Enjoy Yourself (Kylie Minogue album)


Enjoy Yourself is the second studio album by Australian recording artist Kylie Minogue, released on 9 October 1989 by Pete Waterman Entertainment and Mushroom Records. In the United States, it was released in 1990 by Geffen Records. Following the success of her self-titled debut album, Minogue reunited with the producers Stock Aitken Waterman, who produced and wrote nine of the album's ten tracks, in London in February 1989. The recording sessions took place there from February until July, coinciding with Minogue filming her first feature film The Delinquents.
Enjoy Yourself is a bubblegum pop, dance-pop, and disco album that discusses mainly romantic relationships. It received mixed reviews from music critics, who criticised its similarity with her debut release. In the United Kingdom, it debuted at number one with pre-sales of over 600,000 copies and became the sixth best-selling album of 1989. The album was certified four times platinum by the British Phonographic Industry in January 1990. It also peaked in the top ten in Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Australia and New Zealand. It failed to find an audience in the United States, and Minogue was dropped as an act by Geffen Records.
Four singles were released from the album, including UK chart-toppers "Hand on Your Heart" and "Tears on My Pillow". Two other singles, "Wouldn't Change a Thing" and "Never Too Late" peaked in the top five. All four peaked in the top twenty in Australia and Ireland. The album was promoted further through Minogue's first and second concert tours, Disco in Dream and the Enjoy Yourself Tour, which traveled to Australia, Britain and Asia. The album was re-issued in the United Kingdom for the first time in 2015, when it returned to the UK Albums Chart.

Background and recording

first came to public attention in 1986, when she was cast in the popular soap opera Neighbours as Charlene Robinson, a schoolgirl turned garage mechanic. She signed with Mushroom Records in early 1987 and released her self-titled debut studio album in July 1988. Fueled by hit singles like "I Should Be So Lucky", "The Loco-Motion" and "Got to Be Certain", Kylie peaked at number one and was the best-selling album of 1988 in the United Kingdom. In her native Australia, it peaked at number two and was certified four times platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association. It has sold over five million copies worldwide. The album helped Minogue launch her career as a pop artist at a time when not many established actors in television chose to make a record.
Minogue relocated to London after filming her final scenes for Neighbours in June and July 1988. In November, she lent her voice to "Especially for You", a duet with her then-boyfriend Jason Donovan, who also played her love interest in Neighbours. Written and produced by Stock Aitken Waterman, it became the fourth highest-selling single of 1988 and the first number-one single of 1989 in the United Kingdom. In February 1989, she reunited with the producers at PWL Studios 1 & 4 in London. The trio, who had served as producers and writers on Kylie, had Minogue record "Hand on Your Heart" and "Wouldn't Change a Thing", while working on her sophomore album.
Two months later, it was announced that Minogue had accepted the lead part of Lola Lovell in the Australian-based film The Delinquents, directed by Chris Thomson. Trying to establish herself as a serious actress, Minogue believed the role as a rebellious and passionate country girl would differentiate her from her girl-next-door image in Neighbours. Principal photography began in Maryborough, Queensland, in May and lasted about two months. She resumed work on her album in London for three weeks until July. The recording sessions were intense since she was still promoting her debut album. She recorded "Never Too Late" and a cover of "Tears on My Pillow", originally performed by Little Anthony and the Imperials, during the final sessions in July. "Tears on My Pillow" was chosen after Minogue had heard the original version while dining at Pete Waterman's house.

Music and lyrics

Music critics have described Enjoy Yourself as a bubblegum pop, synth-pop, dance-pop, and disco album, whose theme revolves around romantic relationships. They also noted the similar composition of the songs to those on Minogue's debut album. In the biography Kylie, Sean Smith notes that it "was little more than an extension of her debut album, an example of not fixing something when it isn't broken." Chris True of AllMusic commented the comparison between the two was "no surprise" and the formula to make catchy songs "was pure gold." Nick Levine of Digital Spy said that it sounded "more perky, plasticky Stock Aitken Waterman pop" than the previous effort, while Joe Sweeney of PopMatters felt that Minogue was "no longer merely bridging the gap between pop charts and dance floors," but trying to expand from the "still-Astley-rific SAW house sound" by incorporating ballad and doo-wop tracks. Ian Gormely of Exclaim! compared the bubblegum synth-pop sound to the work of American singers Tiffany and Debbie Gibson.
Stock, Aitken and Waterman wrote and produced the entire album apart from "Tears on My Pillow", which was written by Sylvester Bradford and Al Lewis. Enjoy Yourself contains many R&B basslines, which Stock felt shows "different aspects of pop-ness" and gives "a slightly more soulful, more American angle, a kind of serious feel". He wrote simple lyrics about romantic relationships to give the songs "extra resonance and profundity". "Hand on Your Heart" is a beat-heavy song that deals with not wanting to believe a relationship is over. It was inspired by soul singles "That's the Way Love Is" by Ten City and "This Old Heart of Mine " by The Isley Brothers. "Wouldn't Change a Thing" and "Tell Tale Signs" deal with the complexity of love. "Never Too Late" is an emotional pop song, while "Tell Tale Signs" was compared to the work of Paul McCartney and Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine described it as a "string-laden torch song". It was followed by the baroque pop "My Secret Heart". Levine called Minogue's version of "Tears on My Pillow" an "odd retro moment", and described the title track, which serves as the album closer, as a "party with a Seize The Day message" that predicted Minogue's follow-up effort. Cameron Adams from Herald Sun felt that the song sounds "ingenious" and "effortless".

Release

Enjoy Yourself was released in the UK on 9 October 1989 by Pete Waterman Entertainment|. The album was not released in Australia until 6 November 1989, through Mushroom Records. The album's artwork, shot by photographer Simon Fowler, shows Minogue grinning and wearing a bedazzling golden hat. Like Kylie the artwork was meant to show her in a girlie and carefree way that kids and teenagers could relate to, and not as "some icon on a pedestal". Other PWL artists used the same strategy and can be seen posing with hats on the covers of their albums. These include Mandy Smith's Mandy and Sonia's Everybody Knows. The title, Enjoy Yourself, reflects Minogue's motto of living with a positive attitude in the face of life's difficulties.
In Japan, a limited edition was released in November with postcards, stickers and a lyric booklet. The North American edition, released by Geffen Records in 1990, had differing artwork and included "Especially for You" as a bonus track. In 1989, a VHS titled Kylie: The Videos 2 was released in the United Kingdom and Japan by PWL, including an interview with Minogue, as well as music videos for "It's No Secret", "Hand On Your Heart", "Wouldn't Change A Thing", and "Never Too Late". The album was re-released by WEA in Japan in 1993 and 1995, before PWL announced their reissue in 2012 with bonus tracks and mixes. In October 2014, it was announced that Enjoy Yourself was to be re-released by Cherry Red Records and PWL, along with her studio albums Kylie, Rhythm of Love, and Let's Get to It. The release date was later postponed to 9 February 2015. The albums were digitally remastered from the original studio tapes and available on vinyl, CD, and DVD. This was the first time these albums had been released in the United Kingdom since their original release. The reissue peaked at number ninety-four on the UK Albums Chart on 15 February 2015.

Promotion

In October 1989, Minogue launched her first concert tour, Disco in Dream, performing several songs from both Kylie and Enjoy Yourself. It began in Japan, where she performed before 38,000 fans at the Tokyo Dome. She later joined other artists from the PWL label on a ten-date theatre tour in the United Kingdom, which attracted 170,000 fans. Its run in the United Kingdom was sponsored by local radio stations and was re-titled The Hitman Roadshow. From February to May 1990, Minogue launched the Enjoy Yourself Tour. She performed three shows in her native Australia in February, grossing $3 million from the sale of 10,000 tickets per-show. The tour was later extended to Europe and South East Asia in April and May. Her performance in Birmingham, the first city of the European leg, attracted 12,700 fans at the Resorts World Arena.

Singles

"Hand on Your Heart" was released as the first single in April 1989 with "Just Wanna Love You" as the B-side track. A music video, filmed in Melbourne earlier in March, was released featuring Minogue dancing in a studio set. The single received limited promotion as Minogue was busy filming The Delinquents. Nevertheless, the song became her third number one single on the UK Singles Chart, while reaching number four on the Australian Singles Chart. It reached number one in Ireland, and peaked in the top ten in Switzerland and France. The second single "Wouldn't Change a Thing" was released in July, accompanied by Minogue's first music video to be filmed in the UK. It debuted at number two there and reached number six in Australia that September.
The title track was originally planned as the third single but was replaced with "Never Too Late". The decision was made at the last minute before its release on 23 October. The track's B-side was a megamix of her songs from Kylie, titled "Kylie's Smiley Mix". "Never Too Late" became Minogue's fifth number-one single in Ireland and reached number four in the UK. The music video shows Minogue in various costumes: she dresses as a cowgirl, a '70s disco dancer, a Chinese woman with a handheld fan and a 1920s flapper. "Tears on My Pillow" was released as the final single to support both the album and The Delinquents. The single was pushed until January 1990 to meet the film's release schedule. It debuted at number two in the UK on 14 January, Minogue's ninth consecutive top-five single and her fourth to debut at number two. It reached number one the following week, her fourth single to do so. The 12" single was released with the B-side "We Know the Meaning of Love". "Never Too Late" and "Tears on My Pillow" also peaked in the top 20 in Australia and the Netherlands.

Critical reception

Enjoy Yourself received mixed reviews from music critics, many of whom compared it to Minogue's debut album. AllMusic's Chris True awarded the album two-and-a-half stars out of five, saying it was a "good companion to her debut" and the producers "knew what they had and they crafted songs that kept in the public eye." Nick Levine of Digital Spy opined that despite the lack of strong tunes, the album still had "a bit more variety" than her first one and Minogue was "at her most ingenuous". Echoing the same sentiments, Richard Lowe of Smash Hits praised the diversity of the songs and called it a "magnificent pop ". In a review for the 2015 reissue of Enjoy Yourself, PopMatters Joe Sweeney deemed it a more ambitious production and felt Minogue's vocals were "notably stronger" than before. He felt the result, however, sounded "like a messy document of artistic maturation". Sean Smith described it as an extension of Kylie; the result was just "another Charlene album". In the Encyclopedia of Popular Music, British writer Colin Larkin gave it three out of five stars, as he did Minogue's debut album, classifying it as "recommended" and "highly listenable".
Reactions by American critics were generally unfavourable. The staff of People magazine viewed Enjoy Yourself as an attempt to exploit the success of the debut album in a "particularly lazy, unimaginative way". They felt the producers overpowered Minogue, describing her as "a cog in a gray-noise machine" and that "she project practically zero personality". In a one-star out of five review, Arion Berger of Rolling Stone dismissed the singer's "abysmal" vocals as well as the "hopelessly retro" tracks. He called the album "inept" and felt Minogue had a long way to go to display any artistic innovation. Billboards reviewer called the album another " from SAW's clockwork sweet shoppe" and panned the computer-generated songs, saying they "won't win any Nobels for deep thought, but young fans will still gobble it up like Baskin-Robbins". All three publications singled out "Tears on My Pillow" for praise, calling it "substantial" and the " proven hit". In a review in 2018, Slant Magazines Sal Cinquemani wrote that Enjoy Yourself repeats "Kylies sonic template almost verbatim" and criticized "Hand on Your Heart" as the "tonally incongruent lead single". He described it as Minogue's second-worst studio album.
At the ARIA Music Awards of 1990, Minogue was nominated for Best Female Artist for Enjoy Yourself while receiving the Outstanding Achievement Award. The music video for "Never Too Late" won the award for Most Popular Music Video at the 32nd Logie Awards, her second win in the category; she previously won for "The Loco-motion" in 1988.

Commercial performance

Enjoy Yourself debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart and remained in the top 10 for sixteen weeks. It was certified double platinum by the British Phonographic Industry two days after its release, powered by pre-sales of over 600,000 copies. It went on to sell over one million copies in the first ten weeks of its release. It was the sixth best-selling album of 1989 in the UK, and was certified four times platinum on 1 January 1990. In her native Australia, the album debuted at number fifteen before reaching number nine in the second week. It was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association in January 1990 for selling over 70,000 copies. It debuted at number sixteen in New Zealand and peaked at number six three weeks later. It was certified gold by the Recorded Music NZ in June 1990.
In Japan, Enjoy Yourself was Minogue's first top-ten entry on the Oricon Albums Chart, peaking at number seven. It was certified gold by Recording Industry Association of Japan in November 1989, her second and last certification there, and had sold 49,000 copies as of 2006. The album also peaked in the top 30 in Finland, France, and Switzerland. In North America, the album failed to find an audience and did not appear on any major charts, leading to Minogue being dropped as an act by Geffen Records. Enjoy Yourself was her last album released there until her eighth studio album, Fever was picked up by Capitol Records in 2002.

Track listing

All songs written, produced and arranged by Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman, except where noted.

Personnel

Adapted from the album's liner notes.

Weekly charts

Chart Peak
position

Year-end charts

Chart Position
Europe 90

Certifications

Release history

Footnotes