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" &amp;quot;What&amp;#039;s the point in living if you don&amp;#039;t wanna dance?&amp;quot; asks Kylie on one of the standout tracks from her new album. It&amp;#039;s a quintessential Minogue lyric and one that neatly encapsulates the return to core values that is Aphrodite - the little Aussie pop rocket&amp;#039;s eleventh studio set and her first since 2007&amp;#039;s disappointing, disjointed and ultimately dismissed X. Steps have been taken to ensure those first two dis(s)es don&amp;#039;t apply here. Although Aphrodite features contributions from a veritable Brits afterparty of hitmaking talent - Calvin Harris, Jake Shears, Nerina Pallot, Tim Rice-Oxley, Starsmith, the list goes on - the album as a whole has been &amp;quot;executive produced&amp;quot; by Stuart Price, a man who could now cause a stampede at the bottom of Old Compton Street merely by letting his address book slip out of his pocket. The slew of co-writing, additional production and mixing credits he earns here are reflected in a record that benefits from a similar sense of sonic cohesion to 2001&amp;#039;s Fever. In fact, Aphrodite could almost be too cohesive, with several tracks seeming to disappear into one another on first listen. However, after a few plays distinguishing sonic details do begin to appear - the nods towards the RedOne sound on &amp;#039;Get Outta My Way&amp;#039;, the Italo disco-inspired chorus of &amp;#039;Closer&amp;#039;, the rock guitars that underpin &amp;#039;Cupid Boy&amp;#039;, the appropriately celestial synth strings of &amp;#039;Looking For An Angel&amp;#039; - and standout tracks assert themselves. And what gorgeous, glittery standouts they are. Harris&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;Too Much&amp;#039; goes off like firework over Sydney Opera House, &amp;#039;Better Than Today&amp;#039; is as uplifting a dance-pop ditty as we&amp;#039;re likely to hear all year, and next single &amp;#039;Get Outta My Way&amp;#039; finds Minogue ditching her dullard boyfriend for the delights of the dancefloor. Toppermost of the poppermost is the brilliant title track. When Minogue sings, &amp;quot;I am the only one to make you feel this way,&amp;quot; on the middle 8, it&amp;#039;s difficult not to pump your fist in the air and shout, &amp;quot;Amen to that sista!&amp;quot; (Only Dannii is actually permitted to do so.) This all adds up to an utterly charming, consistently danceable electro-disco album that&amp;#039;s Minogue&amp;#039;s best effort since, well, Fever. Deep? No way Andres, but Aphrodite sure ain&amp;#039;t dumb either. It&amp;#039;s a record to be played as the sun sets on a secluded Mediterranean beach with a cocktail in your hand, a bowl of olives at your fingertips and a lifetime&amp;#039;s worth of wistful-yet-optimistic thoughts in your head. That it can evoke those feelings on a muggy morning in a sticky office backing onto the Oxford Street branch of Primark is a testament to its success - oh, and a little thing called The Kylie Effect, of course.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/music/album-reviews/review/a250946/kylie-minogue-aphrodite/>