Kylie Minogue takes us to her realm of Infinite Disco

With Miss Corona's Contamination world tour ruling 2020, and with new dates added for 2021, and probably 2022 with the way she's gone diamond in the US and platinum in the UK - live tours are a no go this year. So artists have been getting creative with home setups for performances and selling tickets for online shows instead. 

With Kylie being Kylie, she said 'No bitch. I am not sitting in my living room with black sheets and Christmas lights behind me whilst I sing to an instrumental of "Say Something". I'mma give these homosexuals a fucking show'. So we got Infinite Disco. A one hour performance which saw Kylie taking us through her new album Disco, with a full blown stage setup, dancers, backing singers and live versions of songs.

The timing of Infinite Disco was surprising, because it was the day after she had released her album. But it was also clever. Because of course her fans were gonna know every damn song on the album within 24 hours of its release. It was a cool way to bring the album to life. It's really not that different from Beyoncé releasing visual companions to her albums on the same day.

One thing Kylie doesn't get enough props for outside of her fanbase is how much of a show-woman she is. Every tour that Kylie has held has been fun to watch, and Infinite Disco is no different. The whole entire thing was A PRODUCTION. The fact that Kylie and her team not only managed to get an album  recorded whilst in lockdown, but also prepare for a full blown is astounding. I don't know how a bitch did it, but she did. It's an amazing accomplishment.

Those who have seen a Kylie show before know what a firecracker the pint-sized star can be, and that in the midst of everything going on around her, she still manages to be the focus. Even with her Les Folies Tour, where the entire thing was basically Greek hedonism brought to life with acrobatics, fountains, gold statues, Kylie riding a gold horse, and the damn acropolis rebuilt on stage, Kylie was always what held your attention. But, sometimes the extravagance on stage can be a bit overwhelming. At least for me. Infinite Disco was a far simpler affair than you might be used to from a longform Kylie performance, but it didn't feel like there was this massive void or a giant part of the production missing. There was still a lot to distract, especially if you're a lights and graphics whore like I am. But even so, I still couldn't take my eyes off of Kylie.

First of all, she looked great. Her outfit was stunning. Not only was it on theme, but it looked great on camera in all manner of different lighting setups, and when the lasers hit it. But it was Kylie's energy that shone the brightest. She was a joy to watch because she just seemed so damn happy to be performing and putting on a show. It was like watching the release of a year of stress recording an album and putting a show together during a pandemic. She just let it all go.

Ever since Golden it's seemed like Kylie has been on a mission of subtraction, at the realisation of how she can hold a show with very little when your creative team is THAT good and your catalog is stacked, as Kylie's are. Infinite Disco felt like the full realisation of this; delivering an experience which is scaled down from her usual, but still on brand and still displaying the passion she has for putting on a show.

Kylie has a massive 30 year spanning discography which is full of hits, rarities and deep cuts that fans adore. So I can only imagine what a bitch it is trying to put a setlist for her tours together - trying to keep a particular album as the focus, whilst still including a sizeable amount of fan favourites from other albums. Infinite Disco was pretty ruthless when it came to the setlist. Kylie and her music team were not generous with the inclusion of older songs, which was a very welcomed thing. It showed Kylie's belief in her current material, and a willingness to not rely on "I Should Be So Lucky", "Better the Devil You Know" and other cuts from earlier in her career which are guaranteed to receive alot of love. And given that Disco, is well...disco, there is a clear theme which allows Kylie and her music director to keep things even tighter; choosing to only include non-Disco cuts which already fall under disco, or remixing ones that don't into ones that do - and she does a bit of both. "Light Years" and "In Your Eyes" didn't need to be touched at all, but they were revamped completely. And a song like "Slow" which has a very distinct vibe to it, was transformed into a Donna Summer-esque jaunt with a mashup of one of her oft-sampled and covered hits "Love to Love You Baby". Fans will no doubt want these versions of songs released to streaming. 

If Kylie is planning a tour, then her team will have a field day transforming some of her songs into disco cuts, because you can feel the labour of love in some of the Infinite Disco remixes and revisions. And it's probably another reason why the setlist is so tight, so they can then bloat it for a live tour in a couple of years time. By which point it'd probably make more sense to make it more about Kylie's broader catalog with a disco theme running across the entire thing. Many of Kylie's tours include disco segments anyway, so it would make sense for her to just do a full blown tour with a disco theme now she has the album.

But I couldn't help but notice the omission of certain songs which would have been perfect for this show. "Spinning Around" for one. I know Kylie is probably sick to fucking death of this song. (Gurl, same). But it was such an obvious song to include in a disco themed show, that it's lack of inclusion was noticeable. And whilst everybody is going to have their own opinions on what songs should and shouldn't have made the cut, for me there are others which seemed like no brainers. "Step Back In Time", "I Believe In You", "Please Stay", "Wow" and "Can't Beat The Feeling". And then there was the setlist order, which didn't flow all that well. Kylie usually segments her shows into sections, but that didn't seem as clear here. The second half of the show being Studio 54-centirc was very distinct. But everything before that just melded into one. It all looked great. But there was no sense of theme between the visuals and the setlist, especially in the middle. Everything was strong up until "Supernova", then it all started to lose steam and feel a bit random.

The setlist order felt like it was put together for a live tour, with points at which there would be a costume change or an intermission to separate them. But because there wasn't, the sudden change of vibe felt strange. For instance, going from a banger like "Supernova" into a slow dance number like "Dance Floor Darling". Yes, I know the album does the same thing, but it made no sense there either. A rousing rendition of "Say Something" complete with a gospel choir (which should have been the encore instead of "Magic") into something seductive like "Real Groove". Going from the slinky Donna Summer enthused "Slow" / "Love To Love You Baby" into the Animal Crossing, K.K. Disco ass sounding "Monday Blues". It was strange.

And there were instances where transitions and mashups (which at least made obvious sense to me) weren't utilised. Kylie's shows are usually ones for slick transitions and mashups, but there were so few of them here. A "Last Chance" and ABBA "Voulez-Vous" should've been a given. A mix of "Dance Floor Darling" and Aphrodite's "Everything Is Beautiful" went over heads. Nobody thought that a "Where Does The DJ Go?" and "Spinning Around" mashup was a good idea!? There just didn't seem to be this finesse when it came to creating a sequence of songs which flowed right, and mashing up songs when it made so much sense to. The sequencing of the Disco album isn't all that great, and the Infinite Disco setlist pretty much mirrored it.

Infinite Disco was not a trip down memory lane in the way some of Kylie's other tours and performances are, which is absolutely fine. But even if you take the choices of non-Disco material which was performed out of the equation, the flow was still off.

Kylie Minogue has never been one to give you choreography, and instead leaves that up to her dancers. That is still very much the case for Infinite Disco, as she gives you very little here aside from a lil' Milly Rock. But the choreography that was given to the dancers left a whole fucking lot to be desired, because it rarely captured the energy of the songs. A banger like "Supernova" should have had the same energy as the original choreo for "In Your Eyes" but...it was just lots of nothing. "Where Does The DJ Go?" should've featured a full on Saturday Night Fever style routine, but instead just had dancers as couples chilling on the dancefloor, whilst Kylie just stood there as though she had no idea what was going on. Maybe that was a storyline moment or something that I'd missed. But it looked odd. I shoulda been seeing titties shaking. I don't get how the funkiest, most uptempo song, most disco-as-fuck song on the album got the most static performance. "Love At First Sight" just had everybody sat on the floor doing Patty Cake. I could go on, because I there was a single moment in Infinite Disco where there was good choreo. It was just plain bad. I'm absolutely flabbergasted at how a show with a disco theme had such little actual dancing. But props to the choreographer for giving us nothing.

The choreography issue also leads into the cinematography. For all I don't know there may have been some great choreo moments, but I sure as hell didn't see them. There were many instances of random shots and angles that made no sense and gave us the same nothing that the choreo gave. Like, why are we getting a shot of Kylie from behind singing into a black void where we can see the studio walls? The cinematography was a completely mixed bag. There are some gorgeous really shots in this show, and then moments which are bafflingly bad. The random shots, sometimes too busy editing, and disorienting camera moves that plagued the "Magic" music video is what you occasionally get with Infinite Disco.

There wasn't enough of an advantage taken of the fact that this wasn't a live televised performance in front of an audience, so there could have been more creativity with the shots and creating consistently perfect setups to frame. But instead we got this really patchy cinematography. Kylie, the lighting and the set deserved better.

Infinite Disco was a great showcase of Kylie. It was clearly for her fans, but it would also act as a great introduction to Kylie for those who are new to her, which is why it'd be a good look to eventually release the full show on a streaming platform like Netflix. Disco music is an acquired taste, for sure. But given the jubilance of Infinite Disco and how slick the whole thing looks, it's hard not to get sucked up in it all. 

I do wish that Kylie's team had taken greater advantage of the fact that this wasn't live though. It would have been cool to have gotten a couple of outfit changes, a different stage setup or two, or a segment where we just got a full choregraphed set piece with Kylie. This isn't a slight on the mammoth production that Infinite Disco was. Just that it's a shame a greater advantage wasn't taken with the opportunities which were granted.

Infinite Disco had some blips, but it was still fun and enjoyable. One thing that Kylie has become increasingly okay with is imperfection as long as it's driven by a feeling. And the feeling I got from Kylie watching Infinite Disco is that she's in a really good place and that she's grateful. Infinite Disco was more than a celebration of an album release. It was a celebration of Kylie's freedom and adoration for her craft, and an ability to still be able to share it. And for that alone, Infinite Disco was a triumph. Even if the technical bitch in me that picks shit apart would have liked to have seen a few things done a little differently. But this is Kylie's world of Infinite Disco. We're just paying an admission fee to visit it.