Flashback Friday: Kylie Minogue - In Your Eyes | Kylie gives J-Pop the Fever

Kylie Minogue came back in 2000 with the Paula Abdul penned “Spinning Around”, which saw Kylie embracing her pop roots after going through a period in her career where she seemed to be doing everything to distance herself from them. She was met with weak sales, some negative responses and caught the flop office HQ door to the face. But after some time out of the limelight, Kylie saw sense and realised that she's a pop ho through and through, and ain't nothing wrong with that. And thankfully for us all, she chose to run with it.

But it wasn't until Kylie’s album Fever in 2001 where she truly hit her stride. Kylie's sound, branding and aesthetic as we know it to be now truly took form, and Kylie never once looked back.

I could do a whole post on Kylie’s Fever album. One of Kylie’s strongest and most consistent albums, which had the perfect single choices and her best videos. But for now I'm going to focus on one song from it.

Everybody fucked with “Can’t Get You Out of My Head”. But I was always about “In Your Eyes”. One of my favourite Kylie Minogue songs within a discography which has many a great pop song that I like.

Kylie had gone through a couple of transitions over the course of her career, leading up to this moment. We’d gotten a Kylie 2.0. A Kylie 3.0. And even a Kylie 4.0. But “In Your Eyes” was the perfect representation of Kylie. It was what she should have always been and as she should be.

“In Your Eyes” was a great snapshot of Kylie’s Fever album as a whole. Danceable pop songs with a club vibe and a disco edge. A look which is sexy and retro, yet futuristic without running the risk of looking dated in 20 years when future becomes present. Everything was in perfect balance. It was on the likes of “In Your Eyes” that Kylie would base the foundations for the new phase of her career that she'd entered from this point on.

Fever wouldn’t have much of a ripple effect in terms of influence in the US or across Europe, but it certainly did in Japan. I’d previously written about three music videos that ripped off Kylie Minogue, two of which are from the same album that graced us with “In Your Eyes”. But J-Pop would also produce two albums which sounded hella like Kylie Minogue. Game and Supreme show.

When I first heard Perfume’s Game, it immediately reminded me of Kylie Minogue in her Fever phase. Particularly “Take Me, Take Me” and “Secret, Secret”. You can sing the chorus of Kylie Minogue’s "Can’t Get You Out of My Head” over the refrain of “Secret, Secret” and it fits perfectly. Some of the note progressions in the music are even similar. 

The sound of Kylie’s Fever wasn't anything brand new. It wasn't as original and incomparable as say, the sound that Timbaland had crafted for Missy Elliott, or The Neptunes had crafted for Kelis. But it was presented in a way that made it feel exclusive to Kylie at that time. So when I heard Game, Kylie is who immediately came to mind. After being blacklisted from the whole of Japan for 8 years, Ami Suzuki made her comeback in 2008 with her album Supreme Show. Album cuts “Ten“ and “Can't Stop The Disco” could easily have been joints on Fever. The latter of which had a music video which completely ripped off one of Kylie Minogue's. And the music video for “Free Fre” bears many similarities to that of “In Your Eyes”, as well as a bit of “Spinning Around”.

It’s no coincidence that both Perfume’s Game and Ami Suzuki’s Supreme Show were produced by the same person: Yasutaka Nakata. And whilst Nakata has gone on record to say that he doesn't really listen to popular music, it’s hard to believe that he had never heard anything of Kylie Minogue. Especially considering that he ended up remixing two of her songs. Once upon a time I would have loved for Nakata to have produced an album for Kylie. But with his sound in the toilet and Kylie on her white ho-down shit, I can’t see it happening. I say that like those are the ONLY two reasons why they'd never work together.

Anyway. Go listen to Fever is you haven't done so already. And I so want Kylie Minogue to be a runway theme in a season of RuPaul's Drag Race and for “In Your Eyes” to be a lip sync song choice. Bring a bitch on as a judge too. Ya'll had Olivia Newton-John.