翻译：不听Gwen Stefani祝你生活一般

Each Sunday, Pitchfork takes an in-depth look at a significant album from the past, and any record not in our archives is eligible. Today, we revisit the Australian superstar’s 1997 departure to clubland, a misunderstood journey of self-discovery that became the black sheep of her catalog.

每周日，Pitchfork都会深度回顾一张还没有评过的专辑。今天，我们重访这位澳大利亚巨星在1997年被大众误解的冷门佳作。一次远离夜总会，深度审视自我的历程。

Kylie Minogue asks what if. In her radiant pop world, every feeling tingles with possibility: the longed-for romance that you barely dare whisper, the intoxication after just one drop, the liberation under the strobe light. She is love’s defiant crusader who, in her 1987 single “I Should Be So Lucky,” made being ignored by a crush sound flat-out delightful. She has an answer to everything; rejection is her gasoline. You don’t want my love? Put your hand on your heart and tell me. Most famously, she is consumed with an infatuation so dizzying it defies words, bubbling to the surface only as la la la.

Kylie Minogue想知道在她绚丽多彩的流行世界里，如果出现浑身刺痛的感知，胆怯地幻想遥不可及的爱情，一滴便足以致命的剧毒，闪光灯下的解脱的情景会怎么样。她是爱的反抗斗士，她在1987年发行的单曲"I Should Be So Lucky"让听众明白即使被心动的另一半忽视，自己也能欢欣雀跃。她知晓一切，阻力就是她的动力。你不想要我的爱？Put your hand on your heart and tell me（指她的代表作）。最出名的是，她沉溺于晕眩失语的痴迷，只会冒出“la la la”的声音。

The Australian artist’s music is an invitation to share what she feels, an ethos that has enthroned Minogue as an icon of positivity and a poet laureate of dancefloor communion. “It’s hard work being a Kylie,” said Björk, a friend of Minogue in the ’90s. “It’s a service to the nation. You have to smile and do handshakes—it’s like being a diplomat, or the Queen.”

这位澳大利亚的艺术家的音乐邀请听众与她感同身受，该特质让Kylie成为正能量的代名词，公认的舞池女王。“成为Kylie很难”（“It’s hard work being a Kylie,” ）一位Kylie在90年代的朋友，Björk这样评价她，““这是对国家的一种服务。你必须微笑和握手——就像外交官或英国女王一样。”(选自Bjork 2002年的卫报采访https://www.theguardian.com/music/2002/oct/25/artsfeatures.television)

On her 1997 album Impossible Princess, pop royalty went rogue. Minogue simmers with rage, thrashing at the limits of torture and tenderness in a dark tango with the frenetic club music of the day. With help from a slate of buzzy producers, her unvarnished songwriting tangles with underground styles including pulverizing breakbeat and drum’n’bass, throbbing techno and ambient rave, as well as joyous jangle pop. If Minogue’s earlier music had been seen as a universal opiate, this was a mischievous abdication of civic duty. 

她在1997年推出的专辑《Impossible Princess》中，这位流行皇室成员放飞自我。Kylie怒火中烧，随着俱乐部狂热的音乐在无限煎熬与柔情的极限间剧烈扭动着跳探戈舞。在一群制作人显著的帮助下，她不加修饰的创作开始接触地下音乐风，包括粉碎化的碎拍和drum’n’bass（一种以鼓和低音吉他为主音的电子舞曲），规律振动的科技音乐（techno）和锐舞氛围音乐风（ambient rave），也有愉快的金属流行乐。如果Kylie Minogue先前的音乐是世界的麻醉剂，那么这张专辑就是恶作剧般的抛弃公民义务。

Minogue considered the record a personal triumph. “I had people controlling me for years,” she told New Idea at the time. “Now I am reveling in the fact that I have control, I take responsibility for my decisions and I live and die by them.” But Impossible Princess was troubled by a messy rollout, label mismanagement, and some stale collaborations, making it more complicated than a straightforward artistic win. She would never make a record like it again.

Kylie Minogue将这张专辑视作个人的胜利：“人们多年来都在控制我”（ “I had people controlling me for years,”）她当时告诉New Idea杂志，“现在很开心自己享有控制权，我为我的决定负责，我为它们而生，为它们而死”。但发行混乱，厂牌决策失误，一些乏善可陈的合作，使这张专辑《Impossible Princess》比纯粹的艺术胜利更加复杂。她再也不会做出这样的唱片了。

Born in Melbourne, Kylie Minogue started acting professionally at age 8 in a period drama called The Sullivans. After a series of roles in her teens, she became a star in the UK and Australia thanks to a role on the sunny soap opera Neighbours, in which she played a tough-talking mechanic named Charlene. Within a year, Minogue became known simply as “Kylie” to an entire continent and was whooshing down the soap actress to pop star pipeline. She signed to PWL, the London-based label that was home to Stock Aitken Waterman (SAW), a British production trio that had helped to define ’80s Hi-NRG disco, crafting landmark singles for Dead or Alive, Divine, and Hazell Dean. SAW were the architects of Minogue’s sparkling early sound, powered by her winsome, youthful image and dance-pop that snapped like a rubber band. “They told me what to sing, what clothes to wear, and how to look in my photographs,” Minogue later said of PWL. She likened the experience to being “knee-deep in concrete.”

Kylie Minogue出生在墨尔本，8岁时在历史电视剧“The Sullivans”里崭露头角。在青少年时期演了几部剧后，肥皂剧“Neighbours”使Kylie Minogue在英国和澳大利亚打响名声，她在剧中扮演Charlene，一名说话强硬的修理工。不到一年，Kylie Minogue便成为欧洲大陆独一无二的Kylie，并一跃由肥皂剧女演员转型为流行歌星。她签约PWL唱片公司，这家总部设立于伦敦的厂牌是Stock Aitken Waterman (SAW)制作团队的大本营，该英国三人制作团队，帮助定义了80年代Hi-NRG迪斯科音乐，为Dead or Alive, Divine和Hazell Dean打造出标志性单曲。SAW也是Kylie早期音乐的掌舵人，再加上Kylie青春洋溢的形象，好听的流行舞曲源源不断的产出。“他们指定我唱什么，穿什么,，在写真中的打扮”Kylie后来回忆她的PWL时期说道。她将那段经历比作“双膝束缚在混凝土”般。

After four albums with PWL, Minogue signed to the independent dance label Deconstruction in 1993, favoring the small London imprint over offers from EMI and A&M for the creative freedom it offered. The promise turned out to be bluster. Her first release for the label, 1994’s Kylie Minogue, was meticulously A&R’d. That album boasts one of her best songs in the iridescent “Confide in Me” and some nice post-Erotica pop-house, but had plenty of missed opportunities too. A exhilarating Pet Shop Boys demo, “Falling,” was remixed into an elegant wisp (Minogue liked that decision; it sounded like Mr. Fingers, whom she adored). The label also nixed a Prince duet Minogue had been planning (Minogue did not like that decision). Deconstruction “had no idea what they wanted, apart from being different from the SAW stuff,” said Bob Stanley of Saint Etienne, who worked on two unreleased tracks for the record. Minogue later called it “a musical bridge over troubled waters”—one she had to “endure” to get to Impossible Princess.

在PWL厂牌发行了四张专辑后，Kylie Minogue拒绝EMI和A&M大厂牌的邀约，在1993年签约独立舞曲厂牌Deconstruction，为了创作自由度而选择一家伦敦小厂牌。厂牌承诺的创作自由度最终也只是口出狂言。她于1994年在该厂牌发行的第一张专辑，制作精良的同名专辑《Kylie Minogue》，贡献了她职业生涯最好的歌之一,五彩斑斓的“Confide In Me”，和一些不错的post-Erotica pop-house歌曲，但也充满许多遗憾。Pet Shop Boy操刀的元气歌曲“Falling”，未发行版本的混音仙气飘渺（Kylie很喜欢这个做法，听起来像她自身崇拜的Mr.Fingers）。厂牌否决了Kylie一直酝酿的与Prince的合作曲（Kylie不喜欢这个做法）。"不知道厂牌想要什么，除了要做出与SAW时期不同的东西"来自Saint Etienne乐队的Bob Standley说道，他为这张专辑制作了两首未发行曲目。Kylie Minogue称这张专辑为“渡过烦恼的水（指在困难或痛苦时给予支持和安慰）”——这是一张她必须妥协隐忍的专辑，之后才能做出专辑《Impossible Princess》。

Outside of music, Minogue’s three-year relationship with INXS’ Michael Hutchence had, she said, taken her “blinkers off” to a wider cultural world. She was a fan of dance labels like Mo’Wax and Source Lab, went clubbing at Aphex Twin’s legendary party Rephresh, and was listening to Tricky, Daft Punk, Massive Attack, and Beck. After what she described as a “Hollywood faux pas” in the 1994 turkey Street Fighter, she starred in a Sam Taylor-Wood art film, Misfit, lip-syncing to the last known recording of a castrato from 1904. In 1995, she duetted with Nick Cave on the murder ballad “Where the Wild Roses Grow,” singing from the perspective of a slain virgin. Performing the song on Top of the Pops with Cave, Minogue wore a dress from Alexander McQueen’s incendiary 1995 collection Highland Rape. She looked like a Pre-Raphaelite heroine ready to be reborn. 

音乐之外，Kylie Minogue说，与INXS乐团主唱Michael Hutchence长达3年的恋情，让她“摘下眼罩”，进入更广阔的文化世界。她成为Mo’Wax和Source Lab舞曲厂牌的粉丝，参加Aphex Twin的传奇派对Rephresh，听Tricky、Daft Punk、Massive Attack和Beck的歌曲。在1994年，她出演电影《街头霸王》(turkey Street Fighter)，被她形容为“好莱坞的失态”。之后，她出演了山姆·泰勒·伍德(Sam Taylor-Wood)的艺术电影《Misfit》，对着目前世上已知最后一张阉割歌手于1904年发行的唱片对口型演唱。1995年，她与Nick Cave合唱谋杀民谣“Where the Wild Roses Grow”，以被杀处女的视角演唱。Kylie和Nick在《流行之巅》节目（Top of the Pops）中演唱了这首歌，她穿着Alexander McQueen1995年充满争议的Highland Rape高地强暴系列的裙子。她看起来就像一个随时准备浴火重生的拉斐尔前派女英雄。 

Minogue’s boyfriend at the time was Stéphane Sednaoui, a French-born artist and director who helped to define the scrappy, surreal aesthetic of post-grunge MTV with music videos like Smashing Pumpkins’ “Today,” Fiona Apple’s “Sleep to Dream,” and Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic.” To Minogue, Sednaoui represented freedom—and the kaleidoscopic escapes depicted in his music videos seemed like welcome relief from the paparazzi hounding her in London, where she had lived since 1990. The pair embarked on a series of trips to Australia, Japan, South Korea, and piled into a muscle car for a month-long road trip across the U.S. Minogue snapped photos on her Contax camera. She began writing in her notebook, and found that she had much to say. 

Kylie当时的男友是Stéphane Sednaoui，一位法国艺术家兼导演，是后车库音乐时期凌乱，超现实主义MV的贡献者。如Smashing Pumpkins的“Today,” ，Fiona Apple的“Sleep to Dream” 和Alanis Morissette的“Ironic.。对Kylie（ 指GBI: German Bold Italic ），Stéphane呈现出自由——以及在MV中描绘的万花筒般的逃脱，如同Kylie从多年来穷追不舍的伦敦狗仔队中解脱。这对情侣去到澳大利亚，日本，韩国旅行，挤在一辆肌肉车里进行为期一个月的横跨美国的公路旅行。Kylie用她的康泰克斯相机拍摄风光，开始在笔记本写作，发现自己有太多话想说。

Cave had passed Minogue a book by the British punk poet Billy Childish titled Poems to Break the Harts of Impossible Princesses, a collection which grapples with generational trauma and finding one’s place in a broken world. She brought the book along to an early meeting with Brothers in Rhythm, a British production outfit who had collaborated with Janet Jackson and Pet Shop Boys. Inspired by Childish’s writing, they began working on a song called “Dreams.” Here, too, Minogue asked what if? But for the first time, the target was her own desires, rather than canny twists on the pop playbook. “To taste every moment and try everything/To be hailed as a hero, branded a fool/Believe in the sacred and break every rule,” she sang, over lushly orchestrated trip-hop. “These are the dreams of an impossible princess.” Delivered with the sincerity of a fairy tale, Minogue’s earnest message of spiritual clarity is unexpectedly moving. On a 2022 episode of the This Is Disco podcast, Brothers in Rhythm’s Steve Anderson recalled his mindset after the session: “We have to scrap everything we’ve been doing [...] We have to create this blanket of safety to let her experiment, and we have to help her make the record that she wants to make.” 

Nick Cave递给Kylie Minogue一本英国朋克诗人Billy Childish的著作《Poems to Break the Harts of Impossible Princesses》，这本书集中讲述了一代人的创伤，并在一个破碎的世界中找到了自己的位置。她带着这本书参加了与Brothers in Rhythm的早期会议，这是一家英国制作公司，曾与Janet Jackson和Pet Shop Boys合作过。受到这本书的启发，他们开始做一首叫“Dreams”的歌曲。歌曲中，Kylie也提到如果...会怎么样？但首次，她审问自己的欲望，而不是追求光怪陆离的流行乐。 “To taste every moment and try everything/To be hailed as a hero, branded a fool/Believe in the sacred and break every rule,” 她唱道，伴随着精致编排的trip-hop音乐。“These are the dreams of an impossible princess.” Kylie追求精神境界如同童话般诚挚的演绎出乎意料地打动人心。在2022年的This Is Disco博客的一集节目中，Brothers in Rhythm的Steve Anderson回忆了他在歌曲会议结束后的想法：“我们必须抛弃我们以往所做的一切……我们必须创造安全的环境，让她做实验音乐，我们必须帮助她创造她想做出的专辑。”

To record Impossible Princess, Minogue traveled with Brothers in Rhythm to Real World, a bucolic residential studio owned by Peter Gabriel. Over a weeks-long stay, the boundary between her life and creative process began to dissolve. She lived in a small house opposite the studio, working on demos in a glorified closet behind a maintenance room. “I was quite obsessed by my album,” she told Australia’s Feast Magazine. “It [was] like [an] ache that every now and then is really obvious. Which makes it sound like a bad thing, but it wasn’t.”

为了录制专辑《Impossible Princess》，Kylie与Brothers in Rhythm前往Real World工作室，一个由Peter Gabriel经营的家庭录音室。在这里呆了几周，她的艺术创作与现实生活的界限逐渐模糊。她住在录音室对面的小房子里，在维修室的衣柜里写歌。“我当时太着迷这张专辑了。”她在澳大利亚Feast杂志中说道，“这就像一种时不时的阵痛，突然变为剧痛。这听起来像是一件坏事，但事实并非如此。”

The resulting album is Minogue’s umwelt—her individual sensory world—made real, propelled by vibrant perceptions and impressions that are, at times, delivered with ferocity. “Too Far” is a phantasmagoria of frenetic drum ’n’ bass, breakbeat, sawing violins, buzzing bees, and layered pleas and screams. In the verses, Minogue can barely keep up with her thoughts, as if she’s frantically trying to capture the realization that every painful ending can be a wonderful new beginning. “‘Too Far’... is as psychotic as I’ve been,” she said in a 1997 interview with The Big Issue. It was the end of a relationship, and she was angry and hurt. “I went for a walk to the end of the street and into a cafe, and wrote it all down to get it off my chest. I got the moment by the throat by putting it all on paper.” Ten minutes later, the song was done. “Some of my favorite songs weren’t changed [after writing],” she said of the album. “No going back and rearranging. Just subconscious scrawl that formed itself, and I found those ones really pleasing.”

整张专辑是Kylie Minogue的客观世界——她的个体感官世界——由丰富的感知和印象而变得真实，有时显得凶猛。歌曲“Too Far”是一个由狂热的drum ’n’ bass，碎拍，小提琴，嗡嗡作响的蜜蜂，层次分明的恳求和尖叫声构成的幻境。在唱段中，Kylie很难跟上她的想法，好像她想疯狂地营造出每个痛苦的结局都可以变为一个美好的新开始。“歌曲“Too Far”...和我一样精神错乱”Kylie在1997年的The Big Issue采访中说道。歌曲讲述的是一段感情的结束，当时她既生气又受伤。“我走到街的尽头，走进一家咖啡馆，把这些都写了下来，把我的心事发泄出来。我争分夺秒地把这一切都写在纸上。”十分钟后，这首歌完成了。“我最喜欢的一些歌曲(在创作后)没有任何变动，”她谈到这张专辑时说。“不能再重新编排。只是下意识的潦草创作，我发现那些歌曲真的很讨人喜欢。”

Minogue paired her raw automatic writing with vocals that shapeshifted to its moods. On the 140-BPM techno heater “Drunk,” she dances with oblivion, sounding wrecked over menacing strings. “Time and space and hurt and tears are not enough,” she slurs, bleeding into the next bar, before an accelerating beat brings an epiphany. On the industrial-dance whiplash of “Limbo,” co-produced by Soft Cell’s Dave Ball, she tries out jazzy impressionism over synths that rev and swerve. She shifts into unexpected registers—stretching some syllables, and cramming others into spaces where there’s only room for one: I’m HUUUUUURTing!/Helpmeout.

Kylie Minogue将自己未加修饰的创作与阴晴不定的人声搭配在一起。在每分钟140拍的电子舞曲“Drunk”中，她与昏迷共舞，听起来像是在阴森的弦乐中喝的烂醉。“Time and space and hurt and tears are not enough,” 她含糊唱道，流着血走进下一家酒吧，之后加速的节拍让她顿悟。在与Soft Cell的Dave Ball联合制作的industrial-dance劲曲”Limbo“中，她在飞速旋转的合成器制作中尝试爵士印象主义。之后她又出其不意地转换音域——拉长了一些音节，把其他音节塞进一个狭小的空间:I 'm HUUUUUURTing!/Helpmeout。

The album Minogue delivered to Deconstruction was quite different from the one we hear today. The label informed her there was no lead single, and cut fascinating experiments including the psychedelic trip-hop of “You’re the One,” the smoky jazz of “Stay This Way,” and a nine-minute interplanetary rave ballad titled “Take Me With You.” Minogue was paired with Manic Street Preachers, scuzzy glam rockers turned UK rock radio mainstays, in an attempt to get a hit. The trio rounded out the tracklist with “I Don’t Need Anyone” and “Some Kind of Bliss,” brightly gleaming Britpop moments that already felt dated by 1997, a year when even the subgenre’s architects like Blur were turning to alt-rock. The songs were an ill fit for the album, but, in a textbook bait and switch, “Some Kind of Bliss” was chosen as Impossible Princess’ lead single against the wishes of Minogue, who wanted “Limbo.” “Some Kind of Bliss” reached No. 22 on the UK charts, her lowest-charting single to date.

Kylie Minogue最初交给Deconstruction厂牌的专辑与现在我们听到的版本差别很大。厂牌告知她专辑没有主打歌曲，删掉了很多有趣的实验曲目包括 迷幻的trip-hop歌曲"You're the One",烟雾缭绕的爵士曲"Stay This Way",时长九分钟的星际穿越般的锐舞抒情曲“Take Me With You.” 。Kylie与Manic Street Preachers合作，邋遢华丽的摇滚歌手是英国摇滚电台的中流砥柱，企图获得成功。三人合作的曲目“I Don’t Need Anyone”和“Some Kind of Bliss,” 最终收录专辑，金光闪闪的英伦摇滚时刻，在1997年就显得过时，那一年就连Blur这样的亚流派艺术家也开始转型另类摇滚。这些歌曲并不适合这张专辑，但是，在教科书式的诱骗销售模式下，歌曲”Some Kind of Bliss“被选为专辑《Impossible Princess》的首波主打单曲，违背Kylie Minogue的意愿，她想要歌曲“Limbo”作为首单。歌曲“Some Kind of Bliss”在英国排行榜上最高排名第22位，是她迄今为止排名最低的单曲。

The British press called Minogue’s new musical direction “Indie Kylie,” a term which probably had more to do with the singer working with the Manics and her new cropped hairdo. But it cast a broader sense of suspicion over Minogue, as if she was masquerading for Cool Britannia points. In fact, Minogue’s music had never hewed so closely to the sounds dominating mainstream pop, particularly in the UK, where the charts are historically quicker to embrace the club. Nevertheless, the album was Minogue’s biggest commercial failure. Originally scheduled for September, it was hastily repackaged with the title Kylie Minogue following the death of Princess Diana in August—which made it, oddly, Minogue’s second consecutive self-titled album—and trickled into stores around the world that fall, before finally making its way to Australia in January 1998 and the UK in March. It stalled at No. 4 in Minogue’s home country and at No. 10 in the UK, but has since become a fan favorite: A 2022 vinyl reissue restored the album’s original title and charted higher in both countries.

英国媒体称Kylie Minogue的新音乐方向为“Indie Kylie”，这个词可能更多地与这位歌手与Manics乐队合作以及她的新短发造型有关。但这给Kylie带来了更广泛的怀疑，就好像她是为了酷不列颠尼亚的分数而乔装打扮似的。事实上，Kylie Minogue的音乐从未如此贴近主流流行音乐，尤其是在英国，从历史上看，英国排行榜更容易接纳俱乐部音乐。然而，这张专辑是Kylie Minogue事业中最大的商业失败。这张专辑原定于9月发行，但在戴安娜王妃于8月去世后，便匆忙改名为《Kylie Minogue》(奇怪的是，这也是Kylie Minogue接连发行的第二张同名专辑)，并于同年秋天逐渐在世界各地的商店上架，最终于1998年1月在澳大利亚发行，3月在英国发行。尽管这张专辑在Kylie Minogue的祖国最高排名只有第四，在英国最高排名第十，但后来都成为了粉丝们的最爱专辑：在2022年重新发行的黑胶唱片恢复了原来的名字，在两国的排行榜上都上升了。

酷不列颠尼亚：指在1990年代时，媒体用来描述英国文化发达状态时的用语。这一用语出现在1990年代中期，在1990年代末期时曾风靡一时。酷不列颠和英国工党于大选击败保守党后，标榜“新工党”并采取第三条道路的布莱尔政权有着密切的关系，亦反映出1970年代至1980年代的停滞、混乱时期结束后，英国国内在1990年代的乐观气氛。“酷不列颠尼亚”一词改编自英国爱国歌曲《统治吧，不列颠尼亚！》（"Rule, Britannia"）。

Minogue’s effervescent voice was a perfect vehicle for PWL-era pop, but audiences and critics were unused to hearing darker themes delivered in a light lyric soprano—her register read as bubblegum. A Sydney Morning Herald review of Impossible Princess noted the lack of “guts in her voice,” and The Guardian said, of one track, that “it could be any breathy vamp singing it.” NME’s pan of Impossible Princess envisioned Minogue “singing into her hairbrush in front of her bedroom mirror, hamming up proceedings without anything approaching conviction.”

Kylie Minogue热情洋溢的嗓音是PWL时代流行音乐的完美载体，但听众和评论家都不习惯听一个轻柔的女高音歌手唱沉重主题的歌曲——她的音域就像泡泡糖。《悉尼先驱晨报》(Sydney Morning Herald)对《Impossible Princess》的一篇评论指出，“她的歌声缺乏内涵”，《卫报》(the Guardian)对其中一首歌曲的评价是，“任何有呼吸的吸血鬼都可以唱这首歌。”NME在《Impossible Princess》中的评论中设想Kylie Minogue“在卧室镜子前对着梳子唱歌，在没有任何坚定信念的情况下进行夸张的表演。”

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并非陌路人：Kylie Minogue - Love at First Sight

The world didn’t seem to know what to do with a cirrous voice singing about serious things. Minogue’s high-femme take on ennui had little similarity to Madonna’s late-’90s Earth Mother reincarnation, and even less in common with the grit and gristle of Grammy favorites like Alanis Morissette or Sheryl Crow. Minogue emphasized her comfort with higher registers on Impossible Princess’ most intimate songs like “Breathe,” an isolation chamber of airy subtlety, and “Say Hey,” a minimal techno trip cocooned in the purrs and sighs of self-pleasure. But the double standard ate at her. In 2020, she spoke of feeling like an imposter, asking rhetorically, “How are you being successful if they’re telling you that you can’t sing and your voice is not a valid voice?”

这个世界似乎不知道怎么面对一个触毛感十足的声音严肃歌唱的事情。Kylie Minogue的慵懒高级女人形象与90年代末Madonna的地球母亲转世几乎没有相似之处，也与格莱美青睐的Alanis Morissette或Sheryl Crow的坚韧形象大不相同。Kylie Minogue在专辑《Impossible Princess》中最私人的歌曲“Breathe”中展现了她在更高音域的舒适感，如同轻盈精巧的隔离室。在歌曲"Say Hey"中，一首被自我愉悦的咕噜声和叹息声包裹的极简科技舞曲。但是这种双重标准使她感到苦恼。在2020年，她谈到感觉自己像个骗子，并反问:“如果他们告诉你，你不会唱歌，你的声音不是正确的声音，你的事业怎能取得成功呢?”

The notion of a pop star snatching the reins from label bigwigs to make a personal album is cliché. But Minogue’s late ’90s weren’t so much a matter of wresting control away from her bosses as working through their neglect. Deconstruction label head Pete Hadfield was unwell, and as a result the record company’s A&R department “hadn’t really been present for much of the album’s development,” wrote Minogue’s creative director William Baker in the 2002 book Kylie: La La La. “Creative control of the project was left with Kylie and Stéphane.” Minogue and Sednaoui were well-connected in the music world, but famous friends are no substitute for a seasoned A&R. A wider network of co-writers could have helped shape Minogue’s clunkier lyrics on songs like “Through the Years” and “Dreams”; additional producers might have opened the throttle on slight almost-anthems like “Cowboy Style” and the Japanese-edition bonus track “Tears.” The lack of support got to Minogue, who said in a 2000 interview with Rolling Stone Australia: “On some songs, lyrically it’s obvious to me now that I am saying, ‘I’m not waving. I am, in fact, drowning. Hello? Is there anybody there?’ At the time I felt like there was no one to help me.” A few months after the release of Impossible Princess, Deconstruction dropped her.

流行歌星与厂牌高层争夺主导权来做出一张私人专辑的概念显得有些陈词滥调，但Kylie Minogue在90年代末期面对的并不是与高层争取权利，而是如何在厂牌的忽视下做专辑。Deconstruction厂牌老板Pete Hadfield身体抱恙，因此唱片公司的艺人开发部“并没有真正参与这张专辑的大部分制作工作。“Kylie的创意总监William Baker在2002年出版的《Kylie: La La La》一书中写道。这个项目的创意控制权留给了Kylie和Stéphane。Kylie和Stéphane在音乐界关系很好，但名人朋友并不能代替经验丰富的艺人和开发部。更多的作曲家可能会修改Kylie在歌曲“Through the Years” 和“Dreams”中写下的笨拙歌词。更多的制作人可能会塑造出有成为代表作潜质的歌曲如：“Cowboy Style” 和日本版赠曲“Tears”。Kylie在2000年接受澳大利亚《滚石》杂志采访时表示:“在一些歌曲中，从歌词上看，我很明显是在说，‘我不是在挥手。事实上，我快要淹死了。喂?有人在吗?’当时我觉得没人能帮我。”在《Impossible Princess》发行几个月后，Deconstruction厂牌解雇了她。

While Impossible Princess is Kylie Minogue at her most impish and spectacularly strange, it also offers insight into her private growing pains at a time when she felt abandoned by the music industry. Isolated and in a state of psychic turmoil, she threw off the burden of speaking for everyone and spoke only for herself. She is the girl who knows too much, who needs saving from herself. In its bracing honesty and crafty embrace of unexpected sounds, Impossible Princess shares a sibling bond with contemporaneous albums like Janet Jackson’s The Velvet Rope and Madonna’s Ray of Light, forming a trilogy of A-list experimental pop records in 1997-8 that addressed their artists’ fears, anxieties, and dreams. Minogue’s album is rather more scattered—fascinatingly so—but you can’t blame mainstream audiences for being reluctant to unpick a Gordian knot. Crucially, it has no euphoric floor-filler like “Together Again” or “Ray of Light,” moments of transcendence that drew pop fans to albums of wisdom and weight. 

尽管《Impossible Princess》展现了Kylie Minogue最顽皮和古怪的一面，但它也揭示了她被音乐产业抛弃时的私人化成长烦恼。孤立无援，精神混乱，她摆脱了为所有人说话的负担，只为自己说话。她是一个知道太多的女孩，她需要拯救自己。在其令人神清气爽的诚挚和精致的出乎意料的音乐中，《Impossible Princess》与同时期的专辑有着姐妹般的联系如 Janet Jackson的《The Velvet Rope》 和Madonna的《Ray of Light》,构成了97-98年最佳实验流行三部曲，表达了他们作为艺术家的恐惧、焦虑和梦想。Kylie Minogue的专辑更加分散——也因此令人着迷——但你不能责怪主流听众不愿意解开一个高尔迪安的结。最关键的是，这张专辑没有像 “Together Again”或 “Ray of Light”那样的舞池劲曲，将流行听众引入智慧与深度的飞升时刻。

In her later music, Minogue avoided anything like Impossible Princess. She followed the record by signing to Parlophone and releasing 2000’s Light Years and 2001’s Fever, critical and commercial juggernauts that showcased Minogue at her dance-pop zenith. Understandably, she is no longer interested in creating music about her struggles. Not when civic duty beckons. In 2007, following a battle with cancer, Minogue released her tenth album, X, a collection of glossy electro-pop performed in structural outfits that resembled armor. Some wondered if she had considered bringing her private trauma into her music once again. “If I’d done an album of personal songs it’d be seen as Impossible Princess 2 and be equally critiqued,” she said. “I didn’t want every song to be about being ill. I wanted to do what I do.”

在之后的音乐中，Kylie避免做出任何像《Impossible Princess》的东西。此后，她与Parlophone厂牌签约，并发行了2000年的《Light Years》和2001年的《Fever》，这两张专辑在评论和商业上都取得了巨大成功，标志着她在流行舞曲领域的巅峰。可以理解的是，她不再对创作关于自我挣扎的音乐感兴趣。当公民义务召唤你的时候就不会。2007年，在抗癌成功后，Kylie发行了她的第十张专辑《X》，这是一张光彩夺目的电子流行乐专辑，她穿着像盔甲一样的结构复杂的服装表演。有些人想知道她是否考虑过将她的私人创伤再次带入她的音乐中。“如果我做了一张私人化专辑，它会被视为《Impossible Princess》二部曲，并受到同样的批评，”她说。“我不想每首歌都是关于负面的。我想做我想做的事。”