Impossibly Indie: Three HD Videos from Kylie in the ‘90s
Kylie Minogue’s sixth studio album, 1997’s Impossible Princess, marked another major shift in Minogue's career. Gone was the late-‘80s bubble-gum pop singer; g’day to ‘90s singer/songwriter, ready, willing and able to delve deeper into experimental territory. Surrounding the material, some of which explored topics such as personal happiness, and inner peace in spite of chaos, was a new sound, one significantly different from 1987’s “The Loco-Motion,” even from the dance-pop direction of 1990’s “Better The Devil You Know.”
This late-‘90s shift actually originated in the early part of the decade. In 1992, Minogue parted ways with her record company, PWL, and signed with the independent dance-music label, Deconstruction Records, who afforded Minogue more creative direction and input. The first result: the 1994 self-titled album, Kylie Minogue, with the eerily effective, “Confide In Me” representing the first effort in an era that would be coined, “Indie Kylie.” A year later, a musical collaboration with Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds on “Where the Wild Roses Grow” was another confirmation that trying new things came with commercial and critical accolades. On the personal front, she was in a relationship with the French photographer, Stéphane Sednaoui, who inspired her to push the professional envelope. However, when Impossible Princess was released, it became her most polarizing album to date, due to its sharp departure from what many were accustomed. Yet over the years, the artistic endeavor has garnered acclaim as one of Minogue’s most respected works, and a fan favorite, for its unexpectedly bold foray into rock, electronica, drum and bass, even Celtic-folk influence on the fourth and final single, “Cowboy Style.”
On October 22, 2022, the enduring album celebrates its 25th anniversary. To help celebrate, Minogue recently released HD versions of the music videos for the first three singles: “Some Kind of Bliss,” “Did It Again” and “Breathe.” Much like how the musical direction for each single served as a departure for Minogue, the visual companions followed suit:
I’m With the Bandits
The David Mould-directed video for “Some Kind of Bliss” features Minogue and the actor, Dexter Fletcher, playing a devilish duo on the run (or more like on a ride, in a classic Pontiac). The Bonnie and Clyde-inspired tale is edited in a non-linear format, so it’s left up to the viewer to determine the actual order of the crime-spree events. Here’s a theory as to what the storyline would be if it was edited in linear sequence:
Minogue’s character, in a black dress, picks up Fletcher’s from jail. He’s wearing a black shirt, tan pants, and carries a black-and-red bag as he leaves the jail. After spending some time at a motel, Fletcher’s character has changed into a white suit; Minogue’s into a blue mini-dress. They’re seen fleeing to the Pontiac, while he carries the same black-and-red bag.
The couple descends upon a gas station in the middle of the desert, still wearing the white suit, still wearing the blue mini-dress. As Minogue flirtatiously distracts the attendant, she heads to the restroom, while Fletcher robs the station. When she leaves the restroom, we see she’s changed into a white tank top and blue hot pants that we can presume were under the mini-dress. (Three years later, Minogue would wear a pair of gold hot pants in the video for “Spinning Around”; the article of clothing would later become synonymous with the singer.)
Post-robbery, the two once again change outfits: He adds a green shirt to the white suit; she into a white top and pink pants, her ginger-red hair now in a ponytail. Back in town, he robs a business, while she remains outside near the Pontiac, only to observe a police car pulling up to the building, just as he runs out and right into the cops. He yells at her to make a break for it, as he’s put into the back of the squad car. She drives away, crying, her Bonnie separated once again from her Clyde. In summary, based on this theory, this would mean that Fletcher’s character returns to jail mere hours after initially being released, carrying the black-and-red bag. Not watching the video below would be criminal.
Kylie Chameleon
Many of Minogue’s previous videos, particularly the ones from the ‘80s, showed her as a happy-go-lucky (“lucky, lucky, lucky”) late-teen. “Better the Devil You Know” (1990) showed her as a girl all grown up, with “Some Kind of Bliss” showing Kylie as that good girl gone bad. What makes the video for Impossible Princess’ second single, “Did It Again” compelling—and comedic—is that it’s a tongue-in-cheek look at Kylie’s various professional personas in direct opposition with each other. The Pedro Romhanyi-directed video features four characters: Sex Kylie; Cute Kylie; Indie Kylie; Dance Kylie, in a police lineup, battling it out for the camera’s attention.
These monikers doubled as references to, and commentary on, the media coverage Minogue had endured up to this point, often pigeonholed by the press into a confined category, a current incarnation put “in quotes,” a creative pursuit reduced to an easily digestible soundbite. It’s no wonder the four figures are set against a mugshot backdrop; it’s as if Minogue daring to change direction, musically and visually, was a criminal act. Lyrically, Minogue co-wrote the track as self-commentary, reportedly frustrated at not learning valuable lessons when it came it to her personal relationships. (“Clever girl, think you know, but you don’t know much.”) “Did It Again” is all about conflict, both external and internal.
“It Won’t Be Long Now”
If “Some Kind of Bliss” is Impossible Princess’ most cinematic video, and “Did It Again” its most technically creative, the video for the third single, “Breathe,” directed by Kieran Evans, is its most beautiful, thanks, in part, to its artistic simplicity. Most of the video has Minogue, floating in a vast openness, in a nude-colored dress. Blurred, fragmented shots of her hands, fingers and feet are almost embryonic in nature.
At video’s end, the visual concept connects to the central theme of the track, which revolves around living inside one’s own head. (“I’m sorting everything inside/I’m looking in the space.”) “Breathe” was a fitting follow-up single, and antidote, to “Did It Again.” Just as Minogue expressed feelings of frustration towards herself, the introspective, meditative “Breathe” is her seeking inner peace. (“It won’t be long now, breathe, breathe.”) A new Kylie is born.
And it won’t be long now until fans are putting Impossible Princess on repeat, and these three videos on replay, revisiting one of the most intriguing chapters in Minogue’s now legendary career. It’s a chapter that’s impossibly indie, yet still consistently Kylie.
Hi-Fi Sci-Fi: Five Favorite Daft Punk Moments
Formed in 1993, Daft Punk consists of the French duo, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, who have continued to don dapper futuristic personas, shielding their faces from the public by wearing gleaming robot-inspired helmets. In one sense, this allows a focus toward the sci-fi sound of their music, while, in turn, it works as an inventive marketing strategy that balances professional familiarity with personal anonymity.
“Around the World,” from their 1997 debut album, Homework, celebrates the cyclical, from the song title itself (the track’s only lyrics on a synthesized loop) to its therefore mostly instrumental, intentionally repetitive retro-funk sound. Even its video embraced spherical visuals: dancers, assigned to designated riffs, beats and blips, moving on a concentric circular stage, plus there’s colorful backdrop of porthole lighting. Daft Punk made going around in circles more desirable than dizzying:
Four years later, they released, Discovery, which featured the fitting “One More Time”; “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,” which would later be heavily sampled by Kanye West on his 2007 track, “Stronger”; and “Digital Love.” Remember this commercial for the GAP, with the actress and singer, Juliette Lewis? (The jeans—and the video quality itself—are shall we say, vintage.)
From Madison Avenue to the movies: In 2010, they created the 24-track score for the film, Tron: Legacy, creating a mood to match the gloom-and-doom world that exists inside a cutthroat video game, with “Recognizer” starting out as intensely ominous, then suddenly becoming one of the most hauntingly beautiful tracks:
On 2013’s electro-disco, Random Access Memories, it was filled with inspired collaborations, most notably with Pharrell Williams and Chic’s Nile Rodgers on “Get Lucky” and “Lose Yourself to Dance.” In 2014, the album won the GRAMMY for Album of the Year:
And finally, their work on the 2016 album, Starboy by The Weeknd, in particular on the synth-R&B title track, and on the sexy, soulful bop of a ballad, “I Feel It Coming.” The bass riff that rolls in before the second verse is something for which to wait:
Will there be more good things from Daft Punk in the future, that sound like the future? I feel that coming too.
Pop Playlist: Madonna: “Nothing Really Matters”
For 1998’s Ray of Light, Madonna wondered what dance/electronica would sound like if it was infused with a spiritual sensibility. It sounded like the singer’s most mature album to date since Like a Prayer. One of the songs on Ray of Light, “Nothing Really Matters,” with co-writer, Patrick Leonard, and co-producers, William Orbit and Marius De Vries, reveals the singer’s reawakening to what is of real significance, compared to the life she was living “so selfishly.” Her career-changing experience playing Eva Peron in the film, Evita, and the life-changing experience of becoming a mother, both of which occurred in 1996, served as eye-opening catalysts. (Her daughter, Lourdes is also the source of inspiration for the tender, electro-lullaby, “Little Star.”) “Nothing Really Matters” keeps to Madonna’s dance roots, but sprouts introspective lyrics and, as demonstrated throughout the album, some of Madonna’s best recorded vocals, thanks in part to the vocal training she received for Evita.
Not For Everyone: Madonna: “Paradise (Not for Me)”
In 2000, Madonna collaborated with the French producer, Mirwais Ahmadzaï to create her synth-country endeavor known as Music. Ahmadzaï’s contributions were admirable, yet more experimental than approachable, which could explain why there were only three singles off the album (the title track, “Music”; “Don’t Tell Me”; a non-Ahmadzaï track, “What It Feels Like For a Girl). Yet it’s “Paradise (Not For Me)” that serves as an example of the Ahmadzaï aura: ethereal, yet eerie; synthesized, yet orchestral. “Paradise” finds Madonna’s vocals intentionally drowsy, as she sluggishly labors over lyrics, as if on her (Evita) deathbed: “I can’t remember/when I was young/I can’t explain/if it was wrong/My life goes on/but not the same…” At just over 6 ½ minutes, this song of hindsight amid life’s finality unfortunately lingers, almost not knowing when to exit. Considering its haunting feel, that may be its intended goal.
Madonna did feature the song in her 2001 Drowned World Tour as the introduction to the Japanese-themed section, appearing in a short film as a geisha drawn toward a large celestial radiance: “There is a light/above my head/Into your eyes/my face remains.” Madonna, an Italian-American pop star, dressed in Japanese-geisha regalia, singing in French makes for a striking sight and sound. Above the stage, four semi-nude male dancers in powdery body makeup, their look inspired by Japanese Butoh performance artists, hang upside down in midair, wrapped in sheets like cocoons (gestation). They’re soon released from the cocoons (birth) and lowered down, free to walk upright (life). As this lead-in concludes, they open their mouths, and in a stunning effect, appear to glow or burn from within (death; cremation). Madonna’s geisha also experiences the same fate, emitting a red ray of light (sorry) from her mouth toward the audience, practically burning the macabre images into their (our) minds.
Madonna almost knew that “Paradise (Not for Me)” was not for everyone, yet she realized its artistic potential in a live capacity, aware that showcasing startling imagery could only make this eccentric track all the more powerful. The song was also featured on her Confessions tour, but as a breath-catching ballad with the vocalist, Isaac Sinwani. This adoption of a more traditional acoustic arrangement still allowed her to perform the Ahmadzaï experiment, yet via softer, friendlier means.