Kylie Minogue Sticks With The Standard In "Golden"

There's nothing wrong with a bit of average pop music. Sure, at some point the sound just becomes background music and gets lost in the sea of other songs that sound the same, but at least its inoffensive. When you deliver an album full of that, however, problems arise. Kylie Minogue sticks with the standard in Golden, keeping things safe but not very interesting.

It's easy to see that Golden was an album meant for the radio. Many of the songs really ooze with that pop sensibility. Opening track 'Dancing' brings a country pop influence to start things off, kicking the record off with some good vibes. Country influences come up a lot throughout the record, but there aren't many songs that do much with that. One notable song is 'A Lifetime To Repair,' which has a very interesting tradeoff between its more traditional country verses to very poppy choruses. Songs without that stick to a safe poppy formula, like 'Stop Me From Falling' and title track 'Golden' that manages to maintain some interest with its nice melodies.

While no one song is solely bad on its own, as a whole the album feels very boring and formulaic. Each individual song has a lot of pop potential, but when every song goes back to back, it all blends together in a bad way. 'Radio On' is one of the few songs that really sounds like it has some raw emotions in it, being daring enough to strip away the electronic exterior and take things down a notch with an acoustic guitar. It's not that the music needs to be less synth-oriented and more acoustic, but that there really needs to be more feeling and a willingness to wear her heart on her sleeve for something really effective to come through.

Kylie Minogue sticks with the standard in Golden, offering up songs that ooze with pop goodness but fail to keep your attention as they come one after the other. Perhaps there are true emotions behind each song, but the formulaic structure and the unchanging sound really dampens the listener's attention and fails to really make a big splash anywhere. An album needs to be centralized but willing to step outside your comfort zone all the same.

Favorite Track: Radio On

Least Favorite Track: One Last Kiss

Rating: 53 / 100

Stream or buy Golden on Apple Music, and follow our 2018 Playlist: