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Kylie Ann Minogue, OBE (born 28 May
1968) is an Australian pop singer, songwriter, and actress. After
beginning her career as a child actress on Australian television, she
achieved recognition through her role in the television soap opera
Neighbours, before commencing her career as a recording artist in 1987.
Her first single, "Locomotion", spent seven weeks at number one on the
Australian singles chart and became the highest selling single of the
decade. This led to a contract with songwriters and producers Stock,
Aitken & Waterman. Her debut album, Kylie (1988), and the single "I Should
Be So Lucky", each reached number one in the United Kingdom, and over the
next two years, her first thirteen singles reached the British top ten.
Her debut film, The Delinquents (1989) was a box-office hit in Australia
and the UK despite negative reviews.
Initially presented as a "girl next door", Minogue attempted to convey a
more mature style in her music and public image. Her singles were well
received, but after four albums her record sales were declining, and she
left Stock, Aitken & Waterman in 1992 to establish herself as an
independent performer. Her next single, "Confide in Me", reached number
one in Australia and was a hit in several European countries in 1994, and
a duet with Nick Cave, "Where the Wild Roses Grow", brought Minogue a
greater degree of artistic credibility. Drawing inspiration from a range
of musical styles and artists, Minogue took creative control over the
songwriting for her next album, Impossible Princess (1997). It failed to
attract strong reviews or sales in the UK, but was successful in
Australia.
Minogue returned to prominence in 2000 with the single "Spinning Around"
and the dance-oriented album Light Years, and she performed during the
opening and closing ceremonies of the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Her music
videos showed a more sexually provocative and flirtatious personality and
several hit singles followed. "Can't Get You Out of My Head" reached
number one in more than 40 countries, and the album Fever (2001) was a hit
throughout the world, including the United States, a market in which
Minogue had previously received little recognition. Minogue embarked on a
concert tour but cancelled it when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in
2005. After surgery and chemotherapy treatment, she resumed her career in
2006 with Showgirl: The Homecoming Tour. Her tenth studio album X was
released in 2008 and was followed by the KylieX2008 tour. In 2009, she
embarked upon her For You, For Me Tour, her first concert tour of the US
and Canada.
Although she was dismissed by some critics, especially during the early
years of her career, she has achieved worldwide record sales of more than
60 million, and has received notable music awards, including multiple ARIA
and Brit Awards and a Grammy Award. She has mounted several successful
concert tours and received a Mo Award for "Australian Entertainer of the
Year" for her live performances. She was awarded an OBE "for services to
music", and an Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2008. Apart from Madonna,
she is the only female artist in British chart history to have achieved
number one singles during the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.
Kylie Ann Minogue was born 28 May 1968 in Melbourne, Australia, the first
child of Ronald Charles Minogue, an accountant of Irish ancestry and Carol
Ann (née Jones), a former dancer from Maesteg, Wales. Her sister, Dannii,
is also a pop singer, and her brother, Brendan, works as a news cameraman
in Australia. The Minogue children were raised in Surrey Hills, Melbourne,
and educated at Camberwell High School.
The Minogue sisters began their careers as children on Australian
television. From the age of 12, Kylie appeared in small roles in soap
operas such as The Sullivans and Skyways, and in 1985 was cast in one of
the lead roles in The Henderson Kids. Interested in following a career in
music, she made a demo tape for the producers of the weekly music
programme Young Talent Time, which featured Dannii as a regular performer.
Kylie gave her first television singing performance on the show in 1985
but was not invited to join the cast. Dannii's success overshadowed
Kylie's acting achievements, until Kylie was cast in the soap opera
Neighbours in 1986, as Charlene Robinson, a schoolgirl turned garage
mechanic. Neighbours achieved popularity in the UK, and a story arc that
created a romance between her character and the character played by Jason
Donovan culminated in a wedding episode in 1987 that attracted an audience
of 20 million British viewers.
Her popularity in Australia was demonstrated when she became the first
person to win four Logie Awards in one event, and the youngest recipient
of the "Gold Logie" as the country's "Most Popular Television Performer",
with the result determined by public vote.
During a Fitzroy Football Club benefit concert with other Neighbours cast
members, Minogue performed "I Got You Babe" as a duet with the actor John
Waters, and "The Loco-Motion" as an encore, and was subsequently signed to
a recording contract with Mushroom Records in 1987. Her first single, "The
Loco-Motion", spent seven weeks at number one on the Australian music
charts. It sold 200,000 copies, became the highest selling single of the
1980s, and Minogue received the ARIA Award for the year's highest selling
single. Its success resulted in Minogue travelling to England with
Mushroom Records executive Gary Ashley to work with Stock, Aitken &
Waterman. They knew little of Minogue and had forgotten that she was
arriving; as a result, they wrote "I Should Be So Lucky" while she waited
outside the studio. The song reached number one in the UK, Australia,
Germany, Finland, Switzerland, Israel and Hong Kong, and was a hit in many
parts of the world. Minogue won her second consecutive ARIA Award for the
year's highest selling single, and received a "Special Achievement Award".
Her debut album, Kylie, a collection of dance-oriented pop tunes spent
more than a year on the British album charts, including several weeks at
number one. The album did not sell strongly in the United States and
Canada, although the single, "The Loco-Motion", reached number three on
the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart, and number one on the Canadian Singles
Chart. "It's No Secret", released only in the U.S., peaked at number 37 in
early 1989, and "Turn It Into Love" was released as a single in Japan,
where it reached number one.
In July 1988, "Got To Be Certain" became Minogue's third consecutive
number one single on the Australian music charts, and later in the year
she left Neighbours to focus on her music career. Jason Donovan commented
"When viewers watched her on screen they no longer saw Charlene the local
mechanic, they saw Kylie the pop star." A duet with Donovan, titled
"Especially for You", sold almost one million copies in the UK in early
1989, but critic Kevin Killian wrote that the duet was "majestically awful
...it makes the Diana Ross, Lionel Richie 'Endless Love' sound like
Mahler." She was sometimes referred to as "the Singing Budgie" by her
detractors over the coming years, however Chris True's comment about the
album Kylie for Allmusic suggests that Minogue's appeal transcended the
limitations of her music, by noting that "her cuteness makes these rather
vapid tracks bearable".
Her follow-up album Enjoy Yourself (1989) was a success in the United
Kingdom, Europe, New Zealand, Asia and Australia, and contained several
successful singles, including the British number one "Hand on Your Heart",
but it failed throughout North America, and Minogue was dropped by her
American record label Geffen Records. She embarked on her first concert
tour, the Enjoy Yourself Tour, in the United Kingdom, Europe, Asia and
Australia, where Melbourne's Herald Sun wrote that it was "time to ditch
the snobbery and face facts—the kid's a star." In December 1989, Minogue
was one of the featured vocalists on the remake of "Do They Know It's
Christmas", and her debut film, The Delinquents, premiered in London. It
was poorly received by critics, and the Daily Mirror reviewed Minogue's
performance with the comment that she "has as much acting charisma as cold
porridge", but it proved popular with audiences; in the UK it grossed more
than £200,000, and in Australia it was the fourth-highest grossing local
film of 1989 and the highest grossing local film of 1990.
Rhythm of Love (1990) presented a more sophisticated and adult style of
dance music and also marked the first signs of Minogue's rebellion against
her production team and the "girl-next-door" image. Determined to be
accepted by a more mature audience, Minogue took control of her music
videos, starting with "Better the Devil You Know", and presented herself
as a sexually aware adult. Her relationship with Michael Hutchence was
also seen as part of Minogue's departure from her earlier persona;
Hutchence was quoted as saying that his hobby was "corrupting Kylie", and
that the INXS song Suicide Blonde had been inspired by her. The singles
from Rhythm of Love sold well in Europe and Australia and were popular in
British nightclubs. Pete Waterman later reflected that "Better the Devil
You Know" was a milestone in her career and said that it made her "the
hottest, hippest dance act on the scene and nobody could knock it as it
was the best dance record around at the time". "Shocked" became Minogue's
thirteenth consecutive British top-10 single.
In May 1990, Minogue performed her band's arrangement of The Beatles's
"Help!" before a crowd of 25,000 at the John Lennon: The Tribute Concert
on the banks of the River Mersey in Liverpool. Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon
offered Minogue their thanks for her support of The John Lennon Fund,
while the media commented positively on her performance. The Sun wrote
"The soap star wows the Scousers—Kylie Minogue deserved her applause". Her
fourth album, Let's Get to It (1991), reached number 15 on the British
album charts and was the first of her albums to fail to reach the Top 10;
her fourteenth single "Word Is Out" was the first to miss the Top 10
singles chart, though subsequent singles "If You Were with Me Now" and
"Give Me Just a Little More Time" reached number four and number two
respectively. Minogue had fulfilled the requirements of her contract and
elected not to renew it. She later expressed her opinion that she was
stifled by Stock, Aitken and Waterman, and said, "I was very much a puppet
in the beginning. I was blinkered by my record company. I was unable to
look left or right."
A Greatest Hits album was released in 1992. It reached number one in the
UK and number three in Australia, and the singles "What Kind of Fool
(Heard All That Before)" and her cover version of Kool & The Gang's
"Celebration" each reached the UK Top 20.
Minogue's subsequent signing with Deconstruction Records was highly touted
in the music media as the beginning of a new phase in her career, but the
eponymous Kylie Minogue (1994) received mixed reviews. It sold well in
Europe and Australia, where the single "Confide in Me" spent four weeks at
number one. She performed a striptease in the video for her next single,
"Put Yourself in My Place", inspired by Jane Fonda as Barbarella. This
single and her next, "Where Is the Feeling?" each reached the British top
20, and the album peaked at number four, eventually selling 250,000
copies. During this period she made a guest appearance as herself, in an
episode of the comedy The Vicar of Dibley. The director Steven E. de Souza
was intrigued by Minogue's cover photo in Australia's Who Magazine as one
of "The 30 Most Beautiful People in the World", and offered her a role
opposite Jean-Claude Van Damme in Street Fighter (1994). The film was a
moderate success, earning USD$70 million in the U.S., but received poor
reviews with The Washington Post's Richard Harrington calling Minogue "the
worst actress in the English-speaking world". She co-starred with Pauly
Shore and Stephen Baldwin in Bio-Dome (1996), but it was a failure,
dismissed by Movie Magazine International as the "biggest waste of
celluloid space". Minogue returned to Australia where she appeared in the
short film, Hayride to Hell (1995), and then to the UK where she filmed a
cameo role as herself in the film Diana & Me (1997).
The Australian artist Nick Cave had been interested in working with
Minogue since hearing "Better the Devil You Know", saying it contained
"one of pop music's most violent and distressing lyrics" and "when Kylie
Minogue sings these words, there is an innocence to her that makes the
horror of this chilling lyric all the more compelling". They collaborated
on "Where the Wild Roses Grow" (1995), a brooding ballad whose lyrics
narrated a murder from the points of view of both the murderer (Cave), and
his victim (Minogue). The video was inspired by John Everett Millais's
painting Ophelia (1851–1852), and showed Minogue as the murdered woman,
floating in a pond as a serpent swam over her body. The single received
widespread attention in Europe, where it reached the top 10 in several
countries, and acclaim in Australia where it reached number two on the
singles chart, and won ARIA Awards for "Song of the Year" and "Best Pop
Release". Following concert appearances with Cave, Minogue recited the
lyrics to "I Should Be So Lucky" as poetry in London's Royal Albert Hall
"Poetry Jam", at the suggestion of Cave, and later described it as a "most
cathartic moment". She credited Cave with giving her the confidence to
express herself artistically, saying: "He taught me to never veer too far
from who I am, but to go further, try different things, and never lose
sight of myself at the core. For me, the hard part was unleashing the core
of myself and being totally truthful in my music." By 1997, Minogue was in
a relationship with the French photographer Stephane Sednaoui, who
encouraged her to develop her creativity. Inspired by a mutual
appreciation of Japanese culture, they created a visual combination of
"geisha and manga superheroine" for the photographs taken for the album
Impossible Princess and the video for "German Bold Italic", Minogue's
collaboration with Towa Tei. Minogue drew inspiration from the music of
artists such as Shirley Manson and Garbage, Björk, Tricky and U2, and
Japanese pop musicians such as Pizzicato Five and Towa Tei.
Impossible Princess featured collaborations with musicians such as James
Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore of the Manic Street Preachers. Mostly a
dance album, its style was not represented by its first single "Some Kind
of Bliss", and Minogue countered suggestions that she was trying to become
an indie artist. She told Music Week, "I have to keep telling people that
this isn't an indie-guitar album. I'm not about to pick up a guitar and
rock." Acknowledging that she had attempted to escape the perceptions of
her that had developed during her early career, Minogue commented that she
was ready to "forget the painful criticism" and "accept the past, embrace
it, use it". Her video for "Did It Again" paid homage to her earlier
incarnations, as noted in her biography, La La La, "Dance Kylie, Cute
Kylie, Sex Kylie and Indie Kylie all struggled for supremacy as they
battled bitchily with each other." Billboard described the album as
"stunning" and concluded that "it's a golden commercial opportunity for a
major record company with vision and energy to release it in the United
States. A sharp ear will detect a kinship between Impossible Princess and
Madonna's hugely successful album, Ray of Light". In the UK, Music Week
gave a negative assessment, commenting that "Kylie's vocals take on a
stroppy edge ... but not strong enough to do much". Retitled Kylie Minogue
in the UK following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, it became the
lowest-selling album of her career. At the end of the year a campaign by
Virgin Radio stated, "We've done something to improve Kylie's records:
we've banned them." A poll conducted by Smash Hits voted her the
"worst-dressed person, worst singer and second-most very horrible
thing—after spiders".
In Australia, Impossible Princess spent 35 weeks on the album chart and
peaked at number four, to become her most successful album since Kylie in
1988, and her Intimate and Live tour was extended due to demand. The
Victorian Premier, Jeff Kennett, hosted a civic reception for Minogue in
Melbourne, and she maintained her high profile in Australia with live
performances, including the 1998 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, the
opening ceremonies of Melbourne's Crown Casino and Sydney's Fox Studios in
1999, where she performed Marilyn Monroe's "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best
Friend", and a Christmas concert in Dili, East Timor in association with
the United Nations Peace-Keeping Forces. During this time she filmed a
small role for the Australian-made Molly Ringwald film, Cut (2000).
Minogue and Deconstruction Records parted company. She performed a duet
with the Pet Shop Boys' on their Nightlife album and spent several months
in Barbados performing in Shakespeare's The Tempest. Returning to
Australia, she appeared in the film Sample People and recorded a cover
version of Russell Morris's "The Real Thing" for the soundtrack. She
signed with Parlophone Records in April 1999. Her album Light Years (2000)
was a collection of dance songs, influenced by disco music. Minogue said
that her intention was to present dance-pop music in a "more exaggerated
form" and to make it "fun". It generated strong reviews and was successful
throughout Asia, Australia, New Zealand and Europe, selling over one
million copies in the UK. The single "Spinning Around" became her first
British number one in ten years, and its accompanying video featured
Minogue in revealing gold hot pants, which came to be regarded as a
"trademark". Her second single, "On a Night Like This" reached number one
in Australia and number two in the UK. "Kids", a duet with Robbie
Williams, was also included on Williams's album Sing When You're Winning,
and peaked at number two in the UK.
In 2000, Minogue performed ABBA's "Dancing Queen" and her single "On a
Night like This" at the 2000 Sydney Olympics closing ceremony. She then
embarked upon a concert tour, On A Night like This Tour, which played to
sell-out crowds in Australia and the United Kingdom. Minogue was inspired
by Madonna's 1993 world tour The Girlie Show which incorporated Burlesque
and theatre, William Baker also cited the style of Broadway shows such as
42nd Street, films such as Anchors Aweigh, South Pacific, the Fred Astaire
and Ginger Rogers musicals of the 1930s and the live performances of Bette
Midler. Minogue was praised for her new material and her reinterpretations
of some of her greatest successes, turning "I Should Be So Lucky" into a
torch song and "Better the Devil You Know" into a 1940s big band number.
She won a "Mo Award" for Australian live entertainment as "Performer of
the Year". Following the tour she was asked by a Seattle
Post-Intelligencer journalist what she thought was her greatest strength,
and replied, "I am an all-rounder. If I was to choose any one element of
what I do, I don't know if I would excel at any one of them. But put all
of them together, and I know what I'm doing."
She appeared as "The Green Fairy" in Moulin Rouge! (2001), shortly before
the release of Fever, an album containing disco elements combined with
1980s electropop and synthpop. Fever reached number one in Australia, the
UK, and throughout Europe, eventually achieving worldwide sales in excess
of eight million. Its lead single "Can't Get You out of My Head" became
the biggest success of her career, reaching number one in more than 40
countries. She won four ARIA Awards including a "Most Outstanding
Achievement" award, and two Brit Awards, for "Best international female
solo artist" and "Best international album". Rolling Stone states that
"Can't Get You out of My Head" "was easily the best and most omnipresent
dance track of the new century", and following extensive airplay by
American radio, Capitol Records released it and the album Fever in the
U.S. in 2002. Fever debuted on the Billboard 200 albums chart at number
three, and "Can't Get You out of My Head" reached number seven on the Hot
100. The subsequent singles "In Your Eyes", "Love at First Sight" and
"Come into My World" were successful throughout the world, and Minogue
established a presence in the mainstream North American market,
particularly in the club scene. In 2003 she received a Grammy Award
nomination for "Best Dance Recording" for "Love at First Sight", and the
following year won the same award for "Come into My World".
Minogue's stylist and creative director William Baker explained that the
music videos for the Fever album were inspired by science fiction
films—specifically those by Stanley Kubrick—and accentuated the electropop
elements of the music by using dancers in the style of Kraftwerk. Alan
MacDonald, the designer of the 2002 KylieFever tour, brought those
elements into the stage show which drew inspiration from Minogue's past
incarnations. The show opened with Minogue as a space age vamp, which she
described as "Queen of Metropolis with her drones", through to scenes
inspired by Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, followed by the various personas
of Minogue's career. Minogue said that she was finally able to express
herself the way she wanted, and that she had always been "a showgirl at
heart". During 2002 she worked on the animated film The Magic Roundabout,
released in 2005 in Europe and 2006 in the U.S.; she voiced one of the
principal characters, Florence.
Minogue began a relationship with the French actor, Olivier Martinez,
after meeting him at the 2002 Grammy Awards ceremony. Her next album, Body
Language (2003), was released following an invitation-only concert, titled
Money Can't Buy, at the Hammersmith Apollo in London. The event marked the
presentation of a new visual style, designed by Minogue and Baker,
inspired in part by Brigitte Bardot, about whom Minogue commented: "I just
tended to think of BB (Brigitte Bardot) as, well, she's a sexpot, isn't
she? She's one of the greatest pinups. But she was fairly radical in her
own way at that time. And we chose to reference the period, which was ...
a perfect blend of coquette and rock and roll." The album downplayed the
disco style and Minogue said she was inspired by 1980s artists such as
Scritti Politti, The Human League, Adam and the Ants and Prince, blending
their styles with elements of hip hop. It received positive reviews with
Billboard Magazine writing of "Minogue's knack for picking great songs and
producers". Allmusic described it as "a near perfect pop record... Body
Language is what happens when a dance-pop diva takes the high road and
focuses on what's important instead of trying to shock herself into
continued relevance". Sales of Body Language were lower than anticipated
after the success of Fever, though the first single, "Slow", was a
number-one hit in the UK and Australia. After reaching number one on the
US club chart, "Slow" received a Grammy Award nomination in the Best Dance
Recording category.
Body Language achieved first week sales of 43,000 in the U.S., and
declined significantly in the second week. The Wall Street Journal
described Minogue as "an international superstar who seems perpetually
unable to conquer the U.S. market". Minogue commented that she had told
her American record company that she was not willing to invest the time
needed to establish herself in the U.S. and that she would rather enhance
the success she had already achieved in other parts of the world, an
attitude endorsed by Billboard analyst Geoff Mayfield as a "business
decision... If I were her accountant, I couldn't blame her for making that
call." Minogue later commented that she was not concerned by her limited
success in the U.S. and was more frustrated by assumptions that she
considered her career incomplete without it.
Minogue played a guest role in the season finale of the comedy series Kath
& Kim, in which she referenced her earlier role as Charlene in Neighbours,
during a wedding sequence. The episode was the Australian Broadcasting
Corporation's highest rating program of the year.
She released her second official greatest hits album in November 2004,
entitled Ultimate Kylie, along with her music videos on a DVD compilation
of the same title. The album introduced her singles "I Believe in You",
co-written with Jake Shears and Babydaddy from the Scissor Sisters, and
"Giving You Up". "I Believe in You" reached the U.S. Hot Dance Club Play
top three, and Minogue was nominated for a Grammy Award for the fourth
consecutive year when the song was nominated in the category of "Best
Dance Recording".
Early in 2005, Kylie : The Exhibition opened in Melbourne. The free
exhibition featured costumes and photographs spanning Minogue's career and
went on to tour Australian capital cities receiving over 300,000 visitors,
and was exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in February
2007. Minogue commenced her Showgirl: The Greatest Hits Tour, and after
performing in Europe, travelled to Melbourne, where she was diagnosed with
breast cancer.
Minogue's breast cancer diagnosis in 2005 led to the postponement of the
remainder of her Showgirl – The Greatest Hits Tour and her withdrawal from
the Glastonbury Festival. Her hospitalisation and treatment in Melbourne
resulted in a brief but intense period of media coverage, particularly in
Australia, where the Prime Minister John Howard issued a statement
supporting Minogue. As media and fans began to congregate outside the
Minogue residence in Melbourne, the Victorian Premier Steve Bracks warned
the international media that any disruption of the Minogue family's rights
under Australian privacy laws would not be tolerated. His comments became
part of a wider criticism of the media's overall reaction, with particular
criticism directed towards paparazzi. Minogue underwent surgery on 21 May
2005 at Cabrini Hospital in Malvern, and commenced chemotherapy treatment
soon after.
On 8 July 2005, she made her first public appearance after her surgery,
when she visited a children's cancer ward at Melbourne's Royal Children's
Hospital. She returned to France where she completed her chemotherapy
treatment at the Institut Gustave-Roussy in Villejuif, near Paris. In
December 2005, Minogue released a digital-only single, "Over the Rainbow",
a live recording from her Showgirl tour. Her children's book, The Showgirl
Princess, written during her period of convalescence, was published in
October 2006, and her perfume, "Darling", was launched in November. On her
return to Australia for her concert tour, she discussed her illness, and
said that her chemotherapy treatment had been like "experiencing a nuclear
bomb". While appearing on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2008, Minogue said
that her cancer had originally been misdiagnosed. She commented, "Because
someone is in a white coat and using big medical instruments doesn't
necessarily mean they're right", but she later spoke of her respect for
the medical profession.
Minogue was acknowledged for the impact she had made by publicly
discussing her cancer diagnosis and treatment; in May 2008, the French
Cultural Minister Christine Albanel said, "Doctors now even go as far as
saying there is a 'Kylie effect' that encourages young women to have
regular checks."
In November 2006, Minogue resumed her Showgirl: The Homecoming Tour with a
performance in Sydney. She had told journalists before the concert that
she would be highly emotional, and she cried before dedicating the song
"Especially for You" to her father, a survivor of prostate cancer. Her
dance routines had been reworked to accommodate her medical condition, and
slower costume changes and longer breaks were introduced between sections
of the show to conserve her strength. The media reported that Minogue
performed energetically, with the Sydney Morning Herald describing the
show as an "extravaganza" and "nothing less than a triumph". The following
night, Minogue was joined by Bono, who was in Australia as part of U2's
Vertigo tour, for the duet "Kids", but Minogue was forced to cancel a
subsequent planned appearance at U2's show, because of exhaustion.
Minogue's shows throughout Australia continued to draw positive reviews,
and after spending Christmas with her family, she resumed the European leg
of her tour with six sold-out shows in Wembley Arena, before taking her
tour to Manchester for a further six shows.
In February 2007, Minogue and Olivier Martinez announced that they had
ended their relationship, but remained on friendly terms. Minogue was
reported to have been "saddened by false accusations of Martinez's
disloyalty". She defended Martinez, and acknowledged the support he had
given during her treatment for breast cancer, commenting "He was always
there, helping with the practical stuff and being protective. He was
incredible. He didn't hesitate in canceling work and putting projects on
hold so he could be with me. He's the most honorable man I have ever met."
Minogue released X, her tenth studio album and much-discussed "comeback"
album, in November 2007. The electro-styled album included contributions
from Guy Chambers, Cathy Dennis, Bloodshy & Avant and Calvin Harris. For
the overarching visual look of X, including the music video for first
single "2 Hearts", Minogue and William Baker developed a combination of
the style of Kabuki theatre and the aesthetics originating from London
danceclubs including BoomBox. The album received some criticism for the
triviality of its subject matter in light of Minogue's experiences with
breast cancer; she responded by explaining the personal nature of some of
the album's songs, and said "My conclusion is that if I'd done an album of
personal songs it'd be seen as 'Impossible Princess 2' and be equally
critiqued." Rolling Stone's reviewer described Minogue as "pop divadom's
party planner in chief", and said of her breast cancer, "thankfully, the
experience hasn't made her music discernibly deeper". Minogue later said,
"In retrospect we could definitely have bettered it, I'll say that
straight up. Given the time we had, it is what it is. I had a lot of fun
doing it."
X and "2 Hearts" entered at number one on the Australian albums and
singles charts respectively. In the UK, X initially attracted lukewarm
sales, although its commercial performance eventually improved, and
Minogue won a Brit Award for "International solo female". X was released
in the U.S. in April 2008, and debuted outside the top 100 on the albums
chart despite some promotion. Minogue called the U.S. market "notoriously
difficult ... You have so many denominations with radio. To know where I
fit within that market is sometimes difficult." X was nominated for the
2009 Grammy Award for Best Electronic/Dance Album, Minogue's fifth Grammy
Award nomination.
In December 2007, Minogue participated in the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in
Oslo, Norway, and later performed in the final of the UK talent show The X
Factor with the eventual winner, Leon Jackson, whose mentor was Dannii
Minogue. From May 2008, Minogue promoted X with a European tour,
KylieX2008, which is her most expensive tour to date with production costs
of £10 million. Although she described the rehearsals as "grim" and the
set list went through several overhauls, the tour was generally acclaimed
and sold well.
Minogue was featured in White Diamond, a documentary filmed during 2006
and 2007 as she resumed her Showgirl Homecoming Tour. She appeared in The
Kylie Show, which featured highly stylised set-piece song performances
from Minogue as well as comedy sketches with Mathew Horne, Dannii Minogue,
Jason Donovan and Simon Cowell. She co-starred in the 2007 Doctor Who
Christmas special episode, "Voyage of the Damned", as Astrid Peth, a
waitress on a spaceship Titanic. The episode aired on 25 December 2007,
with 13.31 million viewers, the show's highest viewing figures since 1979.
It was announced in late December 2007 that Minogue was to be among those
honoured in Queen Elizabeth II's 2008 New Years Honours list, with an OBE
for services to music. Minogue commented "I am almost as surprised as I am
honoured. I feel deeply touched to be acknowledged by the UK, my adopted
home, in this way." She received the OBE officially from The Prince of
Wales in July 2008. In May, 2008 Minogue was awarded the French Ordre des
Arts et des Lettres, France's highest cultural honour. Culture Minister
Christine Albanel described Minogue as a "midas of the international music
scene who turns everything she touches into gold", and saluted her for
publicly discussing her breast cancer. In July, Minogue was named the UK's
"Best Loved Celebrity" by a tabloid newspaper, who commented that she "won
the hearts of the nation as she bravely battled breast cancer", and won
the "Best International Female Solo Artist" award at the 2008 BRIT Awards.
In late September 2008 Minogue made her Middle East debut as the headline
act at the opening of Atlantis, The Palm, an exclusive hotel resort in
Dubai, and from November, she continued with her KylieX2008 tour, taking
the show to cities across South America, Asia and Australia. The tour
visited 21 countries, and was considered a success, with ticket sales
estimated at $70,000,000. She hosted the 2009 BRIT Awards on 18 February
2009 with James Corden and Mathew Horne.
In September and October of 2009 Minogue embarked on the For You, For Me
Tour, her first North American concert tour, which included shows in the
U.S. and Canada. She was also featured in the Bollywood film, Blue,
performing an A.R. Rahman song, and has confirmed that she is working on
her eleventh studio album, commenting that it will be an album of dance
and pop music. On 13 September 2009 Minogue performed "Super Trouper" and
"When All Is Said and Done" with Benny Andersson at the ABBA tribute
concert "Thank You for the Music... a Celebration of the Music of ABBA" at
London's Hyde Park, her only live performance in the UK in 2009. On
December 14, 2009 Minogue released a download-only concert album entitled
Kylie Live in New York globally, the album was recorded at New York's
Hammerstein Ballroom and contains 25 live version songs.
Minogue has confirmed that she is working on her eleventh studio album,
commenting that it will be an album of dance and pop music. Confirmed
producers and songwriters working with Minogue on the album have been
Biffco, Nerina Pallot and Andy Chatterley, Xenomania, Calvin Harris, Jake
Shears and Babydaddy of Scissor Sisters, Greg Kurstin, Stuart Price and
RedOne, who is best known for his work with Lady Gaga, Little Boots and
Sugababes amongst others. The only track to be heard from the sessions so
far is "Better than Today", written by Nerina Pallot and Andy Chatterley,
which Minogue performed on her 2009 "For You, For Me Tour". Minogue
referred to it as "a song that will feature on my next album".
The album will be released in April 2010, according to Billboard.com. The
United States is expected to be a priority this time around, after rave
reviews for her debut American tour.
RedOne stated, "To me I was expecting a diva, you know, somebody who's
going to be like (that) because she's been doing it for so long," he said
of Minogue. "It was fun, easy to work with her. We did three songs in two
days ... (and) we said we're going to do more songs in LA."
Minogue's efforts to be taken seriously as a recording artist were
initially hindered by the perception that she had not "paid her dues" and
was no more than a manufactured pop star exploiting the image she had
created during her tenure on Neighbours. Minogue acknowledged this
viewpoint, saying, "if you're part of a record company, I think to a
degree it's fair to say that you're a manufactured product. You're a
product and you're selling a product. It doesn't mean that you're not
talented and that you don't make creative and business decisions about
what you will and won't do and where you want to go. In 1993, Baz Luhrmann
introduced Minogue to the photographer Bert Stern, notable for his work
with Marilyn Monroe. Stern photographed her in Los Angeles and, comparing
her to Monroe, commented that Minogue had a similar mix of vulnerability
and eroticism. During her career Minogue has chosen photographers who
attempt to create a new "look" for her, and the resulting photographs have
appeared in a variety of magazines, from the cutting edge The Face to the
more traditionally sophisticated Vogue and Vanity Fair, making the Minogue
face and name known to a broad group of people. Stylist William Baker has
suggested that this is part of the reason she has entered in the
mainstream pop culture of Europe more successfully than many other pop
singers who concentrate solely on selling records.
By 2000, when Minogue returned to prominence, she was considered to be
have achieved a degree of musical credibility for having maintained her
career longer than her critics had expected. That same year, Birmingham
Post noted "once upon a time, long before anybody had even heard of
Britney, Christina, Jessica or Mandy, Australian singer Kylie Minogue
ruled the charts as princess of pop. Back in 1988 her first single, I
Should Be So Lucky, spent five weeks at number one, making her the most
successful female artist in the UK charts with 13 successive Top 10
entries." Her progression from the wholesome "girl-next-door" to a more
sophisticated performer with a flirtatious and playful persona attracted
new fans to her. Her "Spinning Around" video led to some media outlets
referring to her as "SexKylie", and sex became a stronger element in her
subsequent videos. William Baker described her status as a sex symbol as a
"double edged sword" observing that "we always attempted to use her sex
appeal as an enhancement of her music and to sell a record. But now it has
become in danger of eclipsing what she actually is: a pop singer." After
20 years as a performer, Minogue was described as a fashion "trend-setter"
and a "style icon who constantly reinvents herself". She has been
acknowledged for mounting successful tours, and for worldwide record sales
of more than 60 million.
Minogue is regarded as a gay icon, which she encourages with comments such
as "I am not a traditional gay icon. There's been no tragedy in my life,
only tragic outfits..." and "My gay audience has been with me from the
beginning ... they kind of adopted me." Minogue has explained that she
first became aware of her gay audience in 1988, when several drag queens
performed to her music at a Sydney pub and she later saw a similar show in
Melbourne. She said that she felt "very touched" to have such an
"appreciative crowd" and this had encouraged her to perform at gay venues
throughout the world, as well as headlining the 1994 Sydney Gay and
Lesbian Mardi Gras.
Minogue has been inspired by and compared to Madonna throughout her
career, her videos and stage shows drew direct comparisons to works that
Madonna has produced before her. Her ex producer, Pete Waterman recalled
Minogue during the early years of her success, with the observation, "She
was setting her sights on becoming the new Prince or Madonna... What I
found amazing was that she was outselling Madonna four to one, but still
wanted to be her." Minogue received negative comments that her Rhythm of
Love tour in 1991 was too similar visually to Madonna's Blond Ambition
World Tour of the previous year for which the critics labelled her a
Madonna wannabe. Kathy McCabe for The Telegraph notes that Minogue and
Madonna follow similar styles in music and fashion, and concludes, "Where
they truly diverge on the pop-culture scale is in shock value. Minogue's
clips might draw a gasp from some but Madonna's ignite religious and
political debate unlike any other artist on the planet... Simply, Madonna
is the dark force; Kylie is the light force." Rolling Stone comments that,
with the exception of the U.S., Minogue is regarded throughout the world
as "an icon to rival Madonna", and says, "Like Madonna, Minogue was not a
virtuosic singer but a canny trend spotter." Minogue has said of Madonna,
"Her huge influence on the world, in pop and fashion, meant that I wasn't
immune to the trends she created. I admire Madonna greatly but in the
beginning she made it difficult for artists like me, she had done
everything there was to be done...", and Kylie has also stated that on
many occasions "Madonna's the Queen of Pop, I'm the princess. I'm quite
happy with that."
In January 2007 Madame Tussaud's in London unveiled its fourth waxwork of
Minogue; only Queen Elizabeth II has had more models created. During the
same week a bronze cast of her hands was added to Wembley Arena's "Square
of Fame". On 23 November 2007, a bronze statue of Minogue was unveiled at
Melbourne Docklands for permanent display.
In 2009 Minogue admitted that she has used botox injections in an effort
to delay the ageing process. She commented that there is less stigma
associated with cosmetic procedures than in the past, and that women could
choose whether to "take advantage of it". |
