Rhythm of Love is the third studio album by Australian singer Kylie Minogue. It was released in the United Kingdom on 12 November 1990 by Pete Waterman Limited (PWL) and in Australia on 3 December 1990 by Mushroom Records. Recording sessions took place in London and Los Angeles during early-to-mid 1990. Minogue started to become more involved in the writing and production of the album; she was credited as co-writer for the first time, while Stock Aitken Waterman (SAW) were the primary producers along with new producers and collaborations, including Keith Cohen, Stephen Bray and Michael Jay.

Rhythm of Love is a musical departure from Minogue's earlier bubblegum pop records, and has a more sexually liberated image and dance-influenced sound. It received generally positive reviews from music critics, being complimented as her best work with SAW. The album was not as commercially successful as Minogue's previous albums, becoming her first studio album not to reach number one in the UK, reaching number nine on the UK Albums Chart. In Australia, it was Minogue's third top 10 studio album, peaking at number 10, while also attaining top 20 positions in Ireland, France, and Spain.

Four accompanying singles were released — "Better the Devil You Know", "Step Back in Time", "What Do I Have to Do", and "Shocked" — all of which peaked inside the top 10 in the UK and Ireland, making Minogue the first artist to have their first 13 releases reach the top 10 in that region. Promotion for Rhythm of Love included controversial music videos and continued to associate Minogue with an increasingly provocative image. Minogue further promoted the album with her Rhythm of Love Tour, traveling to Australia and Asia. The album was re-issued in the UK in 2015, when it returned to the UK Albums Chart.

Background Kylie Minogue relocated to London after filming her final scenes for Neighbours between June and July 1988.; She tried to steer her public image away from her character of Charlene Robinson, a schoolgirl-turned-garage mechanic whom Minogue felt was an exploitation of her career.; In April 1989, Minogue accepted the lead role of Lola Lovell for that year's film The Delinquents. She believed the role of a rebellious, passionate country girl that suffers through an abortion during her teenage years and has several love scenes in the film would establish her as a serious actor.; Principal photography of The Delinquents began in May 1989 and lasted about two months, coinciding with the recording of Minogue's second album Enjoy Yourself (1989).; ; Released in late 1989, both the film and the album were commercially successful though received mixed reviews from critics, many of whom considered them as failed attempts to differentiate Minogue's girl-next-door image.; ; ;

Minogue first met Michael Hutchence, lead singer of Australian rock band INXS, at the Countdown Awards ceremony in July 1987.; They started a romantic affair in Hong Kong during September 1989, a few days before Minogue's first concert tour, Disco in Dream, kicked off.; That December, Minogue broke up with her partner of three years and Neighbours co-star, Jason Donovan, over the telephone, and later attended the Australian premiere of The Delinquents with Hutchence; the couple's relationship attracted intense attention.; Minogue also sang on "Do They Know It's Christmas?", an all-star ensemble charity single that was released to raise funds for famine relief in Ethiopia. Produced by Stock Aitken Waterman (SAW), the song was the Christmas number-one single on the UK Singles Chart and the ninth biggest-selling single of 1989 in the United Kingdom.; ;

Recording and production Sessions with SAW

Dissatisfied with her limited creative input on her first two albums, Minogue strategised with her manager Terry Blamey and her Australian label Mushroom Records to force a change in her relationship with SAW. Pete Waterman deflected Kylie's request for writing input on her SAW-produced tracks by scheduling a writing session with PWL B-team Phil Harding and Ian Curnow, which produced the track "I Am the One for You", which remained unreleased for several years. With Kylie deciding to collaborate with US producers on the new record, this move pressured SAW into conceding the singer creative input, and they gave her veto on mixes, which she used.

Rhythm of Love was recorded in early-to-mid 1990.; ; Minogue started recording for the album in March, after finishing the Australian leg of the Enjoy Yourself Tour. The first three songs recorded at the PWL Studios, London were "Better the Devil You Know", "What Do I Have To Do", and "Things Can Only Get Better"; the former song was recorded within three hours.; ; ; Once the tour ended in May, she finished four other tracks with SAW in late July: "Step Back in Time", "Secrets", "Always Find the Time", and "Shocked".; ; As alternative rock and techno entered the musical mainstream, SAW tried to adopt a more appropriate approach for the current music market,Matt Aitken stated they took many cues from techno music and felt "pure pop had run its course" at the time. Due to Pete Waterman's background as a disc jockey in gay clubs, Pete Waterman Limited (PWL) co-owner David Howells thought making more club-oriented songs for Minogue was unavoidable. Meanwhile, Stock was not familiar with club music and felt isolated in many respects. SAW also had to update their rhythm tracks to match the popular Roland TR-909 sound. "We struggled to make it sound more like what everybody else was doing at the time, but we got there in the end", said Aitken of creating the sound. The trio also acknowledged Minogue's evolving public image and discussed how to change the musical and lyrical emphasis for her next album. They decided to subtly move on from Minogue's previous material to avoid alienating her fans.;

Hutchence was with Minogue during the sessions; he listened to the rough tapes and gave her advice about songwriting. "[Hutchence] really does help me and influence me a lot ... He encourages me to be myself and go for it", Minogue said of his input. During the production of Rhythm of Love, Minogue began to take more control over her workload. She came up with many visual ideas, and took inspiration from American singer Madonna and her fourth studio album Like a Prayer (1989).

Other collaborations Before starting to work on Rhythm of Love, Minogue asked to record some of the tracks with producers other than SAW, which they accepted.; According to Waterman, Minogue "was going to clubs, seeing different people, hearing different things ... I knew the artist was going to want to get involved". In March 1990, she went to Los Angeles to enlist the help of other producers. Sessions with Keith Cohen, Michael Jay, and Madonna's longtime collaborator Stephen Bray produced the tracks "The World Still Turns", "One Boy Girl", "Count the Days", and "Rhythm of Love"—all of which credited Minogue as co-writer for the first time.; Minogue wanted to work with Jay upon hearing his work with American singer Martika; they collaborated on "The World Still Turns", Minogue's first co-written song from the LA sessions. Jay decided on an R&B-tinged ballad after being given a brief by MCA records to "give [Kylie] a hit in the United States", although he says he had to restrain himself from his personal wish to produce SAW-inspired pop. Jay says he felt he'd failed the mission to produce a US hit when he heard the final album, after realising the extreme quality of the SAW-produced singles, but acknowledges he was working to a very different brief than the UK production team.

Minogue wrote "One Boy Girl" with Willie Wilcox in August, who came up with the title.; The original demo for the track featured a male rapper; Cohen later replaced him with verses by American female rapper the Poetess. Bray co-wrote "Rhythm of Love" and "Count the Days" with Minogue; while recording "Rhythm of Love", he had an idea for the chorus of "Count the Days", to which Minogue subsequently contributed her verses. She managed to finish the album by September. Minogue was proud of the songs she had written and felt Rhythm of Love was a more important project to her than her two previous albums.; In Los Angeles, the sessions took place at Trax Recording, Ultimo, Ground Control Studio, Scotland Yard, Larrabee Sound, and Saturn Sound.

Music and lyrics Rhythm of Love is primarily a dance-pop album, marking a departure from the bubblegum pop music of Minogue's earlier work.; It has a more dance-oriented production and instrumentation, which includes saxophone and guitar.; Select Andrew Harrison said most of the album "goose-steps to Stock Aitken Waterman's mercilessly mutated house beat". Marc Andrews from Smash Hits stated Rhythm of Love "is not as 'different' as it could have been", with the majority of the tracks being "familiar boompy-tee-boomp backbeat, swirling strings and relentless thumping drums". He also said the album is "pretty much a cracking pop outing" overall. Cameron Adams from the Herald Sun considered it the first album "that tried to inject some R&B" into Minogue's output. John Lyons of The Sydney Morning Herald wrote that the album features more "American sounds" like funk and rap.

The opening track, "Better the Devil You Know", is a dance-pop song with worldbeat influences, in which Minogue struggles with a lover's flaws.; SAW wrote the song as a response to Minogue's departure from Neighbours and her over-publicised romantic relationships with Donovan and Hutchence.; Joe Sweeney of PopMatters compared Minogue's delivery with that of Madonna. A disco song about the love of music, "Step Back in Time" is one of a few non-relationship-themed tracks by Minogue;; it pays homage to 1970s disco music by referencing titles and catchphrases, and includes uncredited samples of Bobby Byrd's song "Hot Pants – I'm Coming, Coming, I'm Coming" (1972) and B. T. Express's song "Give Up the Funk (Let's Dance)" (1980).; ; Adams described the track as "Motown meets Hi-NRG meets Studio 54" and said it may have laid the path for her disco-related material. The rave-infused track "What Do I Have To Do" features piano lines, whooshing noises, and built-in rushes.; The song was compared with Madonna's "Vogue" (1990), Black Box's "Ride on Time" (1989), and Deee-Lite's "Groove is in the Heart" (1990). In the lyrics, Minogue tries to get a man to know how much she loves him with a more mature approach; the song includes lyrics such as "There ain't a single night / When I haven't held you tight / But it's always inside my head / Never inside my bed.";

"Secrets" is similar to the earlier work of Olivia Newton-John and Minogue's previous studio album Enjoy Yourself (1989).; It shows the singer's vulnerability towards her lover, with Minogue being scared that her secrets will force him to leave. She sings about falling in love on "Always Find The Time", a SAW-produced upbeat track with incidental cymbal crashes, and samples from Mary Jane Girls' 1983 single "Candy Man", written and composed by Rick James. Jeremy Mark of Number One noted that "The World Still Turns", the first song on Rhythm of Love co-written by Minogue, is "the only real attempt at a ballad on the album", although its pace is "not especially slow and smoochy". The song talks about moving on from a failed relationship. On the seventh track "Shocked", Minogue sings about being surprised to find herself deeply in love. Composer Mike Stock says the track was influenced by the writings of Virginia Woolf and is meant to be evocative of "a trip". The track has a sophisticated dance sound with electric guitars and a disco beat. "One Boy Girl" blends rhythmic new jack swing with house elements, and includes strong dance beats and a rap conversation between Minogue and the Poetess.