The timing couldn't be worse. Just as Holly Valance, the ex-'Neighbours' starlet who became an instant sex kitten in 2002, decides to delve into the '80s, pull out a pile of squelchy synths and up the pop ante with her second album, Kylie Minogue arrives all steamed-up and sultry with the writhing electro sex appeal of 'Body Language'. The similarities are too glaring to ignore, and unfortunately for Valance, under direct comparison, her lusty advances come a less arousing second.
Yet even without the misfortune of being a wannabe Kylie going head to head with the real thing, 'State Of Mind' would struggle. Where Minogue and others have taken the best of decade style forgot and remodelled it with futuristic cool, Valance has gone the hole hog, embracing the good, the bad and the tacky. And in the true spirit of the '80s the result is a deluge of style over content.
With all the tinny click tracks, Space Invaders bleeps and bloops, shinny guitars and more synths than the Human League could carry, no cliché has been left un-airbrushed. Sadly though, there's barely a tune strong enough to support the excess of gloss. Meanwhile all the heavy breathing in the world can't make lines like the title track's "All I need is to breathe / all I need is to believe" anything other than meaningless nonsense.
Where 'Kiss Kiss' took a filthy Arabian hip-shake and domineering lyric and made her sound like a devilish minx who could make grown men whimper, the likes of 'Hypnotic' are an overeager schoolgirl trying to make rhyming random words sexy.
The big hair and shoulder pads devotion isn't totally in vain. An electro snare and Prince-ly funk power 'Roll Over' to a sly groove and suitably huge chorus, and 'Everything I Hate''s simmering tantalises to a degree. But they're little compensation for 'Desire' sounding like a T'Pau b-side. Worse still, 'Somebody Out There' and the cringe worthy 'Action', have her chasing the rather unlikely dream of being the female David Hasselhoff.
Hardly chic seduction, 'State Of Mind' is akin to watching an episode of 'I Love 1983', sniggering at the cheap videos and wondering how girls in leg warmers, jump suits and pink eye shadow were ever desirable. Goldfrapp might have made the '80s sound dark and mysterious; Kylie might be convincing us it was a hotbed of carnal delight; but Holly Valance here confirms that, no, we were right all along, the '80s really were naff.
