The Inside Splinters Mixtape [#580]
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The Inside Splinters Mixtape [#580]

KYLIE’S INTO THE BLUE
The brand new Kylie Minogue single is here and it is safe, safe, safe. There seems to be a cloud of controversy surrounding the release of ‘Into the Blue’ as well, with many online claiming Kylie plagiarised fellow Australian songstress Delta Goodrem’s ‘Sitting on Top of the World’. But THEN AGAIN, Delta HERSELF copped claims of plagiarism when she released ‘Sitting on Top of the World’ last year, after claims Goodrem had actually stolen the riff and melody (the same one Kylie’s used!) from Arcade Fire’s ‘Rebellion (Lies)’. Amazingly, when asked about it, Delta’s response was so flawless she may as well have said ‘I’ve never even heard of Arcade Fire’. Will Kylie take the same approach?
The song itself is breezy, quite Classic Kylie and exactly the kind of thing Australian radio should lap up entirely. The video – in which Kylie essentially re-enacts a night in the life of Girls Aloud’s Sarah Harding – sees Minogue traipsing around the town, club-hopping with her beau-for-hire and getting up to bedroom shenanigans, all whilst squeezed into a gold cocktail dress that looks like it was made from the leftover ‘Spinning Around’ hotpants material.
The new album, called Kiss Me Once, is released later this year, and whilst ‘Into the Blue’ is fun, it’s not the groundbreaking pop moment some had perhaps been hoping for. That’s still not to say the album itself won’t be great: Sia is the Executive Producer, and with Roc Nation – Jay-Z’s label – behind Kylie for this project, it’s probably a no-brainer to think that a song called ‘Sexercise’ (oh yes!) will be anything but terrible.
‘Into the Blue’ has – surprisingly – grown on me with each repeated listen. It seems to take all of the bits we’ve liked about The Kylie Single™ in the past and thrown it all together to make this summery, mid-tempo pop monster that, lyrically, doesn’t allow Kylie to play the victim. It should also be noted that it’s nice to see the switch to Roc Nation hasn’t disrupted her legacy.
‘Skirt’, the song Kylie unleashed on to us last year without any much-needed warning, was an actual nightmare to sit through, thanks to Kylie taking to the much recycled “genre” of dubstep with dismal results. ‘Skirt’ came with a good chorus, but it wasn’t good enough to save the song, a dire experiment in a sound that has well and truly overstayed its welcome.
Whilst we all want Kylie to experiment with her sound, dubstep is not the direction forward, and although ‘Blue’ plays it safer than a children’s crossing, there are surely bigger, brighter pop moments yet to be lifted off this upcoming album – and we’re hoping for more Impossible Princess/KM94 experiments rather than the ‘pandering to a certain age-group’ sounds of ‘Skirt’. We’ll keep you posted as soon as we hear any of the other new tracks…
GAGA ANNOUNCES NEXT SINGLE
The next single to be lifted off Lady Gaga’s excellent 2013 album ARTPOP will be the ferocious ‘G.U.Y.’. Gaga spent most of last week filming the video for it and, thanks to the internet, photos from the set have emerged online. Judging by those shots, we at Splinters are expecting something on the scale of ‘Bad Romance’ for this – one of the absolute mightiest songs from an album full of them.
SNEAKY SOUND SYSTEM RETURN!
Aussie nightclub-and-pop-culture legends Sneaky Sound System are back, whetting our appetites for their fourth studio album with a feature-spot alongside US EDM outfit The Knocks. The track, aptly titled ‘The One’, is being released on February 18th through Neon Gold and will feature on the US duo’s upcoming EP Comfortable.
The track welds together the French House-stylings of the early naughties with minor splashings of the true-and-tried EDM formula of this current decade. Thankfully, ‘The One’ refrains from clamouring itself into your ears with an abundance of the unavoidable EDM noise the genre delivered in 2013, and the marriage of these luscious house grooves with Miss Connie’s silky-smooth and flawless vocal makes for the first truly Big Dance Bomb of 2014. This also marks the first taste of new music from the iconic Aussie duo since 2011’s groundbreaking ‘From Here to Anywhere’. Miss Connie and Black Angus – Welcome Back! We’ve been expecting you!
SOUND YOUR KLAXON AND RAVE LIKE IT’S 2006: THE KLAXONS ARE BACK.
It’s been close to four years since British indie darlings the Klaxons have sounded off their, er, Klaxon, on to the unsuspecting public, but with the overnight release of their latest single ‘There Is No Other Time’, that’s very swiftly changed. Hopping on to the proverbial saddle with UK production team Gorgon City has proven to be a move of visionary proportions, slamming forth the most 100 per cent, unashamedly POP tune from the group to date, swapping the Nu Rave of their previous releases for the classic rave of disco and ’90’s-tinged piano house.
Gorgon City are not the only producers of note to be hauled in for service by the Klaxons, with James Murphy (LCD Soundsystem), Chemical Brothers and dance music genius Erol Alkan all being linked to the production of the band’s follow-up to their 2010 album, Surfing the Void.
Written by Adem Ali