For the first time in her career, Kylie Minogue had a single miss the UK top ten. The Australian singer had ridden an astonishing run of thirteen straight top-ten hits, a streak that made her one of the most reliable pop stars of the late eighties and early nineties. Then came "Word Is Out", the lead single from her fourth studio album, Let's Get to It. It stalled at number sixteen. The album itself would not reach the top ten in either Britain or her home country. Something had shifted, and the story of Let's Get to It is really the story of a pop star trying to change her own formula. Kylie Minogue released Let's Get to It on October 14, 1991.
The last album for PWL
The album arrived on 14 October 1991 in the UK on PWL, the label run by the production trio Stock Aitken Waterman that had built Minogue's early sound. By then the trio was already a duo. Matt Aitken had left at the start of the year, leaving Mike Stock and Pete Waterman to produce the record. It was also the last studio album Minogue would make for PWL. The working relationship that had made her famous was coming apart, and the album captures that tension between the polished hit machine she had been and the more ambitious artist she wanted to become.
The most telling detail is the songwriting credit. For the first time, Minogue is listed as a co-writer on six of the nine original songs. Stock and Waterman agreed to share publishing royalties with her, which was a major concession from a production team known for tight control. Waterman would suggest themes and titles, then Stock and Minogue would build the songs by humming melodies together. It was a slower, more collaborative process. In fact, the album took longer to make than any of her previous studio records, a sign that Minogue was no longer content to simply be handed finished songs.
She did not have to make the album at all. PWL had originally signed Minogue for three studio albums, and Let's Get to It was the fourth. Her manager, Terry Blamey, persuaded her to record one more album for the creative opportunity to work with Stock. That decision tells you a lot about where her head was. She was not chasing another guaranteed hit; she was chasing a different kind of credibility. The music reflects that restlessness, pulling together hip-hop, new jack swing, house and dance-pop. The opening track, "Word Is Out", is a new jack swing number with jazz-fusion touches, a long way from the pure pop of her earlier singles.
A first duet and a cover
There were other firsts. The duet "If You Were with Me Now" was recorded with the American singer Keith Washington, and it marked the first duet on any of Minogue's own albums. The two wrote and recorded their parts separately, a practical arrangement that still produced a genuine hit: the single reached number four in the UK. It was also her first co-written hit to break the top five. One of the last tracks recorded was a cover of Chairmen of the Board's 1970 song "Give Me Just a Little More Time", a reach back to an older era while the rest of the record pushed forward.
The commercial picture was mixed. "Word Is Out" broke the top-ten streak, but "If You Were with Me Now" reached number four and the cover of "Give Me Just a Little More Time" climbed to number two. The album itself, however, did not crack the top ten in Australia or the UK. For an artist who had defined the late eighties with relentless chart success, that felt like a stumble. Yet the album was not a failure in every sense. It showed a singer trying to write her own material, to stretch beyond the sound that made her famous, and to take creative risks in public.
Minogue was not happy with the final result. She left PWL in 1992, the year after the album's release. Let's Get to It stands as the end of her first pop era, the moment she outgrew the machine that had launched her. The record is less remembered than the hits that came before it, but it is the one where Kylie Minogue first put her own name on the songs. That is the real turning point: not the broken streak, but the decision to stop being just the voice and start being the writer.
That is the real turning point: not the broken streak, but the decision to stop being just the voice and start being the writer.