Kylie Ann Minogue
(born May 28, 1968) is an Australian dance-pop
singer-songwriter and occasional actress. Minogue rose
to prominence in the mid '80s through her role in the
Australian television soap opera Neighbours, before she
commenced her career as a pop artist in the late '80s.
According to Warner Music Australia, Minogue has sold
over 40 million records worldwide.
Signed to a contract by British songwriters and
producers Stock, Aitken & Waterman, she achieved a
string of hit records throughout the world. Her
popularity began to decline during the early 1990s,
leading her to part company from Stock, Aitken &
Waterman in 1992. Minogue distanced herself from her
earlier work and attempted to establish herself as an
independent performer and songwriter. Her projects were
widely publicised, but her albums failed to attract a
substantial audience and resulted in the lowest sales of
her career to date. She returned to popularity as a
dance–pop artist in 2000, and became well-known for
her provocative music videos and expensively mounted
stage shows.
Minogue has established one of the longest and most
successful careers as a performer in contemporary pop
music, and in Europe and Australia, she has become one
of her generation's most recognisable celebrities and
sex symbols. In Australia, after being dismissed early
in her career by some critics, she has been acclaimed
for her achievements; she holds the record for the
highest ticket sales for an Australian tour by a female
performer, and has attained nine number-ones on the ARIA
singles chart.
Childhood and beginning: Kylie Minogue was born
in Melbourne, Australia, to her Australian father,
Ronald Minogue who came from County Clare, Ireland, and
a Welsh-born mother, Carol Jones who had emigrated as a
young child from Maesteg, Wales in 1955 to Townsville,
Queensland.
Kylie is the eldest of three children; her sister Dannii
Minogue (born Danielle Jane Minogue) is also a pop
singer, and her brother, Brendan, works as a news
cameraman in Australia. They all attended Camberwell
High School in Melbourne's eastern suburbs.
The Minogue sisters began their careers as children on
Australian television, and from the age of 11, Kylie
Minogue appeared in soap operas such as Skyways, The
Sullivans and The Henderson Kids. Dannii Minogue became
successful as a regular performer on the weekly music
programme Young Talent Time, in which Kylie gave her
first singing performance in 1983. Kylie was
overshadowed by her younger sister until achieving
success in 1986 with her role in the soap opera
Neighbours.
Minogue played the character of Charlene Mitchell; a
story arc that created a romance between her character
and that played by her then real-life boyfriend Jason
Donovan culminated in a wedding episode in 1987 that
attracted a large audience. Her popularity in Australia
was demonstrated when she became the first person to win
four Logie Awards in one event, including the "Gold
Logie" as the country's "Most Popular
Television Performer", with the result determined
by public vote. Neighbours began screening in the United
Kingdom in 1986, achieving high ratings.
Recording and performing career, Stock, Aitken and
Waterman: 1987 – 1992: During a Fitzroy Football
Club benefit concert with other Neighbours cast members,
Minogue performed “The Loco-Motion” (written by
Goffin and King). and was signed to a recording contract
with Mushroom Records in 1987.[5] Released as a single,
and retitled “Locomotion”, the Australian recording
spent seven weeks at number one on the Australian music
charts, and was the year's highest selling single. Its
success resulted in Minogue traveling to London 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 and Australia and
was a hit in many parts of the world. Her debut album
Kylie, a collection of dance-oriented pop tunes, reached
number one on the British albums chart and became the
year's highest-selling album. It sold over seven million
copies worldwide, with most sales occurring in Europe
and Asia, and it contained six successful singles. In
December 1988 “Turn It into Love” was a massive
number one single in Japan. In the United States and
Canada the album did not sell strongly, however the
re-recorded version of “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
thirty-seven in early 1989. In late 1988 Minogue left
Neighbours in order to concentrate fully on her music
career.
A duet with Jason Donovan, titled “Especially for
You” was a major success in the United Kingdom in
early 1989. “Especially for You” was also the first
Kylie Mingoue single to sell over 1 million copies in
the UK (The second was “Can't Get You Out of My
Head”). The critic Kevin Killian wrote that it was
“majestically awful… 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.[8] Chris True's
comment about the album Kylie for All Music Guide
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 and Australia, and
contained several successful singles, but it failed
throughout North America, and Minogue was dropped by her
American record label Geffen Records. She embarked on
her first concert run, the Enjoy Yourself Tour, in the
United Kingdom, France, Belgium and Australia, where
Melbourne's The Herald Sun wrote that it was “time to
ditch the snobbery and face facts — the kid's a
star”. Minogue had become Stock, Aitken and Waterman's
highest selling act, so in the face of widespread
comment that the second album was a poor imitation of
the first, it was decided to adjust the overall style of
her music.
Rhythm of Love (1990) presented a more sophisticated and
adult style of dance music and also marked the first
signs of 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. A relationship with INXS lead singer Michael
Hutchence furthered her attempts to gain acceptance as a
mature performer, with Hutchence saying his favourite
hobby was “corrupting Kylie”, and writing the INXS
hit song “Suicide Blonde” in reference to her.
The singles from Rhythm of Love sold well in Europe and
Australia and were popular in British nightclubs where
Minogue started to be regarded as fashionable by the
older audience she had targeted. When “Shocked”
reached the British Top 10 in 1991, she became the first
recording artist to place their first 13 single releases
in the Top 10. Despite the album seeing no Stateside
release, "Shocked" became popular enough with
club DJ's that it still is on some dance music radio
station music databases. In May 1990, 22-year-old Kylie
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”.
Minogue's contract had been for three albums, but she
was persuaded to record a fourth. Let's Get to It (1991)
was designed to broaden her appeal by presenting a
diverse range of ballads and slower dance songs. Despite
generally positive reviews it failed to make the British
Top 10, although the album spawned two UK Top 5 singles:
“If You Were with Me Now” and a cover of “Give Me
Just a Little More Time”. The Let's Get to It Tour in
late 1991 sold out in Britain.
By this time Minogue had fulfilled the requirements of
her contract and elected not to renew it. She had often
expressed the viewpoint that she was stifled by Stock,
Aitken and Waterman, and later compared the experience
to her time with Neighbours, saying all they wanted her
to do was “learn your lines… perform your lines, no
time for questions, promote the product”. Realising
that her fans were growing apathetic towards the Stock,
Aitken and Waterman formula, and that she could only
develop as an artist if she broke away from them, she
decided to leave. She agreed to record three new songs
to be included on the Greatest Hits album, which was
released to coincide with her departure from them in
1992. The album reached number one in the United
Kingdom. The new singles (“What Kind Of Fool” and
“Celebration”) were top 20 hits.
Deconstruction: 1993 – 1998: 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 2,500,000 copies
worldwide, and the single "Confide in Me"
spent five weeks at number one in Australia. Subsequent
singles, "Put Yourself in My Place" and
"Where Is the Feeling?" were top twenty hits
in the UK.
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".
"Where the Wild Roses Grow" (1995), was a
brooding ballad whose lyrics narrated a murder from the
points of view of both the murderer (Cave), and his
victim (Minogue), and its success demonstrated that
Minogue could be accepted outside of her established
genre as a pop artist. It received widespread attention
in Europe, where it reached the top 10 in several
countries, and acclaim in Australia where it reached
number two, and won ARIA Awards for "Song of the
Year" and "Best Pop Release". She
performed it with Cave at the Australian summer rock
festival, "The Big Day Out" before a crowd of
alternative music fans, and was well received.
She also appeared with Cave during several of his
concerts in small venues throughout Europe, as well as
the T in the Park festival in Scotland which gave her
more experience performing outside of the dance/pop
genre and before audiences that were not necessarily her
fans. She 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 credited him 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 described her as a
combination "geisha and manga superheroine".
He began taking photographs of her that downplayed her
glamour, with the aim of attracting a more 'rocky' and
discerning audience, and she drew inspiration from
artists such as Shirley Manson and Garbage, Björk,
Tricky and U2, and Japanese pop musicians such as
Pizzicato Five and Towa Tei (with whom she would later
collaborate on the singles "GBI: German Bold
Italic" and "Sometime Samurai").
Impossible Princess (named after a poetry collection by
artist Billy Childish) featured collaborations with
musicians such as James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore of
the Manic Street Preachers, and Minogue contributed the
majority of the lyrics. Largely a dance album, its style
was not represented by its first single "Some Kind
of Bliss", and Minogue countered questions 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." Billboard magazine 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, "Kylie's vocals
take on a stroppy edge ... but not strong enough to do
much".
It became the lowest-selling album of her career in the
UK, but was her highest-selling album in Australia since
her debut album, with sales boosted by a highly
successful live tour. In reviewing her show, The Times
wrote of her ability to "mask her thin, often
nondescript voice with musical diversity and brittle
charisma and genuinely great pop songs by any
standard", and a live album recorded during her
tour, titled Intimate and Live, was successful in
Australia.
She maintained her high profile in Australia with live
performances, including the 1998 Sydney Gay and Lesbian
Mardi Gras, the opening of Fox Studios in Sydney 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.
Parlophone: 1999 – present: Minogue and
Deconstruction Records parted company and following a
duet with the Pet Shop Boys' on their Nightlife album,
she signed with Parlophone in April 1999. Her album
Light Years (2000) was strongly influenced by 1970s
disco artists, such as Donna Summer and Village People
(see 1970s in music), and included several songs written
by Guy Chambers and Robbie Williams who imbued their
lyrics with humour. New Musical Express wrote:
"Kylie's capacity for reinvention is
staggering" and summarised the album as "sheer
joy" and "what she does best". It
generated career-best reviews for Minogue and quickly
became a success throughout Asia, Australia and Europe
and sold over two million copies worldwide. The single
"Spinning Around" became her first UK
number-one in ten years, and its accompanying video,
which featured Minogue in revealing gold hot pants,
received widespread television airplay. The subsequent
single releases, which includes the duet
"Kids" with Robbie Williams, sold strongly
too, but failed reach #1 in any country.
In 2000 Minogue performed a cover version of ABBA's
"Dancing Queen" and her single "On a
Night like This" at the 2000 Sydney Olympics
closing ceremony, an event watched by an estimated 3.7
billion people in 220 countries. Afterwards, she
embarked upon a concert tour, On A Night like This Tour,
which played to sell-out crowds in Australia and the
United Kingdom, where she sold over 200,000 tickets and
set an Australian record for a female artist. Her six
planned Melbourne shows were increased to twenty-two due
to public demand. Minogue was inspired by the style of
Broadway shows such as 42nd Street and films such as
Anchors Aweigh, South Pacific and the Fred Astaire and
Ginger Rogers musicals of the 1930s. Describing Bette
Midler as a "heroine", she also incorporated
some of the "camp and burlesque" elements of
Midler's live performances.
The show directed and choreographed by Luca Tommassini
featured elaborate sets such as the deck of an ocean
liner, an Art Deco New York City skyline, and the
interior of a space ship, and 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,
"That 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."
In 2001 Parlophone released Fever, which retained some
disco elements and combined them with 1980s electropop.
Its lead single "Can't Get You out of My Head"
became the biggest success of her career and reached
number one in over forty countries, and sold more than
six million copies worldwide. The album's success was
equally widespread, and following extensive airplay by
North American radio, Capitol Records released it in the
United States in 2002. It attracted favourable comment,
with Rolling Stone calling it "campy as a tent full
of Boy Scouts and yet easy on the cheese", while
Popmatters described it as "a perfect album of
gorgeous dance music". Minogue attracted some
negative commentary, such as from Launch's Bob Gulla,
who wrote: "she'll do virtually anything to get our
attention. Not since Pia Zadora have we seen a more
vacant talent grab... an astoundingly bland helping of
hollow dance pop grooves and nauseating pleas for sex...
it's so desperately lightweight it's in imminent danger
of disintegrating altogether".
The album debuted on the U.S. Billboard 200 albums chart
at number three, and the single reached number seven on
the Hot 100. Fever peaked at number ten on the Canadian
albums chart and the single reached the BDS airplay top
three. Following singles "In Your Eyes",
"Love at First Sight" and "Come into My
World" were substantial successes throughout the
world, and Minogue established a presence in the
mainstream North American market, achieving particular
success on 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 former 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 was based around a
framework of seven iconic female images, drawing 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".
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 1960s icon
Brigitte Bardot, about whom Minogue commented: "I
just tended to think of BB 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 show attracted mixed reviews, with the main
criticisms being that nothing substantially new was
presented, and that the new songs did not match the
appeal of her previous hits. Despite this, the concert
was made into a successful television special that drew
high ratings.
The album downplayed the disco style and Minogue said
she was inspired by 1980s artists such as Scritti
Politti, Human League, Adam and the Ants and Prince,
blending their styles with elements of hip hop. It
received some of the most positive reviews of her career
with Billboard Magazine writing of "Minogue's knack
for picking great songs and producers". All Music
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 in the United Kingdom and Australia were good but
paled in comparison to "Fever", despite the
large success of its first single, "Slow" and
in the United States the album made little impression,
although the singles became major club hits. In November
2004, "Slow" was nominated for a Grammy Award
in the category of "Best Dance Recording".
Minogue 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".
Both songs reached the British top ten, and with a tally
of twenty-nine top ten singles, Minogue became the
second most successful woman on the British singles
charts, behind Madonna. "I Believe In You"
reached the U.S. Hot Dance Club Play top three and
attained dance and rhythmic radio airplay nationwide.
Minogue was nominated for a Grammy Award for the fourth
consecutive year when "I Believe in You" was
nominated in the category of "Best Dance
Recording".
In April 2005, Minogue and her creative director William
Baker issued a joint statement announcing the end of
their professional relationship, with Minogue commenting
that the break had been timed to coincide with the
release of the Ultimate Kylie album and the launch of
Showgirl - The Greatest Hits Tour. However the split was
to be short-lived, with Baker back on board with Kylie
by late 2006. The tour was intended to be the most
extensive of her career, and anticipated a total
audience of more than 700,000.
On May 21, 2007 it was reported that Minogue's next
album is to include collaborations with Scissor Sisters
and jazz singer Blossom Dearie.
Breast cancer: Minogue was in Melbourne following
the European stage of the tour when she was diagnosed
with breast cancer, leading to the postponement of the
remainder of the tour and her withdrawal from the
Glastonbury Festival.
Minogue's cancer diagnosis, and 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 May 21, 2005 at the private
Catholic Cabrini Hospital in Malvern. Friends such as
Olivia Newton-John, herself a survivor of breast cancer,
urged the media and fans to respect Minogue's privacy.
Soon after, Minogue commenced chemotherapy as part of
her treatment regimen.
Minogue issued a public statement, thanking her fans for
their support and urging them not to worry. On July 8,
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.
Recovery
In December 2005, following successful treatment for her
illness, Minogue released a digital-only single,
"Over the Rainbow", a live recording from her
Showgirl tour. During the early months of 2006, media
began reporting Minogue's upcoming projects and the
general improvement in her health. In June 2006, she was
reported to be recording material for a new album,
collaborating with Scissor Sisters, Steve Anderson,
Richard Stannard, Johnny Douglas, Ash Thomas, and Teddy
Riley while also making preparations to continue her
newly renamed Showgirl Homecoming tour. She gave her
first public interview since her diagnosis with breast
cancer on the British satellite channel Sky One, July
16, 2006.
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 likened her cancer battle and
chemotherapy to experiencing a nuclear bomb, and said
that she is determined to resume her career. Minogue
confirmed that she had collaborated with Boy George on a
song called "Ready" and had been working on a
new album, scheduled for release in late 2007.
Return to performing: On November 11, 2006,
Minogue resumed her Showgirl - Homecoming Tour with a
performance in Sydney, joking with the crowd that she
was, after an 18 month delay, "fashionably
late". She had told journalists prior to 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.
Although her dance routines had been reworked to
accommodate her medical condition, 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. During her last two shows, she was joined on
stage by sister Dannii Minogue for the duet, their first
performance together since the late 1980s. 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. On December 31,
2006 she saw in the new year with an extra sell-out show
at London's Wembley Arena, where she was supported by
ABBA tribute band Bjorn Again. Her sister Dannii joined
her onstage once more for the final Wembley show, on
January 9, 2007 for a surprise duet on "Kids"
and more sibling banter at the close of the show.
On January 13, 2007, Minogue was forced to withdraw from
a performance at the MEN Arena, Manchester, due to a
moderately severe respiratory tract infection, resulting
in some of her performances to be temporarily postponed.
The January 13 concert was rescheduled some ten days
later on January 23, 2007. Her management stated that
the infection was unrelated to her cancer. She also
recently opened a collection in the V&A Museum in
London called Kylie - The Exhibition.
Film career: In 1989, Minogue starred in The
Delinquents, which told the story of a young girl
growing up in Australia during the late 1950s. Its
release coincided with her popularity in Neighbours, and
while both the film and Minogue's performance received
poor reviews, it was a commercial success. She appeared
as Cammy in the action film Street Fighter (1994), based
on the fighting game series of the same name. The film
received poor reviews by critics, with The Washington
Post's Richard Harrington calling her "the worst
actress in the English-speaking world." Subsequent
films such as Bio-Dome (1996), Sample People and Cut
(both 2000) failed to attract significant audiences.
Australian film director Baz Luhrmann, cast Minogue in
Moulin Rouge! (2001) where she played the part of
Absinthe, the Green Fairy, singing a line from The Sound
of Music. In 2002, Minogue provided the voice of a young
girl named Florence in the animated film The Magic
Roundabout, released in 2006. Minogue also sang the
title song in the movie and was one of the two starring
actors not replaced when the film was released in the
US.
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