Ultimate Pop Star Countdown: 15-11

11. Gina G - Ooh Ahh ... Just A Little Bit

From it’s immediately recognisable camp siren, it’s gushing sprint to articulate her groin-orientated feelings, and simultaneously the most embarrassing song to own up to loving (oh yes it is).  My obsession with Gina just won’t ever diminish. The album was a total fluke of course, but it was near immaculate (only the soggy Missing You Like Crazy wasn’t invited to the party). Every track a dance-pop convulsion or ballad with a sleek and chic mid-tempo gloss, MYLK might only have been a remix away from sounding just as polished, but Fresh! is Gina getting to have her cake and eat it quite frankly - everything about the songs and presentation felt so ripe, the songs at their best are bursting with Gina's gushing lyrics and the fast-lane Motiv8/Metro production adrenaline. Album highlights include the swooning Ti Amo, rampant Rhythm of My Life ("my brother doesn't like you, my sister thinks your cool" is blurted out in typical blushing speeed from Gina), sumptuous I Belong To You, kitsch hollering of the title track, the emotional peak of It Doesn't Mean Goodbye, the flamenco-flutter of Everytime I Fall (although the essential versions are the Todd Terry pop radio edit and the Metro dance version), the euro-groove of Gimme Some Love, the fixated Hi-NRG mantra on the giddy head-spin of Higher Than Love and the floaty trance-wave of Follow The Light.

12. Dannii Minogue - All I Wanna Do

Dannii’s plaintive vocals and the majestic production splendour were something of a revalation for the then sibling-obscured Australian singer. Sultry self-loathing or just lust and morbid self-inspection – she is almost certainly singing this song to herself, a craving to connect and face rejections head on.  After her remarkable make-over at the time, I imagine this must be what looking in the mirror must have felt like: so much wide-eyed marvel and euphoric stillness trying to convince or take it all in, but haunted by overwhelming disbelief.  It’s a compelling lyric, and her finest composition to date.  Aching for an illusion she seems to articulate an equal amount of contempt for ("I may not be the innocent girl that you wanted me to be"), and her confessional anguish might be restless but the delivery is remarkably poised and accomplished (not to mention deliciously cold in places), which creates a synergy between the internal themes she wrestles with. The appealing production is an illuminated cascade of graceful dance sounds - no other song on the album Girl quite matched this elaborate construction.  The album's other highlights included the regal and orchestral Disremembrance (imagine Ladytron meets Whigfield), the low key Am I Dreaming that washes over you, Heaven Can Wait (this one sounds lifted from a 60s Dionne Warwick record, and also ignites into its definitive dance incarnation on the strident Trouser Enthusiasts remix), the ecstatic Movin' Up, giving Italian diva Alexia a run for her euro on the rampant piano stampede on Keep Up With The Good Times, the deliciously twisted post-divorce calculation of the dark speed-ballad So In Love With Yourself, and the introspective Everything I Wanted.  However, the treacling and jubilant scintilation of the original 'Innocent Girl Mix' edit that appeared on the belated Unleashed collection, which remains the definitive Dannii long-player (somewhat ironically surpassing her botched greatest hits job with luxurious ease), has additional ad libs that are absolutely crushing in their prettiness and introduce new persuasive subtilties: coinciding with the drum and bass hurriedly splashing like water, spritzing synthesizers that beam like rays of sunlight, and swirling currents of indispensable 90s dance decadence par excellence creating the irresistible rippling charge, usurping melancholic momentum and optimum setting for Dannii's intriguing lyrical bite and enticingly expressive nasal-navigated vocal juice to truly shine.

13. Depeche Mode - Enjoy The Silence

The perfect pop song, drenched in gleaming synths, house music pumping galore, Dave's distilled drawl and impish beauty on the verge of destruction, the lingering backing vocal, world-weary verses, an awe-struck chorus that remains jaw-dropping in both its sheer intensity and simplicity, and not a second wasted.

14. Kim Wilde - Can You Hear It / You Came

You Came is her best full-pelt single, but the slinky ballad Can You Hear It has a sulky appeal washed into a mixture of regal nu-wave. Kim has a habit of blowing me away with her gentle serenades such as this, Thought It Was Goodbye and Someday.

15. Spice Girls - Move Over / Spice Up Your Life

Move Over, to me, is the blueprint for the style of No Good Advice, a chorus and spat out soundbites like graffiti. The most exciting time being a Spice Girls fan: anticipating THAT second album.  I still know the dance routine to Spice Up Your Life and am only ever a full bottle of vodka away from proving it.  Move Over was like their mission statement beyond being the Madonna’s next door girls or whatever.

The Opiates - Hollywood Under The Knife

Above: Britney Spears may have turned down Reality TV, but Billie still managed to snatch her wig.

Billie Ray Martin is all set to release her long-awaited Opiates album called Hollywood Under The Knife.  To say it has been hard work for her to get to this stage would be an understatement, the project clearly means a lot to her and Diva Incarnate cannot wait to hear it all. Personally, I have stayed away from hearing snippets as I want this to be a fresh experience. The song Reality TV (Lonely, Lonely Girl) has been a huge favourite for a few years now, and was first touted to Britney of all people back in 2007! The song is definately pop, but Billie has a voice that cannot be covered and I would never be satisfied hearing anyone else sing her song first.  BRM also submitted a proper pop song to Dannii Minogue's older sister Kylie called Sattelite, so fingers crossed we get that on an eventual Billie Ray Martin solo album, which is promised.  The album Hollywood Under The Knife is out 17.10.11 preceded by an EP 19.09.11. These can be pre-ordered on iTunes now.

Dannii's new album Fear of Releasing Music track-listing revealed!

Above: Dannii was 'floored' when she heard Healing On The Dancefloor.

Former sunlounger tyrant turned frumpy MILF Dannii Minogue must be scoring as high as her sisters right eyebrow right now as all her unreleased post Neon Nights recordings seem to be hitting the back of the net.  Hard.  Whilst we all anticipate how disappointing, lazy and half-assed her next bootleg single will be when it arrives in 2015, Team Minogue must have decided to get our juices flowing with an unexpected array of 'buzz' singles.  Late to arrive, Healing On The Dancefloor comes just days after its sister tracks Fear of Flying and Karma Is A Bitch were exposed to mixed responses, in turns blown away, moderately pleased and lukewarm.  Diva Incarnate is very much in favour of how sophisticated and artistic they are - take Fear of Flying for example where Dannii tells heartfelt tales about homophobia, office worker ennui and domestic violence before rejecting any responsibility herself by blurting out "answers? I don't know".  Healing On The Dancefloor is a low key stunner, but no single.  Who is to say whether any of these would have done well for her as singles? We must remember that Spend Your Love On Me sounded a tiny bit like that slightly successful #1 single Just A Little Bit by Liberty X, but in a distinctly Dannii way (ie. bitchy, aloof and tinged with drug-induced glamour). The only other track that has yet to leak, that I have long wanted to hear anyway, is a Kara DioGuardi co-write called Message In A Bottle.  Maybe Nathansayz forgot to wash all the KY off his hands when he logged into gaydar to persuade guys to have sex with him and the whole thing just backfired - however we have got these tracks doesn't matter, it is a bittersweet time to be a Dannii Fannii yet again.

My own 'imaginary' Dannii 2004 album called Fear of Releasing Music goes ... something like this:

01. Fear of Flying

02. Karma Is A Bitch

03. Spend Your Love On Me

04. Going Going Gone

05. Sex Dice

06. No Romeo

07. Message In A Bottle

08. Welcome The Teardrops

09. Karma Sutra

10. Invitation

11. Do You Believe Me Now

12. Healing On The Dancefloor

13. Loving You All Over Again

Dannii's Belated 'Buzz' Singles

In an effort to create some 'buzz' for Dannii Minogue's stagnant pop career, two of her most highly-anticipated unreleased tracks have recently leaked. Both Karma Is A Bitch and the supposed lead single that never was Fear of Flying are 'out there'. Recorded for the follow-up to 2003's nice n' sleazy Neon Nights album, they were produced by Korpi and Blackcell along with another as-yet unreleased song called Healing On The Dancefloor. Karma is by far my favourite, silky, smooth and seductive, it simply glides into your ears and is good enough to make me believe Guy Sigsworth produced it! It also contains the bitchy lyric "is that baby on prescriptions just to get into a zone?" Fear of Flying is not as instant, but has even dirtier beats and contains a heartfelt plot about a gay guy coming out of the closet (done much better than a certain try-hard tranny I could mention), and the rippling middle-8 followed by a stream of piano keys are utterly divine. Both tracks ooze classic Dannii iciness and yet are luxurious and touching. What they both highlight is how lazy she became with her AATW mash-ups such as You Won't Buys This Either, Rejection and Douche Me Like That. If she had an album ready to go containing these two leaks, not to mention the 'odds and ends' Unleashed compilation album highlights Spend Your Love On Me and No Romeo, then she was a major nong for choosing the easy option of releasing disparate dance mash-ups with AATW every 6 months.

Danniii Minogue - Welcome The Teardrops

In her most selfless decision since writing a song about Kylie having cancer (I'm going to hell for that joke - I hope my regular readers know I'm not being nasty), Dannii Minogue's often speculated about collaboration with legendary songwriter Billy Steinberg resulted in the completion of two successfully unreleased ballads, and Dannii recently gave one away to an up and coming he-she pop star currently doing the rounds on the Hollywood club scene, twitter and any blog going basically. I was intrigued to say the least. As it turns out I am loving this guy's work (see my review), and, more than anything, his cover of the Australian's umpteenth hit-that-never-was. Let's all dry our eyes and hear what I had to say about it.

The glistening guitar ballad Welcome The Teardrops is not available on the still-fresh Fairytales EP by Nomi Madness, but with any luck it will be included on a future album. The song was originally recorded by Diva favourite Dannii Minogue for the purposes of her shelved follow-up album to 2003's moderately well-recieved classic Neon Nights, and has remained unreleased until now. What is most interesting is that Nomi actually sings this song in a very Dannii way on the expressively furlon verses. However, there is no doubt that this talented singer makes the song 'his own' - the melting chorus is an instant classic (think Dannii doing Roxette-meets-Belinda-meets-Wilson Phillips), and has 'hit single' stamped all over it. Poor Dannii, yet again losing out on such a gem of a song. This is one of my favourite recordings I have heard all year, and I'll most certainly be including it in my best tracks of 2011 countdown. Co-written by someone called Billy Steinberg - I am plenty sure the guy will get his big break someday. Who knows - perhaps Nomi will wisen up and stick it on his album?

Welcome The Teardrops (Unreleased) by Diva Incarnate

Nomi Madness - Fairytales (2011)

Nomi Madness might not yet be a household name, rehab posterbitch or widespread web hot topic, but Hollywood's latest he-she electronica star is an ambitious new name to look out for. Giving me and you a taster from a forthcoming album, the newly unleashed EP Fairytales is a quick fix of glistening dance music, and available on iTunes.

A million ear orgasms in one, Red Wine Girl (David Kahne Mix) is a super-slick, swoon-inducing cocktail of glossy swirls, and airy oohs and ahhhs. The Rush (Clubbed Mix) is a taut house jam with even stickier bassline. Originally a Gina G song intended for her second (never-released) album, Tease Me (Part 2) gives the former breathe-heavy Rn'B number a decadent dance make-over. The juicy, shiny pop of Eye Candy (Virgin Version) is indeed very Like A Virgin era Madonna with its glittery aroma and faint tinges of melancholia underneath the sparkling upbeat tempo. Despite the marketing towards 'the hipster crowd', as it says in his press release, he is normal enough to not forget about writing sizeably good pop hooks to back it up -his brassy androgyny and soulful emotionalism won't settle for anything less. Whether his seizure of the Gaga/Glambert explosion is calculated is neither here nor there - there is no discounting the lush oohs and ahhs of Red Wine Girl for starters - but it shall be interesting to see if the eyeshadow shall overshadow the obvious potential here for some great pop songs. Let's hope not.

The melting guitar ballad Welcome The Teardrops is not available on this EP, but with any luck it will be included on a future album. The song was originally recorded by Diva favourite Dannii Minogue for the purposes of her shelved follow-up album to 2003's moderately well-recieved classic Neon Nights, and has remained unreleased until now. What is most interesting is that Nomi actually sings this song in a very Dannii way on the expressively furlon verses. However, there is no doubt that this talented singer makes the song 'his own' - the chorus is a classic, and has 'hit single' stamped all over it. Poor Dannii, yet again losing out on such a gem of a song. This is one of my favourite recordings I have heard all year, and I'll most certainly be including it in my best tracks of 2011 countdown. Co-written by someone called Billy Steinberg - I'm sure the guy will get his big break someday. Who knows - perhaps Nomi will wisen up and stick it on his album?

Speaking of All Around The World (Dannii's former record label).... Nomi has travelled across to globe to record his work: Melbourne, Australia, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Los Angeles. Either the guy gets bored staying in the one place for long (usually I'd make a joke about the person obviously being a tramp, but I don't know the guy yet), or just works really hard. If you met Nomi at a bus stop he'd probably start going on about his 80s influences such as Bette Midler, Boy George, George Michael, Prince and Madonna.

Unafraid of inevitable comparisons, Nomi Madness literally wears his influences on his bedazzled sleaves (see his homage to Micheal Jackson above, not to mention the name itself). The lucky bastard has worked, directly or otherwise, with some of the world's biggest 90s dance divas of all time, not to mention James Wirrick (You Make Me Feel Mighty Real - another Dannii Minogue classic, that was actually recorded first by a feminine black man called Sylvester) and Duane Morrison (Don't Call Me Baby performed by Madison Avenue). I'm a fan, I'm following him on twitter, and so should you. Adam Lambert watch out, there's a new girl in town and her name is Nomi Madness.

Cruel Dannii Taunts Kylie's Flop Tour

In news that won't shock anyone with a discerning ear for a good pop song that isn't sung by a 40 year old impersonating a child prostitute, Kylie Minogue's Aphrodite tour isn't exactly bringing the house down. With more red patches than Michelle McManus in a bathing costume, we can see the rows of empty seats at a recent date attended by none other than the UK's favourite party jammer Dannii Minogue. We all know that BraveKylie has battled a series of flops: her X album, her Aphrodite album; her ridiculous right eyebrow; her empty womb - and now her new tour. Not one to kick a flop disco cougar when she's down under, Dannii has sent out an emergency tweet to all her fans, begging the world to put finding a cure for AIDS on hold (La Toya Jackson will be raging when she finds out!) in order to support her much older sister try and convince the world that she's still got it (crabs that is). Kylie's concerts have got so desperate in their attempts to seduce the gays with naked gay dancers that her next tour is expected to be a live gay sex show with her singing her anti-rape jams Never Too Late To Change Your Mind and Got To Be Certain. Outside in the carpark.

X-Factor Low-Down: 27.11.10

In a word: Wagner looks like My Little Bison from the makers of My Little Pony; Mary looks like diarrhea in a dress; Cheryl looks like Nadine with a budget; Simon's face is so frozen Kerry Katona is keeping her dinners in it; and Dannii's Joan Collins fetish delivers a throbbing hard-on tonight.

Above: just because.

Wagner is first out, groomed and tucked in and does a passable take on Radiohead's Creep - the song's point is almost to not sound good anyway. Remembers Fake Plastic Trees from Clueless.

One Direction have nice hair. My jealousy, and age, render my opinions slightly impotent.

Above: "it's not Terry's it's miiiiiiiiiiiine. Peace out to my darter."

In her VT, Mary is wearing a fleecey-poncho and looks like a wig-wam. Her bingo wings shudder with motherly determination and the song is actually rather lovely. She is humble, not entitled at all, and if you don't know that already she still wants you to do it all for her daagh'er. Her daughter.

Rebecca also has a daughter, the same amount of daughter as Mary and also the notes she can sing. Sounding like a tuneful wale giving birth on land. Using her Liverpool accent to sound stupid and unassuming is an insult to her city - it's such a cliche it's not even funny. With a face that looks like an easter egg when her hair is scraped back, Rebecca has her hair scraped back tonight and looks like an easter egg. Rebecca's distinctive standing ability makes me want her to walk on a treadmill next week - same effect, but 110% more nice, different and usnusual.

'Rexia ragdoll Cher is like that wart you know will eventually go away but can't really do much about. She thinks you need a new girlfriend and I think she needs to stop throwing up her dinners. She quotes Britney: "I think I'm ready now". I'd like to quote Gloria Estefan: "go away now".

Above: gonna use my arms....

Matt's arms are soul-destroyingly covered up. 12 girls spread their legs for him: lucky. bitches. He is head and shoulders, but strangely no neck, above all the other MOR over 25 male contestants Smacking it? Yes please, Matt.

The Kwik-Save Lady Gaga, Katie is given the elusive final slot. Her post-chemo crew cut is officially the new new-real-her, and it's actually the best of the night even if it's a bit mannered deliberately to create that kitchen-sink drama effect. Dannii is spared having to lower herself by commenting on it.

Shit! They are singing two songs? Oh fuck that, I'm not reviewing two songs.

The Things You Say....

Vintage 90s Bitch Dannii Daggers Returns!



It's been a while since hooker-jam Love's On Every Corner singer Dannii even remotely had a live on-air hissy fit (remember The Word, This Morning and Jonathan Ross to name just 3?), but charisma-vaccuum Konnie-something from the Xtra Factor said the wrong thing at the wrong time and Dannii exhaustedly hissed "un-boi-loi-voi-boil" and even went as far as an audible sigh. Akward! Anyway, poor Konnie-something, but it was great to see Dannii 'lose it' again - as awesome as she always is, this is kind of the reason I loved her in the first place (apart from the incredible 90s music of course).

Dannii Minogue Gives Birth

I am as surprised as the next Dannii Minogue fan, but the singer has actually managed to deliver something on time - congratulations to the Goddess of dance-pop and her baby-daddy Kris on the arrival of their new son Ethan. Yes, that's right - Ethan!

Above: Fresh-faced Ethan's pop career is expected any day now!

Kylie Minogue - Aphrodite

Collagen-clogged cougar queen Kylie hits her MOR Hi-HRT chaffing stride on her latest campaign to stop Dannii's imminent world domination, entitled Aphrodite, with imagery suggesting Rita Hayworth as the 'Godess of song and dance' in 1947s Down To Earth. Whilst the waxed n' botoxed-scrotum face is certainly a tryer, with a voice like pins-and-needles she promotes the sensation of wanting to thump your foot off the floor when you 'can't beat the feeling' of bad circulation. I almost don't know what to write about this piss poor album: with glossy production lubrication courtesy - mostly - of Stuart Price, it is like dipping mouldy toast into honey and expecting the intense sweetness to disguise the fungus it is smothering. But here goes, gays...

Above: BraveKylie can't quite pull off the classic DanniiRoadkill pose even if her creativity has at least been dead since 1991.

It's no surprise she chose to finally come clean about her addiction to gangbangs (with those nostrils she can fit more in than a 5 story car park), and her confessional orgy anthem All The Lovers ripples with warm currents and is an all over sensation of going into a choma, but my guess is that an ice pack would feel better. Maybe her youthful puffiness is down to all those facials, no wonder it is always so shiny and sore looking.

Above: Time for a facial, anyone?

Love At First Injection soundalike Guetta Outta My Way has that new-day/new-start freshness feel, or maybe she just really needs the toilet, who knows? In such blithe panic Kylie has the (swollen) cheek to bark 'I don't recognise the zombie you're turning into' - with one skin peel away from turning into an onion, I would say it must have been hard for her to have delivered that line with a straight face. Oh. A gutsy finish surely solidifies this song's pert position for single #2.

Above: younger sister Dannii's eternal beauty has literally left Kylie hung out to dry.

The mild sweatless disco fizz of Put Your Hands Up froths up with even less calories than Coke Zero, and if 90s festival rumours are to be believed Kylie is never one for zero coke on cock. Actually that was Dannii, but nevermind. Dark orchestra shadows can't quite polish a turd, and I'd rather do a Dannii at Glastonbury than pretend I am a rubbish gay by insisting on enjoying this crap. Music for Bodypump classes, she can't even get her Olivia Newton-John on right.

Above: More clamy than a marathon runners you-know-what pouch, Kylie perfects her 'so damned bionic' strained wrinkle-free grimace.

The haunting Closer begins beautifully with some kind of blissfull damp-battery alarm sounds and a spiralling sense of botched plastic surgery realisation. Kylie is obviously alarmed as she hates for the camera to come any closer than 100 metres these days. Maybe it's about her biological clock, or perhaps it's her sat-nav as she drives to her local sperm bank or fertility hospital.

Kylie is clearly still high on painkillers and yet to unwrap the bandages off her face if she wants to insist Everything Is Beautiful. The tragic pathos stretches the concept of Kylie being a good pop star even tighter than her right eyebrow. 'I hear what I want to hear' ain't even half of it.

Gold rush Hollaback Girl tribute Aphrodite is almost a euphoric revelation in such stagnant company, and with more bulge than her forehead the track oozes an atypical excitement for a whole minute and a half until it starts going nowhere new: 'I was gone and now I'm back' is her defining moment. Enjoying the high, she loosens her inhibitions and finally admits she likes watersports.

Above: A surgical-facade sheilds an increasingly distressed Donatella Versace who is said to have turned to drugs and even forced anorexia onto her own daughter in order to shock Kylie into ditching her beloved botox, and is close to breaking point according to Dannii Minogue who rolled her eyes and begged 7digital to allow international 'fans' to knab her visibly much older sister a number one more fixed than the It's No Secret singer's forehead.

The musky Light Years-esque backing vocals on Illusion spritz a subtle cocktail of self-awareness: sultry silliness, me lykie. The line-dancer esteem of Better Than Today is ironically the one you'd think Jake Shears helped co-write, but Kylie's relentless child prostitute vocals hardly pass for the bravado such honky tonk requires.

The septic-necessity of the lethally throbbing Too Much Skin (I Want Rid - Book Me In, Big Willy, Thanks Darling) jabs me sharper than a routine botox top-up and flares up wider than her nostrils.

Above: Just a lift away from enering the Grand National, Kylie's Impossible Princess anthem Say Neigh is a favourite of commedien Joan Rivers.

Try-hard electro-dribbler Cupid Boy shoots blanks. About as appealing as stepping bare foot on a used condom. The thick thunderstorm of uninspiring Luciana try-hardness isn't my cup of tea or even Kylie's syringe of organic community trade collagen, sounding like Lisa Scott-Lee having a never-or-now attempt at copying a Vetrtigo remix of Holly Vallance circa 2002.

Above: Do you 'nose' Kylie's favourite crisp? Crinkle-cut of course.

Dannii tribute Looking For An Angel is at least a bit 'more'. The sprouting strings give her some air to breathe - something that's hard to do when you can't move your face.

Above: Ever since Ally McBeal, expression-hungry Kylie hasn't looked back or been able to without spinning around.

Soaking up her influences like one of Kelly Llorenna's used tampons floating in a blocked toilet, the much hyped closer Can't Beat The Feeling amazingly features a writing credit from none other than Richard X. Fucking hell, she must have botoxed his eyeballs to get him to agree to it if this is the resulting poor man's Jentina version of a Daft Punk finale.

Below: A surgically-smug Madonna sent rival Kylie a boquet of needles to thank the Australian for making her look good for the first time since Bo Selecta.

Verdict:
A sad echo of past glories with faint traces of inspiration sweating from the gaping pores of only a few numbers. A Somalian's water bottle has more juice. She might look like Elton John face-painted his scrotum, but girl knows how to churn out mediocre trash and make it seem somehow decent in spite of her flaws.

6.8/10

It's On - Dannii's Back

I just hope Sinitta doesn't kill herself.

Kylie Minogue - Impossible Princess

Impossible Princess is Kylie Minogue's most interesting album - of course it is, after all it is possibly the only one that challenges people to like her for reasons beyond a pleasing smile and an intrusive disco beat.

At the time of it's release, the album's first single Some Kind of Bliss was an obsession of mine - those divine strings, guitar raunch, the white trash video and femme fatale ginger dye job, not to mention Kylie's most atypically let-go vocals of all time (she wasn't trying to sound like an underage prostitute as she has done on her albums from Fever onwards). The song slipped somewhere between motown and post-punk British indie, and the singer was dubbed 'IndieKylie' well before the 'AmazinglyShit Spice' hoolah was injected into the eyes of Smash Hits readers.

She talked up Breathe on BBC1's Live & Kicking to presenter Zoe Ball as 'the first dance single' (I knew to laugh even back then, before the album was released for some reason), and indie hack and cheap wine voiceover granny Jo Whiley sarcastically boasted that Kylie simply 'got cooler every year' when introducing the thorn on Dannii's side on Top of The Pops. Don't blame me either, but Kylie was on the way out despite 3 of her most vivid, fascinating and tempestuous singles to date - none of which cracked the UK's top ten.

Opener Too Far is clumsy and impulsive, rather like Cyndi Lauper's slicker and more Cher-ified Higher Plane. The celtic-country tinge of Cowboy Style was a mooted Australian-only release. The sinister pride of final international single Did It Again is so deliciously pissed off it sounds tailor made for Dannii.

The pulsating aspirations of Limbo don't really come off. Substandard acrobatic momentum can't disguise ill-fitting lyrics and it's a mess. The chorus is in gear, but this is disappointing considering such a concerned effort to rev itself up, which is all too palpable. Mincing itself as a vaguely embarassing polvolt of strifent degradation, it is much too serious and deliberate to be effective.

With a constant pulse of tribal drumming, Drunk is actually a fantastic backing track. The chorus hints towards a human being with genuine feelings of dissilusionment - a unique sensation in the Kylie catalogue. Her lyrics are impossible for a vocalist of her debt to conquer, so despite the flashes of Italo-house piano, the excitement is in short bursts that are not sustained.

The legendary Norwegian whisper siren Annie's Bad Times instantly reminded me of I Don't Need Anyone, which is like a dirty Saint Etienne collaboration with the Bluetones that never actually happened. Slight and waift-like, it's sprightly charm is at odds with everything else but it provides some necessary sense of light and of outside.

The captivating Dreams' oriental grandeur carries stony conviction and reaches a crazily energetic climax - a rare moment where the album genuinely flashes a sense of naked discovery usually found on a debut.

The song Say Hey actually hovers into place, pre-empting the dead-eyed fornication found on Anima Animus by The Creatures. Her sinewy vocals and inane 'mmmmm' droplets are a challenge to not mention pretentiously twee, but that's a prejudice worth getting over - its milky smooth electronic riverbed could almost be Sally Shapiro. The murky ambience is far superior to what Kylie herself brings, but why should that matter?

Through The Years simmers with a smouldering atmosphere of ennui - Kylie's voice crawls out from the shadows to encourage a shuffling beat to continue far longer than it needs to. Cocktail music.

The album is totally overrated, but it's still rather good whereby she veers from brooding and pulsating voltages that are sometimes too advanced for her lithesome vocals to sound in charge of. Her indie liberty on Some Kind of Bliss is worth the tripe elsewhere, remaining the album's only truly momentous track, with the other singles creeping close. A radical departure? Perhaps, but it's hardly operating at the fringes of commercial pop music. Her voice is too slight to be left to act as an exposed instrument, and yet the serene and sensual adroit balladry mission of the almost title track Dreams is flown in from a forgotten world, but 13 years later she would clearly rather be a lifeless forehead and up to her knees in backing dancers - that's the 'realest' Kylie we're ever going to get these days.

Above: BraveKylie couldn't bear to look at her chart positions.

Elin Lanto - Love Made Me Do It

Whilst this blog falls down the wikio ratings just like the stuff running down the corned-beef thighs belonging to Karen Parry who suspiciously holds her head up high as she walks out of a toilet cubicle, it's time for dance-pop distraction and Elin Lanto has made the first move with her above decent Love Made Me Do It album, which has been released in her native Sweden this very week. Her debut British single, Love Made Me Stupid, will soon be unleashed through career-givers AATW records and God help her, but at least she has a new fan to feel frustrated when it tanks. Let's not not think about that just now.

1st non-buzz single Love Made Me Stupid sounds like an apology from its songwriters - I know the feeling, sometimes porn just turns my brain into a complete vegetable and I don't do anything all evening. I'm still not taken in fully by this one - it reeks of the session songwriters being given a brief 'Elin wants to do rock (but we'll still pay you as much)'.

With the endorphin-invading Almighty remix, Tickles has more take off than Whitney hoovering crack and has usurped into my favourite track of 2010. I like the old fashioned notion of feeling 'tickled' by something, although I must point out it's no excuse for guys with forests inside their boxers - I only hope she buys extra razors incase my concern proves just. Does she sing 're-zip my life'? That gorgeous damsel in distress middle-8 is just pure sex. I am so loyal to the Almighty tart-attack make-over that it will be at least hours before I will even think of going back to the stricter album version.

Ceremonial Heart tribute Funeral, with its piano keys scattering like ashes into water, radiates Hi-NRG vitriol Marc Almond would be proud of (although I don't think she's got the stomach for a proper tribute, and neither did he as the story goes). Singing loud and proud, her hairsprayed headache or heartache depending on your stance on dance resolves to do just that 'on' someone's funeral - the music is joyfully melancholic, and I appreciate the determination to steal someone's thunder at their own funeral when they can't exactly stop you. I can even see myself doing kareoke at more that a few services in a few decades, gladly. The singer's damaged for effect vocals dissolve like an aspirin into the solvent elixar of pounding 80s shoulder-pad style electronica.

Her throaty perfume makes Give It All Up a musk have. The streaky synths are glistening perfection, I can almost imagine Elin singing this into a window pain with pelting rain outside cleansing the agony of 'giving up her fame' for a gorgeous internet lover. Her rich and expressive delivery comes at an expense, tattooing the song with cautionary fibres and a stoic conviction betrayed by the dissonant dissaray of the backing track. The unresolved musical juxtoposition clashing with her tear-smearing lyrics is a key characteristic to all the songs on this impressive starter-kit of an album (well it is not like I have any violent impulse to dish out for her debut).

Stubborn turtle-head ballad dross Alien wants to impress me - the synths have a shimmery treacle and verse two drumbs. Damn, I could not even manage two sentences before having a complete U-turn - it is not bad, there I cracked almost as much as her vocal (seriously, have her balls just dropped or something?). Wailing until it fades, it has classic ballad-for-the-gays symptoms, but she's kind of winging it here and overlooking such brief abandonment it's a classic soggy tampon number.

Synth-glam cougar stomper Toy Boy demonstrates adequately that decent songs can still borrow from Richard X's Some Girls - it is more blatant than Kelly Llorenna's tell-tale cleansing wipes, but less fun to discover. Artless rip-off fun (and that's not actually an insult). I would imagine that in order to experience the best this song has to offer, one would need to be a drag queen wearing knee high boots, lip-synching for their life on RuPaul's Drag Race. Mirror-smashing bravado and winking lyrical sass, chugging guitars, phlegm-readying vocals and a spurting electronic pulse all collide into an epileptic frenzy. With the singer's visceral throat-cut confrontation, it actually wipes the floor with Rachel Stevens even if the song itself isn't as strong architecturally.

Looking one's ears straight in the eye, the theatrical Hater has a sizzling electronic current that won't go a miss on anyone's angst-ridden dance-pop iPod playlist. Lanto's throaty rasp is on ravishing form whether it's affected or not. Some spoken-word Swenglish is peppered when the music pauses that is almost as cute as Linda Sundblad's shrugging off being a suicide girl. Basically any song called 'hater' was never going to be that shit, and this doesn't betray this prejudice. Clearly anticipating excitement from name alone, it builds into a minor breakthrough for identifying jealous 'energy suckers' we all need to scrape off our shoes better late than never. She is holding firm to personal truths and ensuring her dancefloor grandeur stays intact, and I admire her for it. Some people just are not worth the grief.

The trash-can rummage of Good Stuff sounds like Kesha covering Neon Nights album tracks. Unlike most Dannii Minogue fans, I have never been much of a fan for those cuts to begin with, but on this I'll be scavenging for more for long to come. Unlike Blah Blah, she has the perfect fickle tone that surpasses the noise without making one want to slap her. And I swear I thought she sang 'it can be your faggot gay dance / you want to use me for a fuckwhat'. That would make my year if she did, although she would actually be a homophobe and Donna Summer is so far the only dance artist who has ever been brave enough to ever try that.

Another neurotic limitation ballad I Can Do It (Watch Me Now), another disappointment. Second sentence and I still hate it, so that is proof enough. What she does succeed in is convincing me to forget this ever happened.

The dancefloor-thriving Discotheque boasts the most whip-smart, cracking instrumental middle-8s of all time - a complete homerun. The verses are reminiscent of Dead or Alive, but the skyward chorus is slazenger on too many e's. An outstanding single with a teriffic video, the song was forever delayed on the release schedule until it was eventually aborted. The fact that such a rush merely mingles as a digital bonus track is slightly offputting, but it fits in with the discordant nature running through the whole record.

It's in good company: electro-flurry buzz-single Speak N' Spell, the vivacious auto-tune squeeze My Favourite Pair of Jeans and the salivating Melodifestivalen entry Dr Doctor all hold the same grief-full belief as arguments for Elin's status as a grade-A rock-sounding-pop/dance-not-rock artist.

All in all, on Love Made Me Do It, Elin really puts out. Only the personal protest ballads wear thin. The girlie energy implied on tracks such as Tickles, Toy Boy and Hater set her apart, whilst doing the same for my legs if I find myself at the right gay bar at the right time, where her not-oversold strength is the vigour and sheer activity conveyed as opposed to emulating sizeable potent emotions. Bruised-and-rouged torch song Give It All Up is the atypical exception. The other ballads lack the same temptation and leave me feeling misused is all - if you want to do straight rock then don't fuck me about, I'll go there gladly (unless your name is Mel C) but am not a disciple of divas who long to ditch the genre that buys their Gucci and means nothing more to them (I don't think Lanto is one of those ungrateful cows anyway). Nevertheless, the immensely lubricated production pervasively drools over the songs, which are crafted with sharp guitar incisions perfectly employed to flex extra life into them, and laminated with a pouty gloss that has long been the staple of camp-identified dance-pop. The key tracks containing noticeable inflamations of excitement are legendary on first listen alone, but don't take my word for it though... With a song that deserves to become a summer smash all over Europe (the insistent Tickles) and an economical rock-tinge that only backfires on two ballads, I really hope she gets a decent shelf life.