The Kylie Konundrum.

One of our esteemed A Level music teachers once mentioned 'the Kylie formula'. At the time drib drabs of X were leaking online and we had just experienced "Like a Drug" and found it to be incredible. We played bits of it to him in an attempt to share the excitement but he simply replied "her songs all sound the same - they all use the Kylie formula". What is this Kylie formula, we asked? "Electronic handclap on the last beat of the bar and offbeat pulsating synth(y) bassline." He was right.

Of course, not every Kylie song follows this formula 'to a tee', but it's a trend we can trace back to Kylie's indisputable biggest hit: "Can't Get You Out of My Head". What has this got to do with her new album, Aphrodite, we hear you ask? Well: 'the Kylie formula' rears its glittery head yet again, this time on a track called "Cupid Boy". What's different here, is that instead of powering forwards into the same chorus we've heard from her a million times, it explodes and splatters sparkle everywhere. Kylie starts talking (yes!), her voice electronically treated, as spangly synth plays in a key you didn't expect. Of course, after this incredible pre-chorus madness, the song goes exactly where you thought it would, with a fun, if formulaic Kylie chorus.

It epitomises Aphrodite's biggest problem: it can't decide if it wants to be run-of-the-mill Minogue, or something new and exciting. We've made much hoo-ha about the album's 'executive' producer Stuart Price (an S&N fave) and his influence here is clear, but unlike on the work he's most famous for (Madonna's Confessions on a Dancefloor) there's little audacity here. Where Confessions... featured solipsist lyrics about the nature of über-fame, 'treated' 'tribal' 'beats', choppy dark strings and Middle Eastern influences, Aphrodite is made up almost entirely of synths, guitars and warm, palatable sentiment. Kylie truly is the light to Madonna's dark, the uncomplicated joy to Madge's bittersweet euphoria, the fluffy to M's hard edge. This isn't a criticism, it's Kylie's niche, and has afforded her masses of gay fans who find Ms. Ciccone too... erm... outré. But it still stands. After all, this is a woman who bravely fought a fairly public battle with cancer, only to release an album so upbeat and brimming with wide-eyed innocence, it was as if nothing had actually happened.

The album itself gets off to a wobbly start with weak lead single, "All The Lovers", almost comically anticlimactic, but steers itself back on course with track 2, "Get Outta My Way", a song so unabashedly fromage-based, you can't help but pivot ecstatically. After that, though, it's hard to gain a sense of direction: the album plateaus. The aforementioned "Cupid Boy" is delicious enough, and the Jake Shears/Calvin Harris-penned "Too Much" has a nifty synth build and syncopated riff, but there's little else that stands out. If the tracks on X sounded too disparate, the tracks here sound too similar.

There's also some dreadful, empty-headed lyric writing ("all we need is love in this world, it's true"), but also some lovely touches ("let's go through the ritual, until everything is beautiful"). Unfortunately it's not enough to lift Aphrodite from 'fun camp pop' to something more indelible and astonishing. For every stellar discopop confection, there's a track like "Looking for an Angel" so startlingly unironic in its sugary sweetness, you almost feel you've gone back in time. No matter, though. This album does exactly as Kylie always intended: it's won back a legion of her joyful fans who look for uncomplicated joie de vivre and were confused by X's patchwork of pop styles, and there are enough subtle Stuart Price-related touches to lift this from being dreary dross to glitzy gloss (WORST PHRASE EVER WRITTEN - sorry about that).

But somewhere in the back of our heads, no matter how much we enjoy the glowing hedonism of songs like "Cupid Boy" or "Get Outta My Way", we couldn't help but hope that maybe, just maybe, she could have utilised Mr. Price to spin an album of more conflicted and adventurous slant (we know she's capable of it - her back catalogue's features brilliant examples, from Impossible Princess to "Confide In Me") but then if she weren't so wilfully bright and beaming, we suppose she wouldn't be Kylie. And that's her conundrum.