Inside the incredible transformation of Kylie Minogue that saw her turn from indie queen, to pop princess and disco diva
AUSSIE Kylie Minogue is the ultimate boomerang pop star – just when you think she has left the scene for good, she comes back to hit the charts again.
Without any Top 20 hits since 2014, it looked like her music career was over a couple of years ago when she began selling her own branded wine and returned home to Australia to be close to her family.
But having turned 55 at the weekend, the former Neighbours star is still spinning the music world around — making her the official queen of the comeback.
Dressed in red thigh-high leather boots and catsuit, she stands triumphant astride a junkyard Cadillac in the temperature-raising video for her latest single Padam Padam.
The infectious tune has been propelled into the top 20 by tributes and memes on TikTok and Twitter.
And this is not the first reinvention for Kylie, who has gone from girl next door to pop star, then indie queen and disco diva, before having a go at country in 2018.
She is the only female artist to have a No1 album in the UK in five consecutive decades and has sold over 80million records worldwide.
Now she is a sensation in the digital age — a far cry from her first No1 single I Should Be So Lucky in 1988.
With an album out in September and a world tour set for next year, Kylie described her renaissance as “another wild turn in my life and my career”.
It comes after a tough start to the year, with The Sun revealing in February that unlucky-in-love Kylie had split from magazine executive Paul Solomons after five years together.
‘She never felt desperate’
None of her relationships have lasted for more than half a decade — but the singer, whose past lovers have included Neighbours co-star Jason Donovan, INXS frontman Michael Hutchence and rocker Lenny Kravitz, isn’t seeking a traditional happy-ever-after.
She said: “I’ve never been conventional. I’ve always been more into romance over marriage.
“I was never the little girl who dreamed of the wedding dress.”
This daughter of an accountant and a former ballet dancer, Kylie started out as an Australian soap star, aged ten, in the post-war drama The Sullivans and then as tomboy motor mechanic Charlene in Neighbours.
Dismissed as a girl-next-door type, she was teamed up with hitmakers Stock Aitken and Waterman to launch her music career, scoring wholesome pop smashes such as Locomotion, Hand On Your Heart and Better The Devil You Know.
In 1987 she met the late Michael Hutchence, who got her into clubbing and ecstasy.
Kylie, who had been dating Jason Donovan, dumped her fellow soap-star-turned-singer for the Aussie wildman, who she admitted had “corrupted” her.
She said: “He was a dark bad boy and I was the pure good girl.”
His influence on her lived on even when their relationship fizzled out after three years.
Kylie had taken flak for mimicking Madonna’s style during her Rhythm Of Love tour in 1991.
So a year later she decided to ditch Pop Kylie and emerge reborn as Indie Kylie.
Having swapped Stock, Aitken and Waterman for the trendy Deconstruction Records, she released the cool dance track Confide In Me in 1994 and duetted with indie legend Nick Cave on Where The Wild Roses Grow a year later.
She went on trips across the world with French photographer lover Stephane Sednaoui, which inspired her 1998 album Impossible Princess.
But it was too experimental for many fans — and lead single Some Kind Of Bliss, co-written with the Manic Street Preachers, did not make the Top 20. The turn of the millennium saw mixed fortunes.
She started dating James Gooding in 2000, who admitted to cheating on her with fellow model Sophie Dahl.
Then she became a national treasure here by transforming herself into a disco princess, thanks to some great tunes — and eye-catching clothing.
Fans loved the golden hot pants she wore in the Spinning Around video and the white silk number wrapped around her body for Can’t Get You Out Of My Head.
PR guru Mark Borkowski says: “She has not been a follower of fashion, she has been a creator of fashion.”
Kylie was canny enough to spot the potential of Can’t Get You Out Of My Head, which had been turned down by S Club 7 before she went on to sell five million copies of the single.
And she showed she had her finger on the pulse in 2003 as an early collaborator with Dan Carey for her No1 hit Slow.
The British producer, who also co-wrote the track, has since gone on to work with Franz Ferdinand, Wet Leg and Fontaines DC.
While others tried to shock or used their personal lives for publicity, Kylie has stayed down-to-earth.
Mark Borkowski says: “She never felt desperate and doesn’t seem to need fame.”
When gossips claimed that French actor Olivier Martinez was not being faithful during their five-year romance, she defended him.
Martinez had helped during her toughest period — her battle with breast cancer in 2005, which required surgery and chemotherapy.
She recalled: “On particularly dark days I’d be lying on the bathroom floor wailing, and he’d say, ‘OK, honey, you can cry for just five minutes, then I’m taking you on the bike for a ride around Paris’.”
Over the past couple of decades Kylie has proven to be far more than just a singer.
In 2013 she became a judge on talent show The Voice, and a couple of years later she starred alongside Dwayne Johnson in disaster movie San Andreas.
The savvy businesswoman, who is worth an estimated £50million, has put her name to glasses, bed linen, wallpaper, perfume, underwear and make-up.
But PR expert Mark says: “She has an excellent team who manage her so that we never get bored of Kylie.”
Not all her reinventions have worked, though.
Kylie’s 2018 Nashville-tinged album Golden yielded no hits — but perhaps a few heartbreak songs were to be expected in the wake of the end of her engagement to British actor Joshua Sasse, 20 years her junior, in 2017.
It had been a tough split, with her admitting: “My physical system was compromised. I think it’s called a nervous breakdown.”
Many felt her next beau Paul Solomons, the creative director of British GQ mag, could be the one.
Paul was seen as a regular guy, not interested in using Kylie to make a name for himself.
She said: “He’s an inspiring, funny, talented guy. He’s got a real-life, actual job. It’s lovely.”
But two years ago she quit London for Australia, buying a mansion close to her siblings and parents in Melbourne after making Britain her home for almost three decades.
Kylie, who has developed a successful wine business Down Under, tried to have a very long distance relationship with Paul, 47, who lives in London.
She said: “It’s important to be fluid in life. You don’t need to be put in a box.”
The three-time Brit award winner hasn’t had any Top 20 singles since Into The Blue, a No12 in 2014.
Now she is focused once more on her rise back to the top.
Padam Padam was written with Norwegian hitmaker Ina Wroldsen, who has worked with Clean Bandit and Olly Murs.
Her comeback is reaching a new generation, with young fans lapping up the dance track.
Padam Padam was Kylie’s first entry in the US Billboard Hot 100 since 2004, and it looks certain to get into the UK Official Charts Top 20 on Friday.
And its success is down to the veteran singer harnessing the power of social media to get around the stuffy powers-that-be at the BBC who initially refused to give the track airtime.
Kylie says: “I feel like I have one foot in the old world and one foot in the new.”