The verdict: Is Kylie's album any good?

Album title: X | Artist: Kylie Minogue

MADONNA once divulged disco secrets.

But on closer inspection, Madge's Confessions on a Dance Floor revealed a serial bandwagon-jumper hitching a ride on tired beats and dud songs.

By contrast, Kylie Minogue's new album, X, is a dance-floor confession with meaning.

It is an upbeat, celebratory work in which a comeback queen reflects on a hard-won return.

Minogue's triumph over breast cancer, it says on the album, causes her to reflect and reveal.

"I wanted the right to misbehave . . . the things I'd put aside for years," she sings on Cosmic, a part ballad, part to-do list.

Another song, No More Rain, has Kylie dreaming of a return to the stage: "Got a wave of love coming over me, a glitter drop, now I'm on my knees. The sound of your ringing in my ears. Got a second-hand chance, gonna do it again. Got rainbow colours and no more rain."

That sunny optimism is the beating heart of X.

Collaborators Calvin Harris, Biff Stannard, Cutfather and Joe, Bloodshy and Avant, Freemasons, Cathy Dennis, Guy Chambers and Karen Poole tweak Kylie to next-level grandeur across fields of electro, soul, house, glitch-pop and robot rock.

Kylie's dance-floor confession is about defiance, positivity, spontaneity, love, light and lust.

Harris co-writes two of the album's standouts, In My Arms and Heart Beat Rock. Futuristic production is showcased on Speakerphone, Wow and Nu-di-ty.

Clearly, the abundance of beats on X say Kylie is in the mood to dance.

But mostly, the former Impossible Princess now lives for every moment.

X marks that spot.