From naive young go-getter teaching the world to dance “The Locomotion” to future-pop maven that even the indie kids couldn’t get out of their heads, the former Ms. Minogue has gone through nearly as many transformations as that other single-named pop star. But where Madonna matched her chameleonic desires to a dreadful sense of self-importance, Kylie has never wanted to be anything more than entertaining.

She’s pulled it off pretty consistently, too. Fever (2002) was her masterwork, containing “Love at First Sight” and “Can’t Get You Out of my Head,” two absolutely perfect slabs of radio-friendly pop. Her followup, 2003’s Body Language, wasn’t too shabby either — it didn’t reach Fever’s heights, but it was more than enough to keep her in the spotlight. A bout with breast cancer in 2005 knocked Kylie out of commission for a bit, though, and the time off has only raised expectations for her post-cancer comeback, X.

Anyone expecting X to be a meditation on her ordeal hasn’t been paying attention. Serious statements just don’t suit Kylie, and she’s usually bright enough to know it — keeping the club moving is statement enough. The opening vamp of “2 Hearts” is plenty proof enough, the rhythm section providing a stripperly strut beneath the most sex-kittenish croon Kylie’s mustered to date. The hook is almost unbearably simple, an ingeniously placed “wooh” in the chorus that soars out of the song and straight into your aural pleasure centre. Two tracks later, “In my Arms” endears itself with its restraint, holding off on an obvious call-and-response hook until it hits the two minute mark. Even the Daft Punk-aping “Speakerphone” rises above its blasé lyrics and extraneous vocodor. For its first half, at least, X has a hard time doing any wrong.

Things start getting shaky with “No More Rain,” where Kylie drops the flirtiness for a life-affirming ditty about “rainbow colours and no more rain.” Of all of X’s songs, “No More Rain” seems most likely to have been inspired by the cancer experience, but its exceedingly straightforward musical approach doesn’t sit right with the rest of the disc. “Nu-di-ty” takes things too far in the other direction, bypassing flirtation and heading straight for Britney-esque sex romp, a style that Kylie simply cannot pull off. And the less said about album closer “Cosmic,” X’s only real ballad, the better.

Still, Kylie’s got the pop-star persona down. She’s never as crass as Christina, as pompous as Madonna or as train-wreck crazy as Britney. When she’s on, she does dance floor pop better than just about anyone — and for at least half of X, she’s definitely on.