[.ca] Minogue, Kylie

Worth it for the performance of "Confide In Me":
Very stylish, impressively coreographed, well performed, pretty much what you'd expect from someone of Kylie's tenure and stature. My favorite CD has always been "Kylie Minogue," and the extended performance of that album's "Confide In Me" is the show-stopper here. Quite a few people discovered (or re-discovered, after "Locomotion") her music with the "Fever" CD, but the value of a concert DVD such as this (and "Kylie Live In Sydney") is that it exposes the hidden gems in her catalogue. She's frequently dismissed as being "lightweight," but this is one entertaining and creative effort that will stand up to repeated viewings.

Let Kylie be Kylie!:
Kylie's Fever is a techno departure from her amazing Sydney show (on DVD). In the Sydney show, Kylie was Kylie. The Fever show adds an extra layer of gloss, technology, and production values that dwarf Kylie, and get between her and the audience. (Show planners call the sets "minimalist"... in a way that Albert Speer architecture was "minimalist"). Fever is not unlike when Bob Dylan went electric to go to a new level... or when San Francisco mime Jacques Enzebachs added narration to his miming ("I'm pulling a rope..."). Dylan was booed. And Jaques' patrons started *taking* coins from his hat.... The POINT is that Kylie and her team have tried to do too much with Fever. Kylie moves robotically and poses Stepford style; making the super-warm performer come off brrrr cold. Sort of... okay, colder than her normal super-warm. Get Live in Sydney first. Then get Fever too, as it *is* Kylie. Some high points: Her costumes, the b-boy and Keith Haring inspired hip hop ("Slim Lady") number... sort of a like super-cute Debbie Harry from "Rapture." And... a big plus -- Kylie looks better than ever. Five stars against most any other dvd. This one just doesn't measure up to the high standards set by Sydney.

From Sydney to Manchester...4 Stars Lost Along The Way:
The "Live in Sydney" DVD remains one of my all-time favorite concerts, and gets regular play. The "Live in Manchester" DVD has had its one and only...and a fast-forward one at that. After an interesting opening 2 minutes, I found the rest (save for Chapter 10) difficult to watch. The "let's look at everything from all angles at the same time" editing was tiresome and visually nauseating, and made the uninspired and repetitive choreography impossible to watch (perhaps a blessing in disguise). The dancers (costume, hair, and make-up included) belonged on the set of "Night of the Living Dead"...not a Kylie concert. I've never seen such an ill-conceived and poorly executed effort of this magnitude. A lot of talented people were involved in producing this dud. Someone should have had the guts to speak-up. I'll burn the edited audio to CD and toss the disc. 1 star is generous...this one is a black hole.

Awesome Concert:
This concert DVD is amazing. I love putting it on even when I am just working around the house. Buying this DVD made me want to see Kylie live in concert someday and I have now completed that goal by seeing her on her KylieX2008 tour. Buy this DVD and you won't be disappointed.

An over-the-top, unoriginal, and derivative "spectacle".:
It was good fun to watch only in the aspect that it is entertainment value for the feeble-minded, but most of all there's no getting away from the fact that some people would buy this DVD for the purpose of having a good chuckle. To see Ms Minogue desperately hop on trends and fill up her show with the latest technology is funny, but it doesn't distract from the fact that she cannot sing, cannot dance and has nothing much else to offer musically, but that doesn't really matter. Nevermind that it was hilariously ludicrous in parts, for example, Ms Minogue is lowered to the stage as some "cyborg" is like a comedy sketch in itself and Kylie tries to "rap" just like Eminem but in a juvenile manner. So it works unintentionally where it's not really supposed to, although I'm sure its the reaction Ms Minogue doesn't really want or expect, but it would be tragic if anyone took this show seriously, the main aim is to "have fun" and never to question anything that Kylie does. The only real criticisms I have is that theres too much going on visually, the screen projections are just too much and there's not enough real substance to the show, it seems uneven. Like some bits are good, and somewhere in the middle its average and there's some toe curlingly embarrasing and cringeworthy moments added in there for good measure too, but what does one expect?? this is Ms Minogue afterall, you aren't going to get much and shouldn't expect anything on the level of genius. The other criticism I have is that it takes too much from Madonna's 2001 Drowned World Tour, it's very obvious that Ms Minogue has studied this show rather in-depthly and has used ideas to fill up her own show, for example the "segment" of Kylie up on a video screen as a Geisha during a costume change is far too simular to Madonna's segment, it seems too much of a coincedence if Kylie didn't copy, but this is where she usually falls down, in the past she's been accused one too many times of copying, she should be aware of this accusation, it just makes her look unoriginal and could work against her. Kylie needs to bring something of her own to the table and pioneer her own ideas rather than relying on others' ideas to form her own shows going the tried and tested route isn't always considered an admirable move.