X (Kylie Minogue Album) - Recording

Recording

Initial sessions in New York with Jake Shears and Babydaddy of Scissor Sisters would result in "White Diamond" and "Singing in My Sleep" before Minogue settled down with her longstanding co-writers Biffco (Richard Stannard, Julian Peake and Paul Harris) in Brighton to work on a number of tracks. This collaboration proved very productive, with "Stars", "Fall for You", "Everlasting Love" (which she later sang on tour, with the title "Ruffle My Feathers") and "I Don't Know What It Is" being recorded. During the Biffco sessions, Scottish musician Calvin Harris worked with the team on "In My Arms", while Stannard brought in a track he had sourced titled "The One", which he co-produced with Russell Small and James Wiltshire of Freemasons. Stannard also worked with Stuart Crichton on "Tell It Like It Is", Dave Morgan ("Simple Boy"), Rob Davis ("One to One"), Martin Harrington, Ash Howes and Hannah Robinson ("Give Up to Love").

Once the sessions for the album had got underway, Parlophone's A&R team sent out writing and production briefs to a large number of artists, producers and songwriters, some of them well regarded, some up-and-coming and some unknown, requesting demo submissions for Minogue and her team to hear. Minogue continued to work with a growing number of artists on her new material. Harris returned to the project with "Heart Beat Rock", sessions with Scottish musician Mylo resulted in "I'm in the Mood for Love" and "Spell of Desire" while underground London group Kish Mauve produced two of their own songs for Minogue, "2 Hearts" and "Lose Control". Boy George and Amanda Ghost submitted a track called "I'm Ready", with further submissions coming from Davis, Robinson ("So Safe"), Henrik Korpi ("Never Be Lonely"), Siobhan Fahey, Goldfrapp, Sneaky Sound System, Hot Chip and Alan Braxe.

Minogue's material took a harder electronic approach with some of her newer collaborators. Danish producers Cutfather and Jonas Jeberg forwarded a demo of "Like a Drug" to Parlophone, which was rejected at first but accepted on second try. Minogue recorded the track in London, and later she recorded "All I See" (written by EMI songwriter Edwin "Lil' Eddie" Serrano), "Down Down" and "Rippin' Up the Disco" with them. Sessions in Stockholm with songwriter Karen Poole and Swedish producers Bloodshy & Avant resulted in tracks "Speakerphone", "Cherry Bomb" and "Nu-di-ty". Minogue brought out her lyric book and attempted to work on "No More Rain" with them, but their production-heavy style did not work well with the song.

Minogue requested setting up a studio in Ibiza with previous writing partner Karen Poole, and newcomer to the fold Greg Kurstin, an American multi-instrumentalist musician and producer. Once there they wrote "Wow", "King or Queen", "Deepest Blue", "Carried Away", "Do It Again" and "Magnetic Electric". Minogue gave "No More Rain" to Kurstin to complete a new production on the song. Poole also worked on a track with Soul Mechanics entitled "My Love Is Real".

A few more tracks completed rounded off the album's sessions. Minogue recorded a cover of Roxy Music's 1975 song "Love Is the Drug" with Harris, and completed "Cosmic" with producer Eg White. Minogue encountered songwriter Guy Chambers at a function, who offered her a song he had written over the previous four years and built around a sample of Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot's "Bonnie and Clyde". Cathy Dennis joined Minogue in furthering the track, which became "Sensitized". She had also written a number of songs for Minogue's album, including one co-written with producer Mark Ronson entitled "Boys Boys Boys". Minogue also completed a number of tracks with her longtime writing partner Steve Anderson of Brothers in Rhythm; those tracks included "Hush Hush", "Flower" and "That's Why They Write Love Songs".

Mylo was also recruited to record several of the tracks for the album with Minogue. After recording tracks in the studio, he was told "they were being sent off to be mixed and would be on the final record". He was shocked when the final product was released without any of his tracks included. "To be honest, I think the album is a complete mess, except for the track she blatantly stole, '2 Hearts'", he told BBC Radio 1. "I plan to keep up my public beef with Kylie for as long as possible."

It was also reported that the Pet Shop Boys were invited to write a handful of tracks for Minogue. After having submitted them, they were subsequently ignored and the duo would go on to record several of the songs for their own 2009 album Yes: "We never heard anything back", explained Neil Tennant. "I think every songwriter in London wrote songs for Kylie's last album When we were on tour, we had two male backing singers and both had submitted songs for Kylie's album as well. They never heard anything either." Chris Lowe, the other half of the duo, added, "We won't be doing it again."

During the time between the release of X to the present a large number of songs from the album sessions leaked to the Internet, these being "Taprobane", "Come Down", "My Love Is Real", "Fall for You", "Spell of Desire", "Love Is the Drug", "Lose Control", "In the Mood for Love", "Ruffle My Feathers" and "White Diamond".