step back in time | step back in time

In the period after Kylie Minogue, Kylie entered the dark and mysterious "Indie Kylie" phase. Unfortunately, the public weren't ready for such a change to the fun-loving pop princess, and simply didn't accept Kylie's new material.

The long amount of time between Where is the Feeling? and Impossible Princess probably didn't help either. Originally scheduled for release in January 1997, the whole album was a collaboration between Kylie and the Brothers in Rhythm Steve Anderson and Dave Seaman. However, it was decided that Kylie should collaborate with more people, so the album's release was put back. Whether this was a good move or not will probably never be known. Kylie collaborated with, most famously, the Manic Street Preachers in addition to Ingo Vauk, from The Grid, and other lesser known writers and producers. The result was Impossible Princess, due to be released on September 22nd after the first single Some Kind of Bliss on September 8th (Kylie's preference for the first single was the Republica-sounding Limbo).

Some Kind of Bliss, a rocky-pop track written by the Manics, entered the UK chart at number 22, and dropped out of the chart the following week (b-sides Limbo and Love Takes Over Me, a track from the original version of the album).

The album's release date, however, was put back again. The official reason being Princess Diana's death at the end of August that year making the album's Impossible Princess title inappropriate and so making the reprinting of all album sleeves necessary. Whether this was the sole reason for album's name change is doubtful. The extremely poor performance of Some Kind of Bliss is more likely to blame.

The follow-up was Did It Again, whose video featured four Kylies, each depicting one of Kylie's "personas", invented by the media (b-side Tears). It faired slightly better than Some Kind of Bliss, reaching number 14 in the UK charts, but vanishing soon after.

The album's release was put back again, and the third single from the album, Breathe, was released in March 1998, a speeded-up version of the album track. The album followed (retitled Kylie Minogue in Europe). The single went to number 14, hanging around for a couple of weeks, whereas the album got to number 10.

The release of the "standout album track" Too Far had been suggested for release many times since the release of Some Kind of Bliss, but never really made it, despite being released on promo to clubs. Fans hopes for this track to be released were dashed when it was decided instead to release a remixes album in August 1998, entitled Mixes, after which Kylie parted company with deConstruction. Described as an "amicable agreement", not only did deConstruction want to get rid of Kylie (she was losing them money, after all), Kylie wanted to leave deConstruction, which was described at the time as a "sinking ship".

Also in 1998, Kylie provided the vocals for GBI, a "song" by Japanese artist Towa Tei (formerly in group Dee-Lite). GBI stands for "German Bold Italic", a typeface (you tell me....). She also appeared in the video as a Geisha girl. Unfortunately (or possibly fortunately), it failed to reach the top 40 in the UK.

As for the 1994 "white album", there were a number of tracks recorded for Impossible Princess that never made it to the final version (many of which were destined for the original Brothers in Rhythm version of the album in January 1997). A few were included on the deConstruction Hits+ album, namely This Girl, Take Me With You (which had previously been included on the Austalian free CD Other Sides), and Stay This Way. Other unreleased tracks include You're the One, which has since made it onto the net, Free, which was never recorded but was performed on Kylie's Intimate and Live tour, Floating, (All Right) Now, Fallen Angel, Let It Go, Looking Down on Me, Miles, Something That We Started, Soon and Stay With Me.