Kylie Minogue: "Give Me Just a Little More Time"

8 January 1992

"Kylie has a big problem: living up to Better The Devil You Know, one of the greatest singles in the history of the cosmiverse. Solution: This."

— Sian Pattenden

A flip through this issue of from the start of 1992 and it's very much the Smash Hits of old. Longstanding segment Bitz kicks things off with features on a bunch of people I'm unfamiliar with (bands Airhead and Senseless Things as well as comedy duo Trevor & Simon, who apparently were a bit of a thing even when I resided in the UK) and a deeply uninteresting bit about Madonna's feelings about other pop stars. The venerable Black Type is busy chirping away at the letter writers while good old Gordon Bennett! is answering queries from the pop kids. And then there's Kylie Minogue nabbing her fourth Single of the Fortnight, putting her in a tie with the likes of The Cure, Billy Idol (for the love of God, how did he get so many?!?) and, yes, Madonna for third place behind only Pet Shop Boys and George Michael.

But not everything remained the same. Kylie's sexier look had been a thing for close to two years though she was now getting even raunchier. The backlash that had been building against her had begun to expand with previous SOTF "Word Is Out" having paid the price. (Of course, you can always bet on a pop star going downhill when they begin to go R&B) Ver hits had also recently been taking a page out of the increasingly irrelevant Number One mag with a celeb gossip section near the back of every issue. More and more, the mandate appeared to be a focus on the famous rather than pop stars in particular. 

Finally, this issue closes with two pages devoted to promoting next fortnight's edition of the all-new Smash Hits. Gasp at the POSTER WITH EVERY ISSUE! (Surely the Hits had long been a cradle for youths looking to decorate their walls so this wasn't anything new) Dance about at the prospect of EVEN MORE STAR-PACKED PAGES! (Sixty-four pages to be precise; note that they did not mention the accompanying price increase) Get your rocks off to the prospect of a SONGBOOK WITH EVERY ISSUE! (Was spreading the lyrics throughout really such a burden for ver kids?) And who would be appearing on the cover of this reboot? One Kylie Minogue.

"Give Me Just a Little More Time" was certainly her best single in ages. Possibly well before the overrated "Better the Devil You Know". Credit to her for giving a commendable vocal and to Stock Waterman (I will never get used to the absence of Aitken) for producing a quality single but the real MVP is the song itself. Though not strictly speaking a Motown number, it was nevertheless composed by the famed Holland-Dozier-Holland team (though under their 'Dunbar & Wayne' pseudonym). A huge hit for trio Chairmen of the Board, it was something of a throwback to the glory days of The Four Tops and The Temptations. You might think that a cover version of a classic from the early seventies written and performed by African Americans would have been the perfect choice for Kylie's mature R&B sound but for the fact that it's as pop as it comes.

Even at their best SAW would have struggled to write something as effortlessly brilliant as "Give Me Just a Little More Time" but by the beginning of '92 it was unlike anything else they had in their increasingly bare cupboard of potential hits. No wonder Sian Pattenden hails it as sounding "funkesque and boppy in a Kylie-That-We-Know-And-Love way". A return to form and, better yet, superior to most of her discography because the material she had to work with was better than ever.

Kylie and SW really don't do much with what they have — but that is probably for the best. When people protest that covers ought to be better than the originals (or at the very least somehow different from them) they are overlooking the fact that this is an extremely tall order. Take the example on this blog when I wrote about both the outstanding "Money's Too Tight (to Mention)" by The Valentine Brothers and its passable remake by Simply Red. Sure, Mick Hucknall could have revamped the arrangement but what purpose would that have served? And good on Kylie for refraining from aping lead singer Harrison Kennedy's impassioned vocals, though she does mimic those fantastic "bbbrrrr's" in the chorus, the "best bit" according to Pattenden.

A sign of Kylie's influence as a pop culture icon was that she was chosen to relaunch Smash Hits in the second half of January 1992. Prominently featured in this final issue of "classic" Hits with this SOTF, a softball interview with Marc Andrews, a bit of harsh criticism in the Letters page from one Stephen Toole of the Madonna Defense League (Kylie was copying Madge a little too much it would seem) and the lyrics to "Give Me Just a Little More Time", she was left off the cover in favour of former paramour and outgoing Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat star Jason Donovan along with incoming "Joey" Philip Schofield. Yet, a fortnight later she was on the front of the new look Hits, ostensibly to shill a five-page spread inside called 'Who's Hot for Who?' about the stars and those they fancy. Kylie is the choice of noted Minoguist James Dean Bradfield which she in turn opts for Lenny Kravitz, who sister Dannii also had her eyes on (when you've been married to Lisa Bonet and you've begun dating Vanessa Paradis, I think it's okay to pass on a Minogue). Elsewhere, the new Hit Songwords pullout includes the lyrics to — huh? — "Give Me Just a Little More Time", in a rare bit of lazy double dipping by the editors. In truth, Kylie was on the cover just to be Kylie which was always reason enough.

And so, we reach the end of peak Smash Hits. Its circulation was already in decline from its late-eighties' peak but it was still the magazine of old. Now it was entering the back half of its lifespan in a pop scene that increasingly had little use for it. Rather than burn out, it would gradually fade away. Once an essential part of British life, now that thing that people used to like. But let's see if there was still some life in the old girl...

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Shakespears Sister: "Stay"

A number one smash for the better part of two months and fondly remembered to this day, Pattenden is nevertheless able only to enthuse over Marcella Detroit's impressive vocal. Otherwise, it "chooses to plod along in its own little cubicle of dullness". We can't like everything, reckons this humble blogger who happens to think that David Bowie's Hunky Dory isn't half as brilliant as everyone else says it is. As for "Stay", I can kind of understand why someone would have reservations even if I think it's ace. There's really not much of a song to it, for one thing; also, it really needs its video to make it a true goth-pop knock out. Plus, for a single which screams sizzling epic, it's surprising that the whole thing is wrapped up in well under four minutes. Yet, there's so much going on: a bit goth, a bit indie, a bit of power balladry, a touch of over-the-top Meat Loaf/Bonnie Tyler ludicrousness, the type of thing which is entirely derivative yet tricks the listener into believing that it is utterly original. Strong enough that it withstood eight weeks at the top without many people growing sick of it. Shakespears Sister even got the jump on all those many other groups with songs called "Stay". Why didn't they all just go away?

Kylie Minogue: "Word Is Out"

21 August 1991

"You could listen to this 100 times and never get bored of it."

— Sophie Lawrence

So, a minor request, though one I don't see being fulfilled: I'd quite like to write about a Kylie Minogue record that I genuinely like.

The Australian sensation was first awarded a Smash Hits Single of the Fortnight back in the spring of 1988 when Richard Lowe gave the nod to "Got to Be Certain", the follow-up to Kylie's number one smash "I Should Be So Lucky". It's a song that has its fans (it had a four week stay at number two, a chart position she'd become very familiar with) but I'm not one of them. It isn't horrible, just nothing special. The song crops up as the last track on the first side of her debut album Kylie and falls a bit flat next to its companions. (It always seemed like the glorious "It's No Secret", a North America-only release, merited being a single more)

Hits reviewers would pass on Kylie's stuff for a while in spite of the fact that everything from "Je ne sais pas pourquoi" through to "Never Too Late" a year later is superior to "Got to Be Certain". (Incidentally, it must be said that Minogue's run of singles in the late eighties and early nineties is pretty impressive, making for one of the finer greatest hits albums of the era this side of Pet Shop Boys) It was only with her dramatic 1990 reinvention that Mike Soutar felt the need to give his due to "Better the Devil You Know", the lead off track from her third album Rhythm of Love. The ninth of her last ten singles to reach either number one or two, it also proved to be the end of Kylie playing the role of close friend or older sister offering sound advice to a love lorn youngster. Both "Certain" and "Devil" were about making the right choices; from here on out, the choice became simple: it was all about desiring Kylie or wanting to be just like her.

The fact that Minogue had by then put out three LP's, along with ten singles, in such a short time is impressive, especially since this was the start of an era in which artists would go longer and longer between albums. But where both Kylie and Enjoy Yourself were number ones, Rhythm entered at a disappointing number nine and dropped steadily from there. (Fourth LP Let's Get to It only got to number fifteen which only goes to show that the better the photo of Kylie on the cover, the worse the chart performance) She still had a few more Top 10 singles in her but clearly interest in Kylie was becoming more selective.

The British public had grown weary of the Aussie and they took out their newfound disinterest on "Word Is Out", a brand new single that was expected to keep her streak of Top 10 hits going. Instead, it entered at eighteen, rose two spots the following week and then tumbled down to thirty-three during its final spell of Top 40 action. A shockingly poor performance from such a reliable hit maker. Word Is Out That Kylie's Heading Down the Dumper, the headlines amazingly didn't say.

It's nice to think that ver kids had missed out on a gem as they clamoured for Mariah Carey or Dannii Minogue instead but they were right to give it a miss. Like "Got to Be Certain" and "Better the Devil You Know" it is just so plain; unlike them, however, Kylie's vocal doesn't stand out. Comparisons were constantly being made around this time to Madonna but Madge on her worst day wasn't nearly this generic. Fellow actress-turned-wannabe-pop-starlet Sophie Lawrence thinks it sounds a bit like "La Isla Bonita" but all I can hear is Stevie Wonder's 1976 hit single "I Wish" from his classic double album Songs in the Key of Life. Either way, it's not enough to pull Kylie out of mediocrity.

"Word Is Out" also marks the departure of Matt Aitken from the Stock Aitken Waterman songwriting/production empire. Kylie was by now their last remaining star and the now duo of Stock Waterman poured their energies into their cash cow. Unfortunately, they were in a no win situation: complaints that their work had become too formulaic were in abundance but there was little interest when they did try to depart from what had made them so big. Minogue going R&B was obviously the next logical step but it proved to be one that no one else wished for her to take. (The Let's Get to It album only ended up producing one big hit and — huh! — it ended up being her final stab at pure pop for quite some time...but we'll get to that soon)

Meanwhile, I continue to wait for a potential Kylie Minogue SOTF that I genuinely like. I was a big fan then and I continue to have some regard for her now; she did some great songs prior to "Word Is Out" and she'd put out quite a few more in the years to come. I'll just have to keep waiting.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Tin Machine: "You Belong in Rock n' Roll"

Response to the first Tin Machine album must have been so encouraging that David Bowie and his buddies just had to get together again for Tin Machine II. Lawrence suspects a guaranteed hit only because of Dame David which would be true but for a) Bowie lacked the commercial clout he once enjoyed and b) this hard rock side project of his had yet to yield a single Top 40 entry. Tin Machine II is the end of Bowie at his absolute suckiest but there are signs that he would soon pull himself up to being "all right, I suppose" before long. Still, this "you" in "You Belong in Rock n' Roll" can't possibly be about Bowie himself: I'd take him playing keyboards, sax and "Chamberlin" (whatever that is) over all these damn guitars. Mind you, there's some mad fret work on Ziggy and Heroes and even a bit on Low and that was Bowie at his seventies paradigm best so there you go.

Kylie Minogue: "Better the Devil You Know"

2 May 1990

"Kylie Minogue: She's a fortnight's fun in one! (?)"

— Mike Soutar

On November 8, 1988 the characters of Charlene Mitchell and Scott Robinson were married in an episode of the widely popular Australian soap Neighbours. (Apparently they had already tied the knot some eighteen months earlier back home) To celebrate, the actors that portrayed them released a duet that seemed to blur the lines between their fictional love and real life friendship. "Especially for You" was a monster smash for Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan, capping a big year for her and ushering in a huge one for him. There had been persistent rumours that they were as much of a couple as their pair they played on TV but the two always denied them. Then another Aussie superstar came forth and made it be clear that he wanted some sweet Kylie action. Minogue was soon seen in the company of Michael Hutchence, lead singer of INXS and major sex symbol. They were no longer together but that was when everyone found out that Kyles 'n' Jase had been a couple all along.

Their music careers had been guided by the team of Stock Aitken Waterman, a trio who could on occasion do tailor made numbers for acts in their stable. As if reacting to the breakup, they gifted Donovan "When You Come Back to Me" in the build up to the 1989 Christmas Number One sweepstakes. It had some festive cheer to it and it was about a young man dealing with heartbreak as he awaits the return of his departed. If Minogue wasn't going to fall for him again then at least thousands of teenage girls were going to. (I get the feeling that SAW was much more invested in this relationship than new exes themselves) For her part, Kylie already had material from second album Enjoy Yourself to be focused on and her breakup song was just going to have to wait.

Pete Waterman has stated that "Better the Devil You Know" is about their view that she should've stayed with Donovan, the safe choice, over Hutchence, the classic rock 'n' roll bad boy. To imagine the squeaky clean Jason as a devil of any kind must have seemed odd but the song suggests that there was a lot more going on behind the scenes than the public suspected. The girl-next-door that they had tended to was gone and it was all the doing of that sex god with the long hair who sang that he needed her tonight and he damn-well meant it.

That is the narrative surrounding "Better the Devil You Know" but it probably only represents part of the story in the eyes of SAW. While Minogue was being led astray by Hutchence, she was also feeling the pull of other writers, producers and genres. Rick Astley and Bananarama had already pulled away from the trio and Donna Summer severed her brief relationship with them when she couldn't be arsed about flying back to Britain to record more material. Though they were still having hits, the days of them having three singles in the Top 10 and four more spread throughout the charts were now over. (By that October, there wouldn't be a single SAW production in the entire Top 75) As if suspecting that their one remaining big star was about to depart, they offered her a not-so-subtle reminder that they were the devil she knew and was comfortable with. Look elsewhere at your own peril, Kyles.

There is a great deal to be said about this record but, sadly, I have trouble getting enthused about the actual song. There's nothing really wrong with it, only that it's just more of the same, especially coming from SAW. True, as Mike Soutar says, Minogue's voice is much stronger than on any of her previous hits. (She also happens to look great in the video which only reaffirms that she's easily the best thing about it) The tune is yet another catchy but forgettable SAW number, a sure a sign as any that their time really was just about up. And don't get me started on those irritating backing vocals, a SAW hallmark they really should have done away with by this point.

Clearly I'm just about alone in giving "Devil" just a shrug of the shoulders — though as the anecdote down below suggests, there were others who were equally indifferent. The single got to number two and it remains one of her most popular early releases. Yet it lacks the ecstatic joy of "I Should Be So Lucky", the careful craftsmanship of "It's No Secret" and the pop breeziness of "Wouldn't Change a Thing". Yet it must be said that it reinvigorated her and SAW's remaining traces of creativity would be concentrated on her records. After playing it safe with this one, she returned later in the year with "Step Back in Time", an absolute stormer in spite of the fact that it undermined SAW's stand against oldies in their appalling '89 hit "I'd Rather Jack" by the Reynolds Girls. Subsequent hits "What Do I Have to Do" and "Shocked" also proved to be stronger than "Devil" and her unbroken run of Top 10 hits continued. Matt Aitken would soon depart leaving SAW as simply 'SW', a pair that was able to get by on fumes from their last year or so with Kylie.

My first encounter with "Better the Devil You Know" happened to be on AM 106, then Calgary's leading teen radio station. Most nights they would do a segment in which two recent singles would battle for the hearts of listeners, who would call in to vote for their favourite. The winner would move on to face another challenger the next night while the loser would quickly vanish off the face of the earth. One night in the autumn of 1990, this latest single from Kylie was in contention against a song I can't even recall. Her star was already in sharp decline since her cover of "The Locomotion" gave her a hit in 1988. (The Enjoy Yourself album had a radically different cover in North America which may have been an attempt on the part of record label Geffen to make her out to be less of a plastic girl-next-door; it was because of this photo that I figured she was going to become a bit of a granola rather than sexKylie) But people just about still remembered her and this latest single was up for consideration on one weekday night in a Canadian city. Needless to say, Kylie got trounced. Doubtless "Devil" had been tested out in various markets in the US and Canada and it wasn't going well. Third album The Rhythm of Love didn't even get released. It would be some time before we'd be hearing from her again on this side of the Atlantic.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Beloved: "Time After Time"

British indie's explosion in 1990 encompassed a lot of styles. Obviously Madchester set the pace but there was also post-Smiths gloom rock, jangle pop and early shoegaze about. And then there was The Beloved, a post-punk band who underwent a sonic makeover at the end of the eighties — and then spent the bulk of their brief chart lifespan bouncing from genre to genre. I honestly never knew they had synth-pop in them but here it is, their very own attempt to compete with Depeche Mode, New Order and Pet Shop Boys (yeah, that didn't work out so well, did it?). The group's eclecticism made them interesting but it probably resulted in them struggling to cultivate a loyal fanbase at the same time. "Time After Time" strives for something but you can't help but feel that they missed the boat. Oh well, I'm sure they were able to hop on another vessel promptly.

Kylie Minogue: "Got to Be Certain"

18 May 1988

"And so the debate rages across the land."

— Richard Lowe

The team of Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman last earned themselves a Single of the Fortnight all the way back in the summer of 1984 with the much-better-than-I-thought-it-would-be "You Think You're a Man" by Divine. An awful lot changed in the four years since: the SAW production team's client base grew and writing songs became a much more standard part of their MO and they enjoyed their first UK number one with Dead or Alive's memorable "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)". They took in established acts like Bananarama and had a US chart topper with their cover of seventies hit "Venus". They began making stars out of performers such as Sinitta and Rick Astley. Divine, who had one of their first hits, passed away in March of 1988. And, on a seemingly unrelated note, an Australian soap opera began broadcasting episodes on the BBC.

Neighbours was a smash and proved to be even more successful in the old country than down under. Everyone seemed to watch it and you just knew that those snobs who claimed to never watch it secretly did. I came to the UK that August with no awareness of it whatsoever and went about my first five days there similarly ignorant of it. Then, we visited our distant cousins in the north east of Essex and they showed it to my sister and me. From then on, we never missed it for the remainder of the year we spent there. From that first viewing, it was clear that the star of the show was a frizzy haired young woman who was kind of mouthy. On the show, her name was Charlene but in real life she went by Kylie, a name I'd never heard before. Nicola, Becky and Chris, our fourth or fifth cousins, told us that she was also a pop star. (Little did I know that she was already on the charts back in North America, no mean feat considering Neighbours never meant anything across the pond)

Kylie Minogue didn't invent the concept of soap stars cutting records but she certainly popularised the practice. Before her, actors on soaps might put out a single and possibly have a hit; after her, it was assumed they all would. And while many became successful, no one pulled of the career shift as well as she did. She tried her hand at films but they never usurped music. Nowadays singers try to make the jump to the more lucrative field of acting; Kylie went the other way and she achieved far more success making records then she did on TV and movie screens.

Minogue's relationship with SAW was different than any of their other acts. She quickly became their cash cow and deserved to be the focus of their attention during their waning years in the early nineties. Other acts would depart but she remained loyal to them. By 1989, their output was rapidly declining but she seemed to receive first refusal of all their best stuff. Recruits to the SAW stable — Sonia, Big Fun, the bloody Reynolds Girls — became increasingly uninteresting which only made her stand out more. Even the stuff they were handing off to Neighbours co-star Jason Donovan wasn't quite as strong as what they gave her. Her image would change drastically and she made a push for greater creative control but she was reluctant to break away from the people that made her.

It took some time, however, for Minogue to get their prime cuts. Her first hit was "I Should Be So Lucky" which has a certain moronic charm and it remains insanely catchy (annoyingly catchy, sure, but catchy nonetheless) but "Got to Be Certain", the follow up, has little to captivate beyond Kylie's cheeriness. It's more of the same, just nowhere near as good. It probably doesn't help that it's a recycled SAW product. Originally recorded by Mandy Smith earlier in the year, it remained unreleased until her debut album Mandy was reissued in 2009. With her glamourous image and infamously getting involved with Bill Wyman of The Rolling Stones when she was just thirteen, the song's narrative of a bright girl trying to learn lessons from heartbreak probably suited Minogue better than Smith, who was more at home doing pop based around wrapping boys (and, to be sure, aging rock stars) around her little finger.

Re-using their originals was nothing new for SAW. The UK follow up to the global smash (and still culturally relevant) "Never Gonna Give You Up" was the forgettable "Whenever You Need Somebody", which had already been recorded in considerably different fashion two years earlier by female vocalist O'Chi Brown. In turn, Astley would go on to reject the insipid "Nothing Can Divide Us" which SAW then handed off to the more vocally lacking Donovan. The Minogue album track "Turn It Into Love" ended up getting into the charts after being released as a single by longtime stable vet Hazell Dean. 

SAW were hardly the types to put a great deal of care into their compositions but they were at their best when they wrote with an eye on their charges. Stock and Aitken have claimed to written "Never Gonna Give You Up" with Astley in mind and the hit singles they had with sister act Mel & Kim reflect the duo's tough, working class backgrounds. Even "I Should Be So Lucky", which was famously rush written as Minogue was waiting to meet them for the first time, was perfect pop fare for Kylie the girl next door. (There's an even more obvious case of the trio tailor-making a song which we will get to soon)

The debate, as Richard Lowe says, would go on for some time. SAW's records kept selling and the charts would be awash in their hit factory sound. Kylie Minogue would bear the brunt of the backlash against them but she came out of it with a bit of a creative renaissance and is still going strong in her fifties. I don't imagine many people would've bet on her career having these kinds of legs.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Elton John: "I Don't Wanna Go on with You Like That"

Ah, that "popping" percussion. Richard Lowe is taken by it and I have to agree that it's the one saving grace of a grim tune. While Elton John's slow songs post-"Sacrifice" began to get increasingly sappy and predictable, it is his piano-based rockers from around this time that commit even greater sins. This was long before YouTube and Spotify and "I Don't Wanna Go on with You Like That" counts on people's memories of the likes of "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" or "Philadelphia Freedom" being sketchy so they will assume that this is vintage Elton. It isn't. Whereas David Bowie, Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney were in similar creative doldrums at the time, they would all find their way back to something approaching their old heights, the Rocket Man never did. Still, that popping sound is pretty neat, huh?