Everything with Kiss Me Once appeared very half hearted.

It felt no one was really behind it or no one was really putting in the work to make it successful.

Ya and it was like no one really knew how to handle the project at any point from start to finish.

This is my least favourite album this side of the century but I think there's more good about it than it's given credit for. Not that the criticisms are unfair because they're not unfounded, but I think other aspects of the era somewhat taint the perception of the album's quality.

 

Let's start on the positives. I can still remember hearing 'Into the Blue' after it leaked. I had the same feelings I had when I first heard 'All the Lovers'; that piano and those heavenly strings exude such euphoria and filled me with so much happiness and excitement. I was going through a tough time and this was exactly the song I needed in my life. 'If Only' and 'Kiss Me Once' are huge highlights too - the former has that powerful, crowd-pleasing anthem feel to it and the latter suits Kylie to a tee with its sound and lyrics. I think both benefit from Kylie's vocal being quite melodic rather than that sing-talking she does in a lot of the other songs. 'Les Sex' is a lot of fun and Kylie seems much more comfortable on this opposed to 'Sexercize' which isn't very her (although I do have a soft spot for that) or 'Sexy Love' which has such a vapid chorus that Kylie doesn't sound interested on.

 

Now for the negatives. I think what has always been my big issue is that the quality dives after 'Into the Blue' and sets a negative mood for the album. 'Million Miles' and 'Sexy Love' are quite bland, not bringing anything new or exciting to the table, and 'I Was Gonna Cancel' is noisy, annoying and drawn out. The album doesn't really begin for me until 'Feels So Good' which is halfway through the standard edition; not really good enough when you want to have the full album experience. By this point, you're meant to be on a journey with the album and have a sense of what it's about and have different emotions and ideas spurring in your head. I don't get any of that with Kiss Me Once, nothing positive anyway.

 

I get the impression that Kylie was unhappy during the making of the album. When you watch the interviews where she talks about the creative process behind it, she talks about struggling to work out where she wanted to take the album and losing confidence and clarity. It seems like that's why Sia was brought on board as co-executive producer. Even the way she talks and her body language during these interviews makes it seem like she's not quite herself. When you compare them to how she talks about Golden, you can definitely see the difference. This sticks in my mind when I listen to Kiss Me Once and I can sense that a disconnect between Kylie and the music throughout the album. I think Kylie was also faced with the struggle of trying to work out where she fitted in the music industry. The way songs were released and were consumed was evolving, commercial radio were seemingly becoming more ageist, Kylie was entering the second half of her 40s which is typically a challenging time for women - all these things that she had to consider or were in the back of her mind, must have been a lot to take on and I think that probably affected the album process.

 

I've shared it before but a lot of my feelings on the album can be summed up

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It's a shame how Kiss Me Once turned out, especially when you listen to what was shelved from the album. Those tracks are exciting and fresh, slightly experimental with sound and concept and just have a bit of passion behind them. I don't what made Kylie or the record company decide they weren't the sort of tracks they wanted, but I return to them more than a lot of the final album. I need to have a go at compiling a personal tracking list for Kiss Me Once as it would result in a really strong collection.

I agree that some songs left off are stronger than some that made the final cut and again showed the poor decision making behind the album.Kiss me once does have a feeling of lost to it and I also agree on how kylie was during the campaign.I was gona cancel as a single was a massive mistake and as a single I dont even think kylie believed in it herself. Thankfully kylie found her way again with golden and another duff like kiss me once would have done long term damage. With golden you could clearly see kylie really believed in the album.

Kiss Me Once did have an opportunity to be better than it is if the track listing was selected better.

With an album like Kiss Me Once you can only hope that Kylie has learned from it and i believe she has, releasing an album that you don't believe in, yourself does not work.

Kylie approached Golden so differently and as many others have said, Kylie came alive when talking about Golden, with Kiss Me Once she spoke about it more in a formality sense.

I’ve said it so many times and I’m totally in the minority but I love KMO - I still listen to it a lot and whilst Kylie wasn’t invested into the project for whatever reason I love it for what it is (I also thought the KMO tour was fantastic too).