Kylie Minogue - I Believe In You (Parlophone)

Rumours about Kylie’s ambitions have been flying around inside industry corridors for a while now, and the diminutive antipodean steps up to her own defined mark with this lazy drone-beat full of gentle contortions, beautifully lacklustre vocals and searching excesses. You’d be forgiven for thinking stoned Takemura, trance Aurilie or punchy Ambulantche. Despite being forgiven though, you would still be wrong. And Kylie, 67, hates wrong (not a beat is missed in the entire song) as much as she hates ‘insignificant’, ‘unimportant’ or ‘annals of history’, so much so in fact, that at a recent sighting in the National Gallery, London she was rumoured to have spent an unhealthy amount of time asking after the prices of Constable's work so that she might structure her work in much the same way. And it fits. Not only is one of the single’s bonus tracks a Skylark remix, the undulating, soaring synth melodies are a clear attempt to capture the sky's beauty in aural paint.

As Kylie herself said recently in an interview with Smash Hits, “Skies must and always shall with me make an effectual part of the composition. It will be difficult to name a class of pop song in which the sky is not the 'key note,' the standard of 'Scale' and the chief 'Organ of Sentiment' ... The sky is the source of light in nature—and governs everything." Kylie, who appears in public only through a clever illusion created by mirrors, has always had an interest in the sky and this latest release reflects a wider concern in the Top 40 with atmospheric effects and contemporary developments in the pollution debate, a debate that will rage against the second verse of “I don't believe that beauty / Will ever be replaced / I don't believe a masterpiece / Could ever match your face.” If tears were award ceremonies, then Kylie’s legacy looks as bright as the morning sky.