Impossible Princess (briefly retitled Kylie Minogue in Europe) is the sixth studio album by Australian singer Kylie Minogue, released on 22 October 1997, by Deconstruction, BMG and Mushroom Records. The singer asserted greater creative control over the project—solo writing almost every song on the album and producing material for the first time—compared to her previous work, assisted by Brothers in Rhythm, Manic Street Preachers, David Ball and Rob Dougan.
Influenced by the techno and Britpop revolution in the mid-to-late 1990s, sonically, Impossible Princess is a departure from Minogue's previous work. Conceived as an experimental record, the material encompasses a variety of darker styles from dance music, including trip hop, electronica, and rock. Lyrically, the album focuses on Minogue's self-discovery after a series of trips worldwide and delves into freedom of expression, relationships, and emotions.
Upon its release, critical and public reception of Impossible Princess was divided over its new musical direction and Minogue's intimate lyrics. Commercially, the album reached the top 10 in Australia, Scotland, and the United Kingdom; the British media, however, mocked its lack of success in Europe. Four singles were released from the album, including two UK top-20 entries "Did It Again" and "Breathe". Minogue embarked on the Intimate and Live tour in 1998 to support the album.
In retrospect, music commentators have praised Impossible Princess as Minogue's most personal and misunderstood work. Minogue has said in the past she would never create another studio album of personal songs like Impossible Princess. To celebrate 25 years since the album's original release, it was released on vinyl for the first time in October 2022, leading to its resurgence and reaching new peaks on record charts.
Background
Minogue left her label PWL in 1992 because of creative differences and signed a three-album deal with Deconstruction Records the following year. She worked with a diverse group of collaborators to experiment with different sounds, including the British duo Brothers in Rhythm. Their first offering was Minogue's self-titled album in late 1994, which peaked at number three in Australia and number four in the United Kingdom. Besides promotional commitments for the album, Minogue expanded her acting career by taking part in several projects. Among them were big-budget films Street Fighter (1994) and Bio-Dome (1996), which were received poorly by critics. Minogue worked with Australian musician Nick Cave and his band, the Bad Seeds on their 1995 single "Where the Wild Roses Grow", which peaked at number two in Australia and number eleven in the UK. The song earned three ARIA Awards for Best Pop Release, Single, and Song of the Year in 1996.
Minogue's friendship with Cave continued over the years; on Cave's advice, Minogue recited the lyrics to her 1987 song "I Should Be So Lucky" as poetry at London's Royal Albert Hall in July 1996. In December, she made a surprise appearance at a Manic Street Preachers concert at the Shepherd's Bush Empire, singing "Little Baby Nothing" with them. The track was planned initially as a duet with Minogue but did not materialise during her years under contract with PWL. Both 1996 live performances were viewed as the starting point of her new alter ego, "IndieKylie", a pseudonym that dealt with Minogue's move to rock music. Minogue began a romantic relationship with French photographer Stéphane Sednaoui and embarked on a series of trips with him throughout North America, Asia, and Australasia to gain inspiration for her upcoming record. By the end of the trip, Minogue was enamoured by the experience and felt "truly anonymous and free to be [herself]".
Recording and development
thumb|230px|left|alt=Photograph of the studio used at Real World Studios | Production of Impossible Princess took place mainly at [[Real World Studios (pictured in 2013) in Box, Wiltshire]]
Plans for Impossible Princess began in mid-1995 after meetings with Brothers in Rhythm had taken place and recording sessions began soon afterwards. By June 1997, the album had been in production for twenty-one months, and Deconstruction were adding the final touches to it. The album took nearly two years to record—the longest period Minogue had worked on a project since her time acting on the Australian soap opera Neighbours (from 1986 to 1988). Many changes of direction, remixes and cowriters lengthened the process which at times upset and infuriated Minogue. Brothers in Rhythm member Steve Anderson explained this was "due to the pure perfectionism" of everyone involved; Minogue felt the album was worth the wait.
Minogue's trips with Sednaoui, her Deconstruction label mates, and clients of Sednaoui's work including Björk, Garbage, and Tricky inspired the album. Sednaoui and Cave were key factors during the production. In the biography Kylie (2014), Sean Smith notes Sednaoui had a huge effect on Minogue's belief in herself and contributed to her vision of the future, while Cave helped her to embrace the past. Minogue began writing lyrics after Sednaoui and Cave convinced her to take creative control over her next musical project. She wrote every track on the album—in contrast, she co-wrote only one song on her 1994 studio album. She did not have any specific method for writing: she wrote constantly in her notebook and composed many songs during the holidays. "Cowboy Style" and "Dreams" were among the earliest songs Minogue wrote for the album; the lyrics and melodies came easily to her. Minogue imagined performing "Too Far" while working on its lyric, which she did at a local cafe. She found the track easy to write and did not sound like anything she had written before. She wanted to put herself into the album as much as possible, and felt the songs were more personal: "I've written lyrics before, but they've been safe–just neatly rhymed words and that's that. Now I have songs in which, from beginning to end, I don't want another word, I don't want a word removed," Minogue said.
Sessions with Brothers in Rhythm
Brothers in Rhythm put together a few songs initially planned for Impossible Princess but scrapped them because Minogue had started writing and they saw she had development as an artist. Minogue then sang her ideas for the melody to the duo who tried to compose the backing tracks, find a suitable style, record rough demos, and add subtle lyric and melody ideas to each of them. Production took place mainly at Real World, where the rough demos were rearranged.
From those sessions, Brothers in Rhythm developed five more songs that ended up on the final tracklist: "Did It Again", "Limbo", "Dreams", "Say Hey", and "Cowboy Style". "Too Far" was written at Sarm West, where Anderson came up with the piano line on the final version. According to Anderson, the production grew as the song was created, and many ideas on the demos made it onto the finished tracks. Anderson considered "Too Far" and "Drunk" to be the examples of Minogue's artistic progression, and her poetry lyrics were different from standard pop song structure. Pete Hadfield, the label's director, was ill, leaving Minogue to take partial creative control over the project. To help produce the album, she attended each session with Anderson and Seaman to learn about composing, arranging instruments, and distorting sections of the album's tracks. As a result, she is credited as a co-producer with Brothers in Rhythm on the songs "Too Far", "Breathe", and "Say Hey"; she played the synthesizer and provided backing vocals. She wrote "Through The Years", "Breathe", and "Limbo" during her sessions with the electronic producers Dave Ball and Ingo Vauk at their home studios; Minogue wrote the lyric of "Through the Years" within 10 minutes of hearing Ball and Vauk's track. Minogue had heard of Rob Dougan's work and thought that it would be interesting to work with him; they wrote and produced "Jump". Cave wrote a track for the album based on Minogue's lyrics, entitled "Soon", but she was disappointed with her recording and dropped it.
Minogue said that James Dean Bradfield of Manic Street Preachers had a clear idea of how he wanted her to sound during their first session at his home. Minogue found it difficult to re-write Bradfield's demo of "I Don't Need Anyone", so he had taken pieces of the original demo lyrics and mixed them with other lyrics she had written, with help from Nicky Wire, to create the finished version of "I Don't Need Anyone". She found this method of writing interesting and did it again with Bradfield and Sean Moore on "Some Kind of Bliss". She felt the lyrics worked together, and was pleased with the final result. It is a departure from her previous sound, encompassing various elements from dance music. Music critics commented on the album's musical diversity. Marcel Anders of Orkus, and Nick Levine at Digital Spy labelled it a dance record, while a writer from Who magazine wrote the album ranges from trip hop, torch songs to scratchy guitar pop, and disco tracks. Sputnikmusic writers pointed out trance, rock, and alternative influences, and described the album as "something you would expect Björk to make". Michael Dwyer of The West Australian found the club-oriented production made the album standout. Chris True of AllMusic and Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine identified the record as part of the electronica and Britpop movements that spanned the mid-to-late 1990s.
thumb|left|230px|alt=Guy Barker playing trumpet while wearing a suit|English musician [[Guy Barker (pictured in 2007, middle) played a trumpet solo on "Through the Years"]]
Impossible Princess incorporates live instrumental tracks, such as a trumpet solo by English trumpeter Guy Barker on "Through the Years". Minogue found this unusual because she was familiar only with the use of synthesizers on her tracks, and considered the album a mixture between synthetics and real instruments. The album contains several guitar-driven songs, such as "Did It Again" and "I Don't Need Anyone". "Did It Again" blends drums and electric guitar, which Smith found similar to the sound of The Beatles' Revolver (1966). "I Don't Need Anyone" is a rock song heavily influenced by Middle Eastern beats. Moore played drums and Bradfield played guitars on the joyful Britpop-style tracks "I Don't Need Anyone" and "Some Kind of Bliss".
"Cowboy Style" is a country number that was influenced by Celtic music and tribal percussion. Ian Phillips of Sputnikmusic wrote that the orchestral pop ballad "Dreams" uses a mixture of eerie-sounding strings, booming bass, and drums. "Jump" is a dark trip hop track, while "Say Hey" and "Breathe" are subtle electronic-infused songs. "Through the Years" contains muted horns, experimental vocal tracks and mournful lyrics; Cinquemani compared it to Björk's 1993 single "Venus as a Boy". John Mangan of Australia's The Age newspaper felt the songs were tailored-made for her voice. Another writer from the same publication felt that Minogue "never sounded more human", with many songs showcasing her unique phrasing. In the biography Kylie: Naked (2012), Nigel Goodall and Jenny Stanley-Clarke likened Minogue's vocals to those of Tori Amos, Björk, Sinéad O'Connor, Kate Bush and Madonna. Larry Flick of Billboard commented that Minogue had dropped the pitch-perfect vocals and let her "odd noises flow freely" on the album. Critics and Dave Seaman noted that Minogue's personal input was more significant on this album. Most of the album is autobiographical, based upon Minogue's life during the two years preceding the album. Sean Smith believed the songs reveal her life more than any interview, as they were more "complex, serious, introspective and challenging" than the songs on her previous albums. Minogue discuss her paranoia, pain and anger in "Too Far", in which she sings in a quick, rambling way about suffering from claustrophobia. Negative stories that the British press had published about Minogue inspired "Did It Again". "Jump" advises the public to accept her and her personal choices throughout the course of her career.