A Kylie commotion

A Kylie commotion

The global interest in Aussie pop star Kylie Minogue has exploded over the last week, with a new 3-part documentary series dropping on Netflix. The series tracks her long and storied career - from her beginnings as an actor and soap star, to her many successful albums and reinventions, to her status now as an artist still releasing #1 singles. She’s managed to stay relevant for a long time, while even some immensely successful music acts tend to have an expiry date. So in this Squiz Shortcut, we’re looking at her career - and why the experts say she’s been so good for so long. 

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Squiz the Shortcut

We know Kylie’s popular here in Oz, but what about further afield?
Here’s a stat for you: Only one female artist in history has released a #1 album in the UK in 5 consecutive decades - that’s Kylie Minogue… And it’s not the only amazing stat when it comes to Kylie. She’s sold more than 80 million records, won 18 ARIA awards, and she's still selling out concerts around the world. As recently as December, she released a Christmas album that went to #1 in the UK… 

Take me back to the start… Where did it all begin?
Kylie was cast as Charlene Mitchell on Neighbours 40 years ago. Her onscreen relationship with Jason Donovan’s Scott Robinson was a huge factor in the show’s early success - their wedding episode was one of the most watched moments in the history of Australian television… 

So, acting was her way into the entertainment industry?
Yep, but as she says in the doco, singing was what she always really wanted to do. And she released her first songs - a cover of the Carole King and Gerry Goffin song The Loco-Motion and an original, I Should Be So Lucky, in 1987 and 1988 - and they were both huge hits. But her success came with some flak… 

What did critics say?
She was nicknamed the Singing Budgie - criticism that she says “had the human part missing”. Her music was also described as “simplistic” and “bland” as well as “annoying pop tunes with no depth”… But far from being a one-hit-wonder, Kylie started changing things up…

Tell me about that…
Her fifth album Kylie Minogue was different in tone to her previous ones. She left her initial label and songwriters, Stock Aitken Waterman, and released a more adult, contemporary record with songs like Confide in Me. She followed that up with Impossible Princess - and that’s where she also moved from being known as a singer to progressing as a songwriter. But while it was much more experimental, it was also much less successful… 

Did it flop?
Well, it didn’t do well on the UK charts. Most analysts point to its promotion and maybe a lead-off single that didn’t perform well as key factors in that. So it would have been easy to write Kylie off at this point - she’d been releasing music for around a decade, she’d been more involved in the writing and it hadn’t paid off… 

But that’s not what happened…
Nope… If you were within cooee of a radio around the year 2000, you’ll know that’s when she released Light Years - it was back to a more traditional pop sound, and it had Spinning Around, On a Night Like This and her duet with Robbie Williams, Kids on it…

Three huge singles…
Massive… And like Robbie Williams, Kylie had always struggled to crack the US market. She was big in the UK, Australia, and Europe, but the US had proved tricky. She changed all of that the following year when Can’t Get You Out of My Head came out. It was her biggest hit in the US for well over a decade - since The Loco-motion. 

Who could forget that white hooded jumpsuit?
Not us… And the reinventions kept coming - a bit more subtle from that point on, but from there she had a steady stream of hit songs - Come Into My World in 2002, Slow in 2003, and I Believe in You in 2004. She went through treatment for cancer in 2005, which we’ll come back to - but she kept releasing music, and had another hit with All the Lovers in 2010. 

How were the 2010s for her?
A little bit slower - but Kylie was not to be written off…In 2023 she released Padam Padam, which was a top 10 hit in the UK, and a top 30 hit here. She’s still making hits today, so it wouldn’t at all be surprising if the documentary led to a renewed interest in her music… 

What’s the secret to her longevity?
There are several reasons that have been floated, but we’ll pick out some of the common ones. A big part of Kylie’s longevity is her appeal amongst the LGBTQIA+ community. This is something that is covered in the doco - even Kylie herself didn’t initially realise how popular she was, but that support has given her a base that’s followed her throughout her career - particularly amongst gay men. 

Just explain that a bit more…
An academic paper published last year in the Journal of Media and Cultural Studies says that Kylie’s many reinventions are actually layered on that appeal - the idea being that they reflect the process of coming out, so there’s an additionally deeper connection… 

How has her sound changed over time?
She’s been able to collaborate with not only unexpected artists, but as time has gone by, she’s introduced herself to new audiences as well. One of the most famous examples of that was Where the Wild Roses Grow, her murder ballad duet with Nick Cave - but she’s still doing it... 

Who has she teamed up with recently?
A couple of years ago she collaborated with the country artist Orville Peck and the American DJ Diplo on a song. And she’s still live performing regularly - going strong, even 40 years into her career. One of our favourite collaborations is a live performance with Rick Astley, of Never Gonna Give You Up Fame… 

That’s got to be one of the best ways to get Rick-Rolled…
It’s the best… So by collaborating regularly with different artists, and newer artists, she’s avoided becoming stale. And it’s also a way she’s consistently improved her sound… So she’s been a mainstay in Aussie music for decades, and that’s meant she’s become a huge part of the culture…

Tell me about her cultural impact…
Maybe the most famous way is outside of the world of music, which came as a result of one of her toughest moments - and one that the documentary covers in detail. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005, the public nature of that had a marked impact on the amount of women getting screened for breast cancer themselves…

How so?
There’s an academic paper on this too. The Medical Journal of Australia found that Minogue’s initial diagnosis led to 20 times as much coverage of breast cancer in the media and 40% more bookings for breast cancer screenings over those 2 weeks. The researchers called it the ‘Kylie effect’… The public nature of her illness also sort of helped Australia to realise what they had, for those who didn’t already know - she’s a living national icon. This is another side of Kylie’s impact. As a famous Australian, she's helped spread our culture and identity to the world.

Has she been recognised for that?
Yep… She was named a National Living Treasure by the National Trust of Australia back in 2012. A year earlier, she was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame. The PM at the time Julia Gillard inducted her and said she was “someone who to hundreds of millions of people around the world is the face of Australia”. 

Any other Kylie lore I should know?
Something worth noting that the doco and much of the coverage about it hasn’t mentioned is that she was originally an actor, and she’s kept acting throughout her music career. She’s been in indie movies like Holy Motors, TV series like Doctor Who, the video game adaptation Street Fighter in 1994 - and of course she was the Green Fairy in Moulin Rouge. So, all up, she’s much, much more than a famous Aussie singer. 

Onto our Recommendations

Watching: The Netflix documentary Kylie which follows her career from soap to superstar…

Reading: This story in The Conversation by the authors of a book about Minogue, which looks at some of the parts of her life the documentary has missed out - particularly the Australian connection which gets a bit lost.

Rolling: You know you want to see this duet. It’ll brighten your day, guaranteed…

Winter is coming...

Aussies (should) know that the potential for UV damage doesn't go away when the temperatures drop, and that's why daily SPF is one of those year-round habits worth forming. If you're fresh outta sunscreen post-summer, iHerb has a buy one, get one 50% off deal across its SPF range until 9 June, with products for face, body and sensitive skin. It’s better to be safe than sorry…

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