Hey folks!

Today’s Best Album of 2001 match is:

#19 Kylie Minogue, FEVER

Listen on Spotify or YouTube

vs.

#46 Tortoise, STANDARDS

Listen on Spotify or YouTube

To vote, follow this link to the Google Form. You will need a Google login to vote. If you can’t or won’t have one, let me know ASAP (either through this newsletter, my email [[email protected]] or on the Best Album Brackets Bluesky account) and I’ll see what I can do.

We have one Designated Cheerleader today, it’s for FEVER, and it’s from @bickley.bsky.social. Take it away, Chris!

Sumptuous. That’s the word that perfectly summarises Love at First Sight, the third single from Kylie Minogue’s sparkling album Fever. It was an album and batch of singles that helped the singer reclaim her pop throne, after a decade of hesitant indie dalliance yielding only modest successes. But you don’t become the biggest popstar in the world by being modest, you must be bombastic. And 00s Kylie was exactly that.

The signs of her forthright confidence were there on 2000’s Light Years, spearheaded by the discoid Spinning Around, her first number one anywhere in six years. A year later, and Minogue was truly strutting her stuff as Can’t Get You Out of My Head, In Your Eyes, Love at First Sight, and Come into My World made waves around the globe. They were all stellar singles, but it was Love at First Sight that shone brightest.

The early 00s were a haven for undisputable bangers, whirlwinding around the French house scene. Minogue may have been an Antipodean, but she and her team knew their stuff. You can hear the light, chiming riffs of Modjo’s Lady (Hear Me Tonight), the fusion of Daft Punk’s analogue and digital sounds, and the pulsing, bongo-driven beat of Groovejet, so while Love at First Sight may have dipped its toes in a number of musical pools, the result was authentic. Minogue wasn’t just parking up in this territory, she was here to conquer it.

Minogue was held up as a sex symbol during this era of her career, but this song is more reflective of a love symbol, not a temptress. Her words in the other singles are sultry, flirtatious and they lust: “Boy your lovin’ is all I think about”, “I’ve been watching you lately, I want to make it with you”, “Take these lips that were made for kissing”. But there’s a satisfying innocence to Love at First Sight, a song drowning in butterflies and giddiness.

Pop is best when it is simple, and brimming with positivity. In the ears of some, Minogue’s tale of blissful happiness may be trite, but it’s impossible to claim that it’s not infectious. Her vocals stride with an unrelenting pleasure that could convert any Kylie-naysayer into a bonafide pilgrim in four minutes’ time. There’s no shame in this, Love at First Sight is simply pop perfection.

It's paint-by-numbers pop, but when the execution is this good, what's the problem? It doesn't matter whether something's made by one guy in their bedroom, or with dozens of suits surrounding a mixing board. It sculpted the pop landscape and whilst there are duds, there's enough spicy album tracks like Love Affair to override the nagging notion that only the singles are worth it. Burning Up is an odd closer in that it's all flicker and no flame, but at least the album hasn't been frontloaded so that it's a pleasant listen throughout.

https://musicisalright.wordpress.com/2021/06/07/kylie-minogue-love-at-first-sight/

Thank you, Chris!

Click here to see the current results for the entire tournament, and click here to see the current results for the prediction bracket contest.

Yesterday, #14 Jay-Z, THE BLUEPRINT defeated #51 New Order, GET READY, 117-95-1.

Thanks,

Kent