Impossible Princess

Background and development

After signing a three-album deal with British dance label Deconstruction in 1993, Minogue released her fifth studio album, Kylie Minogue, on 19 September 1994. It garnered positive reviews from music critics, many of whom commended her move into dance music, and her development in maturity. Alongside the critiques, it was successful in Australia and the UK, selling two million units worldwide. The following year, the singer worked with Australian musician Nick Cave and his band, the Bad Seeds, for their single "Where the Wild Roses Grow"; according to Cave, he became interested in working with Minogue once he heard her 1990 single "Better the Devil You Know", feeling that it contained "one of pop music's most violent and distressing lyrics". That same year, Minogue began a relationship with French photographer Stéphane Sednaoui, and embarked on a series of trips throughout North America, Asia, and Australasia.

She was encouraged by Sednaoui and Cave to take artistic control over her new musical project, so she started writing lyrics; she had written lyrics before, but described them as "safe, neatly rhymed words". In an interview for British magazine NME, Minogue explained she wanted to "experiment" with her image and sound, so she decided to work with British trio Brothers in Rhythm, who worked with her on the singer's previous record. Each morning, she would present a set of lyrics to one of the Brothers in Rhythm members, Dave Seaman, from the night before. By October 1995, she had started recording rough demos with the trio in Chippenham, where they completed the first track, which later went unreleased, "You're the One". Four more songs were developed with Seaman and the second member of the trio, Steve Anderson, at Real World studios in Box, Wiltshire; "Too Far", "Did It Again", "Limbo", and "Cowboy Style". The album tracks, "Limbo" and "Did it Again," were recorded in one take, as Minogue felt the "raw" delivery worked better than something polished or refined. Unlike Minogue's previous album, Seaman noted that Minogue's input was more significant, stating that majority of the content was based on a lot of "her [own] ideas," and believed that she wanted to "grow as a person".

Around early 1996, the A&R department at Deconstruction did not attend a majority of the album's production process, due to the sickness of the labels director, Pete Hadfield. Because of this, Minogue took over partial control of the project. In order to help out with the album's production phases, she attended each music session with Anderson and Seaman to learn about composing, arranging instruments, and to "change and distort" sections of the album's tracks. As a result, she composed and produced the tracks "Too Far", "Breathe", and "Say Hey" with Brothers in Rhythm, using a grand piano and synthesizer. The singer noted that it was her first time participating as a producer and composer; however, she was unaccredited in the liner booklet of the album for unknown reasons. Impossible Princess took nearly two years to record, the longest period of time Minogue had worked on a project since her time acting on the Australian soap opera Neighbours (from 1986 to 1988). Anderson later explained that its lengthy time was "due to the pure perfectionism of all creatively involved".

Composition

During the time when Stephane Sednaoui embarked on the trips with Minogue, he introduced her to the work of Icelandic musician Björk, American–Scottish band Garbage, Japanese producer Towa Tei, and Irish band U2, all of which influenced Minogue in the making of Impossible Princess. Minogue further cited groups The Verve, The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers, The Eels, and further "British music" as influences. The material on Impossible Princess were originally composed with electronic dance elements, but "as the recording sessions progressed, they changed musical direction." Each track on the album was co-written by Minogue, and is the singer's first record to incorporate live instrumentation. Welsh musician and co-producer, James Dean Bradfield, was invited by Pete Hadfield to work on the album, which resulted in two compositions: "Some Kind of Bliss", and "I Don't Need Anyone". In revelation of the album's use of live instruments, Minogue stated; "I was joking with James Dean Bradfield 'Oh my god, every instrument is a real instrument, I don't think I've ever had this before!'" She felt this transition was unusual because she had been familiar with the use of synthesizers in her previous studio albums.

Impossible Princess was heavily inspired by the late–1990s techno and Britpop "revolution", as described by Chris True at AllMusic, Sal Cinquemani at Slant Magazine, and the Daily Vault editor Michael R. Smith. True further stated that the music landscape of 1997 had "changed" due to the rise of techno music, and artists such as Oasis and Manic Street Preachers, whilst Minogue's previous experimentation on dance-pop music "seemed to be the domain of teenage girls". Both Nick Levine from Digital Spy and Orkus writer Marcel Anders felt a majority of the material was inspired by dance music, whilst Anders noted that some tracks were heavily "guitar-driven". Similarly, an editor from Classic Pop Magazine felt most of the tracks were Britpop compositions with elements of dance music. Pop Cultured writer Bence Illés wrote that Impossible Princess is "predominately a very dark trip hop album, but is also influenced by other electronic genres like techno, drum and bass, dance, trance, and even by jazz and alternative rock." Vocally, Cinquemani compared Minogue's vocals to those of American singer Madonna by saying that they never "venture outside her comfort zone", but noticed that her delivery on Impossible Princess "finds Minogue stretching herself way beyond anything she had done before—or anything she's done since."

Songs

The album's opening track, "Too Far", was written at a local cafe Minogue usually visited, after feeling "trapped" and angered at her home in Chelsea, London. Featuring a "chaotic" arrangement, it was remarked by Nick Levine as one of "Kylie's most toughest club cuts" in her career. The second track, "Cowboy Style", details her first meeting with then-boyfriend, Stephane Sednaoui, and achieves a metaphorical experimentalism throughout its lyrics. Cameron Adams, writing at the Herald Sun, described it as a country song, whilst Cinquemani said the song "features a tribal percussion break and a string quartet that sounds more Celtic than country." The album's lead single, "Some Kind of Bliss", was distinguishable due to its attribution of introducing "Indie Kylie", a pseudonym that dealt with Minogue's move to rock music; the other tracks being "Did it Again" and "I Don't Need Anyone". It was labelled by several critics, such as Gareth Gorman from X-Press magazine and The Age's John Mangan, as an indie rock song, and tells a story about being joyful.

The following song, "Did It Again", is another rock composition that includes elements of Middle Eastern music. Its theme was based on a tabloid run in Britain that reported Minogue as anorexic; she wrote the track in response, and said it was about her "telling herself off". Written in Japan, the fifth track, "Breathe", was described by Levine as "subtle" electronica and expresses Minogue's ability to contemplate and feel "very still" while in an intense environment. "Say Hey", described by the singer as a "late-midnight" electronica track, was conceived when Minogue was having a bath; though the main idea was centred around communication between her and Sednaoui, it was "not necessarily to speak with him, but to feel that there's been some sort of contact." The seventh track, "Drunk", was described by Cinquemani as "one of many anthemic Techno tracks littered throughout the album." Minogue said that it was about "not feeling satisfied" during parts of the relationship with her boyfriend, and wrote it as a cross-over between feeling "angry" and "having so much feeling for someone,".

"I Don't Need Anyone" is another rock-driven track that, according to Minogue, did not have a set "story" because parts of the lyrics had been combined from different sets of songs, very much like "Some Kind of Bliss". Labelled a "sinister" trip-hop groove by Adams, "Jump" advises the public to accept her during her career and personal choices. Written in Spain, the sound of "Limbo" was described as a hybrid of drum and bass, techno, and rock music, with lyrics discussing her inability to leave a certain country to meet someone, due to bureaucracy laws. "Through the Years" details her meeting an ex-boyfriend, and feeling insecure and doubtful; the composition was compared to Bjork's single "Venus as a Boy" by Cinquemani and R. Smith. The album's closing track is "Dreams", an orchestral pop ballad that discusses the persistence of pushing boundaries and experimentation through her career.

Titles and artworks

The title of the album, Impossible Princess, is a reference to the 1994 novel Poems to Break the Harts of Impossible Princesses by British author and artist Billy Childish. A copy of the book had been dedicated to Minogue by Childish, whom had given it to one of her friends. However, her friend passed it onto Nick Cave, whom then gave it to Minogue. At first, she stated that she enjoyed the "sound" of the title, and how it "moved" as a "couple of words", but later recalled; "The first time I saw the name Impossible Princess, It had me written all over it." Alongside this, she believed that its poems summarized where she was at that time in her life. Cave had given the book to Minogue at the start of the album's recording process, so Minogue had kept the title for the then-untitled record as a potential name. The title of the album is also referenced in the album's song "Dreams", during the chorus; "These are the dreams / of an impossible princess,". It was confirmed by Minogue during mid-1997 as the title of the album, however, on 31 August 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales, was killed in a fatal car accident.

Because Diana's death was hugely impacted worldwide, with tabloids running stories under the title "Princess Diana", Minogue felt the album's title was "insensitive" at the time, so Deconstruction delayed its release. However, Deconstruction's head director, Pete Hadfield, believed the title would have still been offensive after its delay, so the management, alongside Minogue, mutually decided that the album be retitled Kylie Minogue in the UK and Europe, the same name as her previous studio album. However, upon the album's remastered and re-released edition on 23 March 2003, the album re-instated the Impossible Princess title in those regions. The album cover, photographed by Stephane Sednaoui, featured a frontal-view shot of Minogue, sitting down inside of a multi-coloured cut cone. Minogue was dressed in a blue Véronique Leroy mini dress, which was also featured in other photos that appeared on magazines in the UK. The shoot was inspired by Japanese and French pop culture, and Sednaoui identified Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki as an inspiration. For the limited 3D lenticular cover, it required multiple static cameras to shoot Minogue, but she grew tired of posing for long periods of time. In her 2012 coffee table book Kylie Fashion, she recalled "The shoot was so very difficult but we knew that once we got it right it would be amazing."

Release

Deconstruction planned to have the album out in January 1997, but it was postponed to May. However, the label aimed to release it in September that year, but the album was postponed again. Because of constant delays within 1997, Minogue's Australian label, Mushroom, released six album tracks: "Some Kind of Bliss", "Too Far", "Say Hey", "Limbo", "I Don't Need Anyone", and "Did It Again" on a sampler CD; these six tracks were promoted through radio formats in both Australia and New Zealand. Following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in August 1997, Deconstruction announced a temporary postponement of the album in the UK and Europe, as they were in negotiations to change the title of Impossible Princess, and possible material. As a result, the label distributed a promotional cassette tape that included the tracks: "Cowboy Style", "Through the Years", "Breathe", "Jump", "Drunk", and "I Don't Need Anyone". On 22 October 1997, Minogue's distribution label, Sony BMG, released the album in Japan, which featured the bonus track, "Tears", alongside a lenticular jacket artwork and four post cards that included images from the album's photoshoot. Deconstruction distributed the album the following month in Russia and Poland as a CD and a cassette tape.

On 12 January 1998, the standard edition of Impossible Princess was distributed in Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. The Japanese release, which was manufactured in Australia, included the lenticular cover, whilst it was its first appearance in Australasia. On 28 March, it was issued in Europe and the United Kingdom and featured both the standard cover or the lenticular artwork. A cassette tape was issued in the UK, five days before its initial release. The following month, Sony BMG distributed it as a cassette tape in Malaysia, whilst the standard edition with new artwork was released in Taiwan. An American and Canadian release was in the talks between Deconstruction and other labels in those regions, but after the commercial failure in Europe, Minogue's label pulled the idea. Impossible Princess was remastered and re-released by Festival Mushroom in Australia and New Zealand, and BMG for European and UK regions, as a double CD album on 23 May 2003; the first disc featured the standard track list, whilst a bonus disc featured remixes and three unreleased recordings. The album's final re-release format was issued in Japan on 26 November that same year.

Singles

Four official singles and one promotional single spawned from Impossible Princess. The first was "Some Kind of Bliss", released in Europe and Australasia on 8 September 1997. The song received mixed reviews from most music critics upon it release, whom criticized Minogue's transition from pop to rock music. In retrospect, it has attracted positive reviews and has been noted as a "lost classic". Commercially, it reached the top 40 in Australia and the UK, whilst peaking at number 46 on the New Zealand Singles Chart. The following single, "Did It Again", was released on 24 November 1997. It achieved better critical and commercial success in Australia and the UK, reaching the top 20 in both record charts. In the former region, it was certified Gold by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) for physical shipments of 35,000 units. "Breathe" was released as the album's third single, on 9 March 1998. It achieved moderate impact on the charts, and peaked at number 23 in Australia and inside the top 20 in the UK. "Cowboy Style", the album's fourth and final official single, was distributed by Mushroom in Australia on 18 August; it was not released in the UK due to Minogue's leave with Deconstruction. Because limited quantities of the single were issued, the track managed to chart for a sole week at number 39 on their regional top 50. The album's only promotional recording, "Too Far", was at first considered to be the lead single but was scrapped. A 12" vinyl was issued in the UK and US, which included two tracks, but did not chart in either territories.

Critical reception

Upon release, it received a polarized response from music critics. British author Sean Baker, who wrote a biography detailing Minogue's life and career, noticed that the reception in Australia, America and New Zealand was received "better than the UK". Ben Willmott from British magazine NME rated it four points out of 10, and criticized the producers, especially the collaborations with James Dean Bradfield. Willmott wrote that Minogue was a "total fraud" for introducing new musical genres into the album that were disparate from her previous work. Likewise, a member from Music Week was critical towards the production and the album's repetitious nature, but commended her vocal performance.

An editor at Q magazine awarded the album two stars out of five, making it Minogue's lowest ranking studio album through their magazine reviews. However, John Mangan from Australia's The Age newspaper commended the diversity of genres and her songwriting skills, saying "Impossible Princess sounds right and constitutes another step in the right direction." Similarly, an editor at Who magazine complimented the mixture of sounds and production. The review also pointed out Minogue's vocals, saying "Vocally, Kylie has never sounded better or more human. Her phrasing here is unique." In conclusion, Who said "Impossible Princess –Kylie's sixth studio album– is the best, most complete work of her career." The Herald Sun's Cameron Adams awarded it three stars out of four, and listed it as his CD of the Week. He favored the singles as the best tracks, but also said, "Impossible Princess is her best yet, the classey, personal pop album she has always threatened."

Michael Dwyer, writing for the Western Mail highlighted the "club-dance" tracks as the better cuts, whilst stating "Impossible Princess' range of styles approaches and collaborators makes it as hard as ever to say just who is making progress here, but progress it most assuredly is." Michael R. Smith from The Daily Vault graded the album A–, and called it her "biggest step forward". Chris True of AllMusic awarded the album four stars out of five, and labelled it a "pretty damn good record". He believed that "Unlike Minogue's early work, this album sounds stronger and has a more natural feel. Her songwriting abilities have come a long way, and Impossible Princess actually flows together as an album." Slant Magazine editor Sal Cinquemani awarded it four stars and was impressed with the album's "starkly personal and unified cord", saying Impossible Princess "is the work of an artist willing to take risks, not a pop queen concerned with preserving her reign." Cinquemani added it to the staff choices of their Vital Pop: 50 Essential Pop Albums lists.

Awarding four stars, Nick Levine from Digital Spy commended the amount of different genres and Minogue's songwriting and production, alongside the help with Rob Dougan, Steve Anderson and others. Although he noticed the material's lack of commercial appeal, he concluded, "Brave, revealing and rarely less than surprising, it's a key piece in the trickier-than-you-think jigsaw puzzle that is Kylie Minogue's recording career." Larry Flick from American magazine Billboard described the album as "stunning", concluding that "it's a golden commercial opportunity for a major record company with vision and energy to release it in the United States...". While reviewing her tenth album X (2007), Evan Sawdey from PopMatters commented "For those who still have a copy of her Manic Street Preachers-assisted Impossible Princess, then you have one of the most crazed, damn-near perfect dance-pop albums ever created."

Commercial performance

Commercially, the album experienced success on the Australian Albums Chart. It debuted at number four on 25 January 1998, the highest debuting album by an Australian female artist of the year. It stalled at number eight during its second and third week, but fell outside the top ten in its fourth. By 26 April, the album had spent 14 weeks in the chart and was placed at number 48, before leaving the chart. When Minogue promoted the album with live shows, alongside the announcement of a national tour, Impossible Princess re-entered the charts on 10 May at number 40. Whilst embarking her Intimate and Live tour in June, it entered the top ten for three non-consecutive weeks between the months June–July. In total, the album was present for 35 weeks in the top 50, making this Minogue's longest charting album at the time until her following studio album, Light Years, spent 41 weeks in the top 50 chart. The album was certified Platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) for physical shipments of 70,000 units.

In the UK and Scotland regions, Impossible Princess made minor impact on the record charts. It debuted at number 10 on the UK Albums Chart, making it Minogue's lowest charting debut in that region but the third highest debuting album of that week. It fell to number 22 the following week, and again to number 41, making it Minogue's only studio album to not have survived more than one week inside the top 10; its final charting position was at 70. However, it entered the chart again during the start of May 1998, at number 91. In a similar run, the album also charted at number 10 on the Scottish Albums Chart, her lowest performance in that region. The album's lack of success in the UK and Europe, led British publications to recognize it as Minogue's worst-selling studio album in those regions, was noted for the lack of promotional activity such as touring and live performances, alongside constant delays and title changes. After a year of release, UK Virgin Radio mocked the album sales, stating: "We've done something to improve Kylie's records: we've banned them."

Promotion and live performance

Deconstruction and Minogue held a release party at Tower Records, United Kingdom in March 1998. Minogue embarked on a promotional concert tour, where she travelled to Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong through October 1997; it was her first time in both New Zealand and Hong Kong. After the album's European release in 1998, she expanded the locations to Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands. To promote the singles from the album, she appeared on several television shows such as the UK channels Top of the Pops, the National Lottery Show, amongst others. However, because the album had not been released in the UK at the time, and the album was "selling better" in Australia, she performed several album tracks on television shows such as Hey Hey It's Saturday and MTV Australia. Although she did not perform any album tracks, she promoted the album's release at the 1998 Mardi Gras ceremony in Sydney, Australia, where she performed "Better the Devil You Know" and the Leonard Bernstein cover "Somewhere".

In May 1998, she announced her Intimate and Live concert tour, which commenced on 2 June at the Palais Theatre in Melbourne, Australia that same year. She initially finished the tour in Melbourne again on 4 July, but extended it to three more performances in London, due to high demand. The concert tour attracted positive reviews from publications, praising the idea of a smaller venue concert tour, alongside her vocals and stage presence. Each concert had drawn in approximately 2,000 audience members in Australia, and was deemed a commercial success by publications. To promote the concert tour, an accompanying live album and DVD were released on 30 November and 23 July 2003, and was shot at Capitol Theatre, Sydney.

Impact

According to Minogue's website, the album was widely recognized by critics as her "most experimental and personal effort to date...". The album has been included on several lists of the most underrated albums, including from publications such as Flavorwire, Slant Magazine and Faster Louder. Alongside this, Impossible Princess was nominated for Album of the Year at the 1998 ARIA Music Awards, her first nomination in that category, but lost to Unit by Regurgitator. It was further nominated for Best Pop Release and for Best Female Musician, losing both out to Australian recording artist Natalie Imbruglia. For the following year, Minogue was nominated for Single of the Year for "Did It Again" and Best Female Artist. Larrisa Dubecki, writing for The Age, felt the album was one of the key re-inventions of her career.

Impossible Princess received heavy backlash during its initial release from her fan base, whom did not appreciate Minogue's move into indie music and electronica. Another aspect was the musical and lyrical similarities between Impossible Princess and the album Ray of Light (1998) by American recording artist Madonna; Michael R. Smith from Daily Vault believed that Minogue's entry "deserved a better fate." Another issue according to Minogue's long-term friend, British fashion designer William Baker, was the fact that the management of her label Deconstruction were not present a majority of the time to access the record or promote it properly. Because of these factors, the sales of Impossible Princess were lower than her previous efforts, and has since become as her lowest selling studio album in the UK. In response to this, Minogue contemplated retirement from the music industry but decided to part from Deconstruction and Sony BMG in December 1998. Signing to Parlophone in 2000, she released her studio album Light Years that same year to positive critique; according to The Guardian's Tim Jonze, the latter release saved her career. Michael Paoletta from Billboard said that Impossible Princess is the most misunderstood album in her career.

In an interview with British magazine NME in 2008, she commented that if she ever wrote another album solely by herself, "it'd be seen as Impossible Princess 2". She did admit that she does not intend to do this in the future because she may fear it "would be equally critiqued" as Impossible Princess. In October 2012, Minogue revealed that her most disappointing career moment was Impossible Princess, saying "look at Impossible Princess - it didn't exactly sell truckloads of albums!" In an interview with website Pop Cultured in 2015, she confirmed that she would not release an "Impossible Princess 2" in the future.

Track listing

Notes

Additional releases

Personnel

Credits adapted from the CD liner notes of Impossible Princess: