9 November 1989
Spoiler alert: Kylie goes on to have an eclectic ’90s, a triumphant ’00s, and pop icon status ever since. Even so, and knowing all that, I listen to ‘Never Too Late’ and start to wonder if she’s even going to be around until the end of the record.
I also wonder if ‘Never Too Late’ was initially meant to be an album filler track. Certainly by Kylie standards, but even by Stock, Aitken and Waterman standards, this is tired, slapdash, wafer-thin fare. The verses have no energy, the chorus is painfully formulaic, and you can literally hear the point in the mid-section where everyone gives up. Even Sonia must have heard this and shaken her head ruefully, perhaps even offering to SAW that she could help poor Kylie out next time.
Aside from featuring on a collective effort shortly, Kylie won’t have another number one in Ireland for almost twelve years. (In the UK, after one week atop the charts the following January with a dreary cover of ’50s doo-wop ballad ‘Tears On My Pillow’ from her movie The Delinquents, it’ll be ten years.) This is a crude measurement of Kylie’s pop status, of course. She still has twelve Irish top twenty hits during the ’90s, two of which are sensationally good and another being a second all-Australian duet markedly different to her first. What’s more, she also dives into other unlikely collaborations, more contemporary sounds, and lyrically and visually an almost constant state of self-examination on The Meaning Of Kylie. But if none of that grabs you, that next number one is well worth the twelve-year wait.
