Fever

Amazon.com

Fever was released on a wave of publicity as the lead single, "Can't Get You out of My Head," battled on the U.K. charts with the debut effort of Spice diva Victoria Beckham--and it won spectacularly. Kylie Minogue's sound has progressed again since the disco-inspired Light Years, plundering the retro style of post-disco electro from the late 1970s and showing what might have happened if Kraftwerk had produced Donna Summer or Chic. Unlike most pop albums, or indeed pop artists, Fever is geared toward high-energy dance rather than pedestrian "I love lovin' you" ballads. Aside from the aforementioned hit single, another standout is "Give It to Me," a great piece of dance pop that has everything from Britney-style wailings to Basement Jaxx funk wrapped up with a catchy and typically suggestive chorus. The closest Minogue gets to a gentler moment is at the very end with "Burning Up," a breezy guitar progression with a laid-back melody, but it doesn't last long as the need to start dancing again takes hold and Fever breaks into some electro funk, finishing on a definite high. --David Trueman

Product description

Minogue,Kylie ~ Fever

Review

Sure, maybe she is Australia's provincial answer to Madonna, perpetually in and around the news for the past decade and always making her presence felt musically, most often in the form of dance tracks (you probably missed the '90s remix Felix Da Housecat did for her). And yes, she still has yet to live down her lone American hit, an innocuous late-'80s cover of "The Loco-Motion."
So while Fever plays like her version of Olivia Newton-John getting Physical with America back in the day, it never fully delivers on its similar promise of guilty pleasures, bawdy beats (and most importantly) well-crafted songs.
Blasting off with the disco-fied "More More More" and the Madonna-molests-Daft-Punk pop of "Love at First Sight," she drops "Can't Get You Out of My Head," a decidedly delicious ditty that actually lives up to the album's glam-slam pretensions. If only for a moment, it would seem that Minogue's onto something.
Alas, how quickly the fizz fades. The title track plays like a reject from P. Diddy's babe band Dream's album, and let's not even get into the embarrassingly fake funk of "Give It to Me." We're talking classic Paula Abdul here.
She thankfully turns down the rah-rah machine for the smooth gloss of "Fragile," one of the album's most bearable moments.
But it's short-lived, as Minogue resorts to sickly sweet fluff like "Come into My World," although the cheesy disco bop of "Dancefloor" is something of a . . . guilty pleasure. Still, Fever makes Britney Spears seem like even more of a pop genius. Scary.
Scott Sterling -- From URB Magazine, ISBN13:B00005Y228 ISBN10:B00005Y228 Material Type:audioCD