Her celebrated tenth album, X, is a chronological progression of everything that her brand and, in an industry that demands it, obvious narcissism stands for— wooing and flirting with listeners right through the album, self glorification, platitudes about relationships and crisp electronic-pop beats.

The familiarity of the first four tracks is enough to sell Minogue’s dance floor-friendly album. As when Minogue crooned Can’t Get You Out of My Head (she sang about the image of herself, others assumed, incorrectly, that she was referring to her lover), X kick starts with 2 Hearts – Is this forever and ever, I’m in love…wooh – and the pop diva is, once again, in self congratulatory mode. And why not? How many artists have survived cancer and released a comeback album in the same year, or built a career on largely on her likability?

The 2 Hearts’ up-tempo, crescendo is balanced by the bass-heavy Like a Drug (which samples Visage’s Fade the Gray). On In My Arms (our favourite track, produced by Electro artist Calvin Harris), Minogue lets loose her voice, what Tow Ewing, of Pitchfork, describes as “thin, slightly nasal, and prone to strain, a 128 kbps instrument in a 320 kpbs world.” Speakerphone attempts to veil the weakness of her voice, tweaking it with effects (it’s still nasal), and the Daft Punk-meets-pop beats work rather well.

The closest Minogue comes to dealing with her illness is on the semi-ballad No More Rain—the subdued vocals with regular poppy beats work beautifully, transforming it into gospel pop. Stars and The One hark back to ’80s-pop while Cosmic is among the slower tunes, less experimental, but fine nonetheless. One of the arguments against the album is that the upbeat fare is far better than the slower, happy stuff. There aren’t that many major surprises from Minogue, whose attempt to blend the past, present and the future comes off successfully. What it could probably have done with, is mixing the play list around a little, so we didn’t slink back into our chairs within 15 minutes of the album, wishing Minogue was on the dance floor, grooving to her own beats.