Aussie pop singer Kylie Minogue scored her fifth U.K #1 single on July 1, 2000 with the Paula Abdul song, “Spinning Around,” which prompted the British trade magazine Music Week to announce that Kylie was the only “act” in the history of British pop music to see their first 13 singles go top 10.
Over the years, Kylie has sold more than 68 million albums and more than 40 million singles worldwide, won numerous trade awards (ARIAs, Brits and Grammys), and she’s been bestowed the U.K.’s most prestigious Order of the British Empire “for services to music.” As the Daily Telegraph remarked, “Kylie Minogue is not just a pop star any more; she is a veritable goddess.”
The land down under has hardly been a hotbed of international chart hits, which makes Minogue’s rise to the top all the more remarkable. She began as a child actress in Australia before winning a role on a TV soap that would provide her with a platform for stardom.
Neighbours, a daily soap set on the fictional Ramsey Street in Melbourne, launched in 1985 and was quickly picked up by the BBC in England. A cut above most daytime series, the show would launch several Aussies to international success, including Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce and Natalie Imbruglia.
Playing a car mechanic called Charlene, the tiny Minogue (she just tops 5 feet) quickly became a favorite character and signed a record deal in Australia. She released a version of Little Eva’s “The Locomotion” and took it to the top spot in Australia. Looking for a wider market, she signed with Britain’s pop conveyor belt, Stock, Aitken and Waterman (S.A.W.), the writing and producing empire that gave the world hits by, among others, Bananarama, Dead or Alive, Mel and Kim and the timeless Rick Astley.
S.A.W. was a factory and Minogue understood their methods. She told Music Week: “I slotted into their factory method very well because I was used to turning up for work: learn your lines, red light goes on, do one or two takes, next. So it wasn’t that different for me. I’d usually go in with Mike Stock and Matt Aitken, and Mike would be the one who talked me through the song. I would get it really quickly, and no time was wasted, and that would be that song done for that day. I had no idea what I was doing, and I had no say in it. I probably had no real opinion, and that was absolutely fine at the time.”
Minogue’s first U.K single release, “I Should Be So Lucky,” went to #1, and her debut self-titled album sold more than seven million copies worldwide, allowing her to quit Neighbours and grow up a little by dating INXS frontman Michael Hutchence and adopting a racier image for hits like “Better the Devil You Know” and “Shocked.” It had a lot to do with my age and, almost in a childish, rebellious way, I was just trying to break free of the mold that had been so carefully made.”
She worked with the Manic Street Preachers and duetted with Nick Cave on “Where the Wild Roses Grow” in 1995. “The lesson I learnt was that those people, and even later with people like Nick Cave and the Manics, wanted to work with me because of who I was. Not to do what they do, which was considered the far end of cool, but to do what I do.”
Signing with Parlophone, the old Beatles label that was riding high again with The Pet Shop Boys, Minogue left her rock cred search behind and went pop again with her fifth #1, “Spinning Around,”on July I, 2000. Which is where we came in.
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