts')
07 Hold On (Like Love) (demo)
08 Simple Boy (demo)
09 One to One (demo)
10 Come Down (demo)
11 Extraordinary Day (Taprobane) (demo with Cutfather and Jonas Jeberg)
12 Give Up To Love (demo)
13 Love Attack (So Safe) (demo)
No comments:
Post a Comment