Ian Peel of "Classic Pop" commended the hooks saying they are "simple ... but never really leave you," adding the songs "sound pretty much the same". From the same publication, Mark Elliot praised the Hi-NRG pop tunes that "set the benchmark for her spectacular career," and ranked it as the third-best Stock Aitken Waterman album. In a review for the 2015 reissue of "Kylie", Sweeney found it "soulless" but the production flaws was made up by the "well-crafted melodies". In 2018, Cinquemani ranked "Kylie" as Minogue's worst studio album, criticizing her vocals which sound "like she was forced to suck down a lungful of helium". He concluded that the album was "as lightweight and unsatisfying as cotton candy—and goes down just as easy". In the "Encyclopedia of Popular Music" (2011), British writer Colin Larkin gave the album three out of five stars, classifying it as "recommended" and "highly listenable".