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Kylie Releases Tension at Grammy Museum: Australian pop icon Kylie Minogue has just released her 16th studio album, and Tension could well be her best yet.

Sure, nostalgia-hounds will refer to her first three, under the Stock Aitkin Waterman hit factory umbrella, when she was regularly scoring number one singles in her native nation and the UK. Others will look to 2001’s Fever and the absolute international smash that was “Can’t Get You Out of My Head.”

To be fair, Kylie has barely put a foot wrong this entire millennium. 2007’s X (not related to Twitter) should get more attention that it does, though 2020’s pandemic drop Disco was start to finish dance-pop perfection. Tension tops it.

On Wednesday evening, in front of an enraptured crowd at the Grammy Museum, she told us all about how the album came to be. Sadly, there was no musical portion to the event as there so often is at this venue. But the moderated Q&A was still a lot of fun.

Kylie Tension

(BMG)

Before she came out, we were treated to the videos for single “Padam Padam” and “Tension,” and later she explained that the former is one of the few songs on the Tension album that she didn’t have a hand in writing. Rather it come to her via songwriters Lostboy and Ina Wroldsen. But my god, it is a majestic pop tune.  The title refers to the sound of a heartbeat, and it lifts the album off in some style.

There are some incredible Minogue tunes on this album — songs that should stay in her setlist for a long time to come. “Things We Do For Love” is one, and “Vegas High” is another — appropriate considering she’ll be doing a Vegas residency soon. She talked a little about her plans for that.

She explained that album closer “Story” was also the last song that she actually worked on while recording Tension, but it was super-important to her that it made it on there.

The conversation pretty much stuck to the new album but, as it’s such an exemplary piece of work, that’s fine with us. Hopefully she’ll be back in L.A. to play a show soon.

Kylie Releases Tension at Grammy Museum: Visit grammymuseum.org for for info.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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