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The majority of X is exactly what it's meant to be: a collection of songs by a pop artist who is aware of her past achievements and doubly aware of her need to stay relevant in the face of unwanted diversion.
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Traditionally, Kylie Minogue has been at her best attempting pure pop, not chasing credibility, but X--her tenth studio album, and the first since 2003's "Body Language"--somehow pulls off the trick of being both
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A truly welcome return.
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BlenderThe search for the perfect stand-alone song leaves a ragbag of unrelated ideas. [May 2008, p.77]
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Even the filler feels like a well-deserved celebration, lit up in bright neon and glittering with tinsel.
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It’s not [her] strongest performance so far, and that comes basically down to song choice and production.
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A savvy, shiny, slyly sophisticated set of thoroughly modern dance floor exercises, it's the record we hoped Girls Aloud might make.
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Kylie's persona infuses the album, even if her vocals do not. As pop heatseekers go, X is a heartbeat away from perfection.
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I can count three sure hits on this club-crossover coup if radio plays it right.
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MojoSampling Serge Gainsbourg's quivering strings for 'Sensitized,' however, only serves to highlight the album's lack of truly knee-wobbling moments. [Dec 2007, p.98]
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X is more filler than killer.
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Her 11th album is full of potential hits (and not too many boring mid-tempo plodders). Unfortunately, there's nothing quite as catchy here as 'Can't Get You Out Of My Head,' although a few tracks come close.
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X is merely a slightly above average collection of tracks.
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Likability has got Kylie Minogue this far, and it pulls her through again--even the weak tracks on X have a sparky enthusiasm that makes their magpie modernism sound less cynical.
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Immediately following 'Heart Beat Rock,' we are treated to a long stream of high-class filler.
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X isn’t the comeback album some may have been hoping for, but it is a welcome return for Minogue.
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Q MagazineIf Kylie's musical ambitions extend further than play-safe good times of X, she's keeping them, like everything else, to herself. [Dec 2007, p.108]
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Minogue's tenth album arrives on the heels of her battle with breast cancer; thankfully, the experience hasn't made her music discernibly deeper.
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One of the most contemporary (and least pleasant) aspects of X is its scattershot production, which gives it the focus-grouped attention deficit disorder more typical of a Gwen Stefani record than one of Minogue's laser-honed disco-princess home runs.
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More often than not, X's hooks, tunes and Minogue's bubblegum-perfect hum achieve candy-coated ecstasy. [Mar 2008, p.106]
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X is business as usual for a Kylie Minogue album: a handful of great tracks surrounded by stuff that's so obviously filler you could inject it into cavity walls and save up to 33% on your energy bills.
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Though X doesn’t raise Ms. Minogue’s own high standards, it does sometimes meet them.
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In short, a glittering sign reading "business as usual"--even if it’s not a return to adventurous Kylie gold.
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It's not the production, as copiously sexy as it is, that makes this great: It's that Kylie has an ear for fantastic pop-rock tunes restyled for 2008, and she approaches them not as merely amusing sonic glitter, but as totally vital music.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 203 out of 224
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Mixed: 14 out of 224
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Negative: 7 out of 224
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JohnB.Apr 4, 2008
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May 14, 2023She gives everything EVERYTHING, she is a poet who knows prose, she imagines it as we are going to imagine it
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Sep 8, 2022Kylie tries to reinvent herself after a hiatus and the overall composition is not what she is good at.