When most musicians deal with something traumatic they often end up writing about it.
Not Kylie Minogue.
About five years ago the Aussie songstress was diagnosed with breast cancer — it’s been in remission since 2006 — and she has yet to record an album about the experience. It’s something she regrets.
“I did write some tracks for X (her 2007 disc) about my experience, but I didn’t include them on the album,” she tell Metro over the phone from New York. “The consensus was that they didn’t belong on it.”
She says she wished she “had the energy to fight” and that she had more confidence to get the songs on the record. But her new album, Aphrodite, doesn’t discuss her cancer either. “It’s not the moment,” she says, adding she does want to create an “anti-album,” one that does have the songs she thinks her fans want to hear.
Instead, the electro, club-ready Aphrodite deals with love, but she steers clear of the heartache she’s dealt with throughout much of her life.
“And if I lie with you long enough, I can see the things I’m dreaming of,” she sings on the upbeat Everything is Beautiful. Positive lyrics like that are all over the record.
“I still believe in love,” she says. “Not just with one person, but I feel it with my audience and feel it through my music.”
While this disc is made for the dance floor, it wasn’t supposed to turn out like it did. She wanted to create something with more guitars than keys. “It was supposed to be more organic,” she reveals.
But, as the writing process went on she began feeling lost.
“I became very confused,” she says. “I didn’t know what I was trying to achieve.”
Her songwriters shifted gears, creating the keyboard heavy sound that’s on her new effort. She’s thrilled with overall result, and adds that the timing for a dance record couldn’t have been better.
“Dance has infiltrated the mainstream in Europe,” she says. “That sound worked for me and it was good timing.”
