It all points in the direction for Tension making a top 75 return.

Uk Itunes

 

8 Tension Deluxe

12 Extension

15 Tension Standard

 

the 4.99 standard version will probably overtake the deluxe on Wednesday.

(I didn’t intend for this to become such an essay but I’ll post it anyway!)

 

This Tension era has taken away some of the shine off of BMG, for me.

 

Obviously the mishandling of Hold On to Now physicals, between them and Townsend, is a high new entry into the “Wtf moments” of Kylie’s career! :lol:

 

The artworks/formats: it’s been hit and miss for me. I’ve actually quite liked (or at least not minded) all of the single artwork covers from this era. The album though… as time has passed, the “copy/paste the artwork onto another format but just alter the colours” tactic isn’t to my tastes. I feel like it’s lazy design work. I also think that it reduces the impact of the main artwork to have countless variations of it. Imagine if Kylie Fever had 6 different colour backgrounds and her outfit & skin was in 6 different colours? Extension is the worst one for me, it looks cheap, washed out and tacky. Why doesn’t it cross their minds to use different pictures for different formats & keep things fresh?

 

Tracklists: surely they could be more imaginative than including an extended mix on the CD singles, cassette singles and vinyl singles? Why are they sticking so rigidly to that? (Bar the somewhat novelty Padam Padam Mixtape). Padam and Tension had several remixes to draw from for their vinyl releases. Hold On to Now could have had a deluxe track as a B Side like Magic. Considering the existence of Extension on vinyl, it’s so uninspired for the vinyl singles to also have the extended mixes.

 

Timing of releases: Disco showed that staggering the formats was quite effective to help avoid being too front-loaded, but with Tension they threw absolutely everything into release week and it kind of suffered a bit due to that. Actually, I feel like they had Tension on preorder for too long as well. Padam hysteria had died off a bit by late September; the album could have had even more buzz if it had been released in the summer while Padam was fresher, in my opinion. Tension (single) could have come out sooner too.

 

Some things certainly aren’t their fault. While I know that Kylie having her own Vegas residency has been a goal for her to achieve, and is clearly a huge money maker… I believe it’s been bad timing for the Tension era. She finally achieved a couple of hit singles, and that goodwill surely could have translated into higher demand for a tour than she’d experienced in years, yet there’s no sign of one happening, presumably because of Vegas. In the scheme of things… I wish Vegas had happened after the Tension era.

 

Outside of the Tension era there’s been other head-scratching moments… such as the Thursday release dates that hindered Say Something and Magic (or Wednesday for A Second to Midnight which resulted in it missing the Top 100!!).

 

I’ll of course give credit to BMG for some things: they’ve certainly been a key factor in Kylie becoming a revitalised artist - the change in her compared to her latter years with Parlophone has been clear to see. They certainly have a knack for achieving #1 albums!

^^ Agree with all of the above, BMG have done an incredible job along with Kylie at establishing her once again as a big selling artist, however it feels that all the hard work they put into Golden/SBIT/Disco they’ve let slip with Tension which is in chart terms the biggest of her career with them with the hit singles.

 

Vegas really did come at the worst possible moment but that still doesn’t excuse some of the poor decisions made with releases/track listing etc

Lazy is the word i feel at the moment. Didn't they win an award for the Disco Roll Out? Standards slipped since.

 

Lets hope they can redeem themselves

My two observations which others have mentioned as well:

1) Vegas got in the way of the Tension promo. Visiting all those no-name stations in the US to promote and spending a good time of summer rehearsing whilst PP had potential to take off across EU, esp during Pride month

2) The "gap" between PP (taking off) and the album release was too long. But again, they'd planned great UK promo for the album and had they moved it earlier to July or Aug, it would've interfered with all the US radio promo she had going on.

 

If they could go back in time, Here's how I'd do it:

June: PP takes off for all of summer

Aug: release album Tension, with 2nd single

Sept/Oct: release 3rd single

Nov: start rehearsals for Vegas, Audience With in between

 

Jan 2024 onwards: Vegas residency

Edited December 13, 20231 yr by markivj

Tension up to #27 in the midweeks! Still not combined with Extension though which has plummeted all the way to #35.

 

Can also confirm that Tension was #197 in last week's chart.

Excellent news. tension rising nicely. Streaming and Downloads helping and HMV and Amazon adding a few physicals.

 

Wonder if they will combine on Friday. BMG may have been arguing their point!

Edited December 13, 20231 yr by SmileyKylie

I really doubt they will be combined as much as I'd love them to be.

Good news about the album returning to the T75. It just shows with some promotion and a price drop what can happen. However, I agree with many of the points raised about BMG’s handling of the release. The album should have come out sooner after Padam was released. The track lists for the physical releases has been poor and lack of any proper release strategy for HOTN.

I do agree the album should have came out sooner to capitalize fully on the hype around padam padaam but that aside its probably been the weakest bmg handling of an album from all her releases with them but i do think kylie doing the vegas shows has had a huge effect on it in the UK as she wasnt available to push it more.

Billboard top 15 Dance albums of 2023 staff picks

 

https://www.billboard.com/lists/best-dance-...inogue-tension/

Tension Deluxe is the 43rd biggest selling Cd/vinyl of the year on Amazon UK at the moment

Tension up to #27 in the midweeks! Still not combined with Extension though which has plummeted all the way to #35.

 

Can also confirm that Tension was #197 in last week's chart.

 

Top 40 return on Friday? Come on!

Could be top 20 yet!

 

Itunes 6 & 13

Is it true An Evening With is being repeated on Boxing Day? And if so what time?

Yes. I think it is 10pm on Boxing Day

100% 10pm!

Ohh that's a good slot!

Ohh that's a good slot!

Not necessarily :D Britney’s doc flopped horribly in that slot in 2013!