Kylie’s subsequent signing with
DeConstruction Records was highly touted in the music media as the beginning of a new phase in her career, but the eponymous
Kylie minogue album in 1994 received mixed reviews. It sold
2,500 000 copies worldwide, and the single
Confide In Me spent five weeks at number one in Australia. Subsequent singles,
Put Yourself in My Place and
Where Is the Feeling? were top twenty hits in the UK.
Australian artist Nick Cave had been interested in working with Minogue since hearing Better The Devil You know, saying it contained ‘one of pop music’s most violent and distressing lyrics’ and ‘when Kylie minogue sings these words, there is an innocence to her that makes the horror of this chilling lyric all the more compelling’. Where the Wild Roses Grow in 1995 was a brooding ballad whose lyrics marrated a murder from the points of view of both, the murderer (Cave), and his victim (Minogue). Its success demonstrated that minogue could be accepted outside of her established genre as a pop artist.
By 1997 Minogue was in a relationship with the French photographer Stephane Sednaoui, who described her as a combination ‘geisha and manga superheroine’. He began taking photographs of her that downplayed her glamour, with the aim of attracting a more rocky and discerning audience, and she drew inspiration from artist such as Shirley Manson of Garbage, Bjork, Tricky and U2, and Japanese pop musicians such as Pizzicato Five and Towa Tei.
Impossible Princess featured collaborations with musician such as James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore of the Manic Street Preachers, and Kylie contributed the majority of lyrics. Largely a dance album, its style was not represented by its first single,
Some Kind of Bliss.
It became the lowest-selling album of her career in the UK, but was her highest-selling album in Australia since her debut, whith sales boosted highly by a successful live tour. In reviewing her show, The Times wrote of her ability to ‘mask her thin, often nondescript voice with musical diversity and brittle charisma and genuinely great pop songs by any standard’. Live album recorded during her tour, entitled Intimate and Live, was successful in Australia also.
