The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

Minogue is a great artist, but artistically she’s not exactly up there with the musical legends that made Abbey Road so well-known, such as the Beatles and Pink Floyd. One wonders how on earth she ended up at the studio to begin with.

The fact that she has the guts to make an album like this is commendable, but unfortunately it also makes one thing crystal clear: she doesn’t really have the voice to pull this off. In most songs she is audibly straining to hit the high notes and her voice is often not full enough to withstand the grand orchestral arrangements.

And it’s not only the quality of her voice that poses an issue here, it’s also the sound: Minogue’s high-pitched, squeaky, girly voice does not quite suit the new jazzy arrangements her songs have been dressed in. To say that Minogue’s voice ruins the album would be an exaggeration, but this would have been a fantastic record if the songs had been sung by a better vocalist. Now it just fills you with vicarious shame at times.

For one of Minogue’s oldest hits, ‘I Should Be So Lucky’, the new dress fits really well. The tune becomes far more dramatic now that it’s supported by strings instead of a bobbing beat, and because the new composition is not vocally challenging, Minogue really shines.

‘Where the Wild Roses Grow’, a duet with Nick Cave that will forever be known as the song that boosted Minogue’s hipster credit, has a very sparse arrangement that makes it lose most of its intensity. With the original being as haunting and disturbing as it is, one can’t help but think that, with all the extra instrumentation that was available, this song could have been made into something much bigger.