Kylie Minogue feels more of a "personal connection" to the songs on her latest LP ‘Golden’ than any of her other music.
The 50-year-old singer has often found herself having to "defend" her decision to work with a team of songwriters throughout her career, including Stock Aitken Waterman – the songwriting and production company of Mick Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman – who together launched the Australian star’s pop career in the late 1980s.
This time round though, the former ‘Neighbours’ actress had much more involvement in the songwriting process as it followed themes of her life through the years, heartbreak and reaching the milestone age of 50, but she welcomed input from other writers.
In an interview with The Belfast Telegraph, Kylie said: "I have had to defend being the singer of songs a lot in my career. Critics say, ‘Yeah, but you don’t write your own music’.
"But there is more of a personal connection with these new songs. I love writing but equally if a great song comes in, give it to me. There are so many songwriters who are not singers. Writing is their skill and they need someone to sing."
‘Golden’ is the ‘Spinning Around’ hitmaker’s first record since 1997’s ‘Impossible Princess’, and Kylie admits that record was her "belated teenage rebellion" release after she moved away from working with SAW.
The ‘Dancing’ singer highlights one key difference between the two records, the fact she is now able to pen tracks about her "darker side", but still be pop.
On how she has changed in the past two decades, she said: "Yeah pretty different! I think with ‘Impossible Princess’ I went from one extreme to another.
"I was going away from the Stock Aitken Waterman factory and it was kind of like a belated teenage rebellion.
"I wanted to write about the darker side of me. I loved finding a way of trying to be poetic with it.
"But now I can write about those emotions and keep the pop perspective.
"So quite different, it was a long time ago. A lot of things have changed."
Kylie Minogue has deeper ‘connection’ to Golden than other albums
