Artist: Kylie Minogue
Song: “New York City”
Album: Step Back In Time: The Definitive Collection (Due in stores June 28th)

While 2019 is steadily proving to be one of Kylie Minogue’s busiest years so far, the iconic songstress is positively booked solid next month. In addition to her gracing the Glastonbury Festival stage on June 30th, Minogue is also set to unleash a two-disc, multi-format singles compilation appropriately titled Step Back In Time: The Definitive Collection two days ahead of her “legends slot” gig.

As with most of her antecedent hits packages, Minogue usually includes an incentive single to entice the record buying public—in this instance, it’s the shimmering floorfiller “New York City.” A cosmopolitan club number comprised of throwback freestyle accents and modish digitized dance-pop funk in equal measure, it’s a leggy jam or “bop” meant to satiate those that weren’t too keen on the experimental guitar-pop arc of last year’s Golden LP.

And while there is nothing technically wrong with “New York City” in its pristine studio incarnation, it does lack that authentic four-on-the-floor songcraft that made it such a stunner when Minogue debuted it in performance for the “Golden Tour” concerts in 2018.

“New York City” reflects a larger conundrum Minogue has faced in the last 15 years—whether or not to solely make dance-pop tracks versus pop songs. In its original form, “New York City” showed that Minogue could do both as she combined live band elements with contemporary technology to yield something accessible for her dancefloor faithful, while not alienating the broader pop constituency she’s developed too. Her forthcoming “best of” set that “New York City” dwells upon confirms that she’s made a career of balancing her discothèque proclivities and her larger musical appetites; this suggests then that a portion of her base may need to evolve with the singer-songwriter instead of trying to constrict her to one genre space.

As it stands, “New York City” is a functional and fun effort, though one hopes it isn’t a sign of total retreat from the artistic furtherance Minogue embraced with Golden.

Editor’s Note: Read more about Harrison’s perspective on Kylie Minogue’s discography in his forthcoming book, ‘Record Redux: Kylie Minogue,’ available November 2019. His current books ‘Record Redux: Spice Girls,’ ‘Record Redux: Carly Simon,’ 'Record Redux: ‘Donna Summer’ and ‘Record Redux: Madonna’ are available physically and digitally now.

SEE Kylie Minogue on tour | Dates

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