X is Kylie's 10th album

In this impeccable parade of pop chops, seven songs elapse before any level of emotional engagement is demanded of you. Written as she recovered from her breast cancer treatment, a summery acoustic thing called No More Rain is like a wood-panelled Morris Minor next to such state-of-the-art creations as NuDiTy and All I See. And yet that's the first song you feel like listening to again

Maybe it'll be a different story if she takes these songs onto the road. There's every reason to believe that Kylie can humanise this strangely uncompelling album. Let's hope so, because from this vantage point, you can barely sense her presence.

X cannot avoid being contextualised by the shock of her breast cancer diagnosis, the truncated tour, the chemo, the courage, the crop, the break-up and the comeback.

This is not a bad record. You could easily frame it as a big frothy two-fingered salute to death. But think about what great pop George Michael made out of his arrest; what exquisiteness was wrought when Justin Timberlake filmed the video for Cry Me a River (full of references to his break-up with Britney). And you realise X is an opportunity missed.

X is a water-treading, safety-first, largely unsubstantial work. Kylie projects the same amount of soul and personality as the machine she praises in Speakerphone. Love may be a many splendoured thing, but aside from the daft glam-punk throb of the single 2 Hearts, the joy of X is mighty hard to find.

Her voice is still cute, slight, girlish, except for on the rapped Heart Beat Rock for which she does an odd Robbie Williams impression.

Critics who think she's competing with icy, adult electro divas such as Alison Goldfrapp or Roisin Murphy are missing the point. She's no innovator. She's providing the safe, superficial, silly soundtrack for little sisters to dress up to and have a bit of fun.

Kylie is virtually an absentee on her own album, her personality evaporating like morning mist from the dreary parade of under-powered techno backings, which bring to mind Madonna B-sides from a quarter-century ago.

Other than No More Rain, by some distance the classiest thing here, X is as faceless as its title would suggest.

A fine selection of pop gems. The current trend for electro is one that was always going to suit Kylie and it's one that she's used right through X.

The biggest compliment that can be paid to X is simply that it is an album capable of gobbling up column inches regardless of the popularity of or media interest in Kylie. National treasure she may be, but she's not about to start resting on her laurels.