What's the story with Kiss Me Once?

[pkhauntus]

I don’t get the hype about Sleepwalker. The songs are not great. The other Garibay songs that came later were better. Were they all recorded at the same time?

I also thought Crystallize was a nice song. Was that a KMO reject or did she record it afterward?

Anyway my fave KMO songs are Fine and Kiss Me Once.

The Sleepwalker stuff sounds like demos. The mastering is not very dynamic. That is if they were mastered at all; it's expensive. Likely not, they were free.

Also, I think Crystallize was old at that point. I could be wrong

[Aphrodite Lover]

I’m so upset I didn’t go into musicmafia and buy the kiss me once demos in full. The full Rolling Stone and Beat of my heart

[LittleGreen]

I’m so upset I didn’t go into musicmafia and buy the kiss me once demos in full. The full Rolling Stone and Beat of my heart

Me too. I was going to buy Rolling Stone but the link to buy had disappeared by the time I had the money ready.

KMO was an album of an artist trying to fit into a mold that a record label had made for their property. Not a lot of Kylie is on the record, it's her going through the motions. Hence why she disconnected and only enjoyed the tour.

[mrbudgie2008]

I think Kiss Me Once is a perfect example of when image and music don't work along together. I hated all the photos and the beige concept of the whole era. With Golden it was coherent again! Kiss me once (the song) is still beautiful, as is Feels So Good.
I guess Kylie just didn't feel that great during that time....

[Sleepwalker]

I think they actually intended to use a “sleeping beauty” style theme while recording the album but extremely diluted the final result and feels like they totally backed away from it.

I love the album cover, (probably the best thing about the era for me) it was very clever with the album title and the lost sleeping beauty theme.

The Sleepwalker Ep, while it sounds like unfinished demos and irritably scratchy, it was still the most interesting batch of songs from the whole era.

In hindsight, because the era was a real flop, I wish they had flopped going all out without restrictions. Skirt as the buzz single, Sexercize as the lead single, Mr. President, Your Body and Fine, would’ve all made for very contemporary, dark dance singles.

This era was definitely Kylie’s midlife crisis era and it would’ve been cool to at least look back at the singles and see that in them. I would’ve appreciated the era more, looking back.

[Tropical Wave]

IMHO these were the factors:

1. She'd been with Parlophone too long. She was a cash cow (figuratively) and not worth much investment
2. She hadn't been with Roc Nation long enough for them to understand her. In any event they were just the wrong fit for each other
3. Too many people were going in different directions. Instead of pulling together they pulled away from each other kind of creating a "reverse synergy"
4. Radio had stopped supporting her
5. The big name collab with Pharrell was nowhere near the standard of his other work. This gave the impression that Kylie was a lower tiered artist than she was
6. The IWGC video. Nothing else need be said...
7. The bad publicity surrounding the dancers for the aforementioned video.
8. It was on the cusp of artists like Kylie being able to get hit singles. So after having top 5 hits with lead singles from LY to Aphro, ITB's placing of no.12 was a disappointment. Ironically the 38 postion of Dancing was seen as a success in the new chart landscape
9. It seemed more like a collection of songs rather than an album. If you take LY - there were so many disparate styles. Think YDNY, PS, BG,Kids, LY and Butterfly were all on the same album but they all felt right together.
10. Lack of a classic single. I think her only other album to lack a classic single is LGTI (and possibly IP). ITB seemed like a badly disguised stale retread of All The Lovers. IWGC - is not a bad song but never single material.
11. Mixed reviews.
12. A feeling of regression. They'd leared the mistake of having a mish mash of different styles with Aphro, yet made the same mistakes of X.
13. The visuals didn't work
14. The title was the worst since Let's Get To It.

That said I actually really like the album!!! LOL

[BetterDevil]

I think they actually intended to use a “sleeping beauty” style theme while recording the album but extremely diluted the final result and feels like they totally backed away from it.

I love the album cover, (probably the best thing about the era for me) it was very clever with the album title and the lost sleeping beauty theme.

The Sleepwalker Ep, while it sounds like unfinished demos and irritably scratchy, it was still the most interesting batch of songs from the whole era.

In hindsight, because the era was a real flop, I wish they had flopped going all out without restrictions. Skirt as the buzz single, Sexercize as the lead single, Mr. President, Your Body and Fine, would’ve all made for very contemporary, dark dance singles.

This era was definitely Kylie’s midlife crisis era and it would’ve been cool to at least look back at the singles and see that in them. I would’ve appreciated the era more, looking back.

The Sleepwalker songs are great songs, but I can understand that people complain about the production. But this era wasn't good, Kylie didn't get the best from another divas pop writers/ producers (Garibay didn't give his best like he did in Gaga's, Sia gave the worst songs for Kylie and better ones for Beyonce and Rihanna, MNEK gave her a cover, Pharrell gave better songs for Miley and Gwen than Kylie). So, I'm really happy that she writing her stuff and working with her producers again.

[xixu]

IMHO these were the factors:

1. She'd been with Parlophone too long. She was a cash cow (figuratively) and not worth much investment
2. She hadn't been with Roc Nation long enough for them to understand her. In any event they were just the wrong fit for each other
3. Too many people were going in different directions. Instead of pulling together they pulled away from each other kind of creating a "reverse synergy"
4. Radio had stopped supporting her
5. The big name collab with Pharrell was nowhere near the standard of his other work. This gave the impression that Kylie was a lower tiered artist than she was
6. The IWGC video. Nothing else need be said...
7. The bad publicity surrounding the dancers for the aforementioned video.
8. It was on the cusp of artists like Kylie being able to get hit singles. So after having top 5 hits with lead singles from LY to Aphro, ITB's placing of no.12 was a disappointment. Ironically the 38 postion of Dancing was seen as a success in the new chart landscape
9. It seemed more like a collection of songs rather than an album. If you take LY - there were so many disparate styles. Think YDNY, PS, BG,Kids, LY and Butterfly were all on the same album but they all felt right together.
10. Lack of a classic single. I think her only other album to lack a classic single is LGTI (and possibly IP). ITB seemed like a badly disguised stale retread of All The Lovers. IWGC - is not a bad song but never single material.
11. Mixed reviews.
12. A feeling of regression. They'd leared the mistake of having a mish mash of different styles with Aphro, yet made the same mistakes of X.
13. The visuals didn't work
14. The title was the worst since Let's Get To It.

That said I actually really like the album!!! LOL

I wouldn't say so. It was her last single that was played on Kiss and Capital. Heart supported it as well.
Only Radio 1 blacklisted it.

I will never forgive Parlo sabotage during release week of ITB - removement of single version from iTunes and lack of TV promo. It could have been her last top10 hit.

[Sleepwalker]

The Sleepwalker songs are great songs, but I can understand that people complain about the production. But this era wasn't good, Kylie didn't get the best from another divas pop writers/ producers (Garibay didn't give his best like he did in Gaga's, Sia gave the worst songs for Kylie and better ones for Beyonce and Rihanna, MNEK gave her a cover, Pharrell gave better songs for Miley and Gwen than Kylie). So, I'm really happy that she writing her stuff and working with her producers again.

Well said! I’m so happy Kylie took control post KMO and is showing them all what she’s capable of.

I’m sure a lot of those people have been pleasantly surprised with all of Kylie’s success these last 3 years.

[benci_]

I think they actually intended to use a “sleeping beauty” style theme while recording the album but extremely diluted the final result and feels like they totally backed away from it.

I love the album cover, (probably the best thing about the era for me) it was very clever with the album title and the lost sleeping beauty theme.

The Sleepwalker Ep, while it sounds like unfinished demos and irritably scratchy, it was still the most interesting batch of songs from the whole era.

In hindsight, because the era was a real flop, I wish they had flopped going all out without restrictions. Skirt as the buzz single, Sexercize as the lead single, Mr. President, Your Body and Fine, would’ve all made for very contemporary, dark dance singles.

This era was definitely Kylie’s midlife crisis era and it would’ve been cool to at least look back at the singles and see that in them. I would’ve appreciated the era more, looking back.

There was absolutely zero sleeping beauty theme. I remember that it became a thing on here in 2015, and Mach was in touch with somebody from team Kylie, and they laughed when they heard the sleeping beauty interpretation of the album cover. You can see the "no concept" concept in the bts video of the album photoshoot.

Kiss Me Once was the first album for a long time that didn't have a theme, it was Kylie being Kylie. I'm in a minority here, but I enjoyed the campaign - her image was great and she did some interesting promotional interviews: Facebook live, Rollacoaster magazine, and the one in which she signed the desk.

2014, to my interpretation, was a time when we started to go into the current wave of relatable, less glam popstars, in a way, it was Kylie's attempt not to play dressup the way she had been doing since 2000.

It's interesting that a major theme of her interviews 2014ish was her epiphany with nothing on the horizon, yet it was 2018's Golden which actually resulted in a big change.