“Padam.” Sorry, did you say something?
“Padam”. Apologies, but I’m finding it a little hard to concentrate right now.
Sure, I did watch the last episode of Succession, and gosh, didn’t we all draw on the lessons of King Lear in this magnificent retelling of the Shakespearean epic. And, yes, really, I do think there’s an argument to suggest that Shiv might have been the sacrificial martyr of the fable, although I do prefer the version in which she’s basically Lady Macbeth. And, yes, OMG, Phillip Schofield. But, right now, right this minute . . . ? “Padam, padam. I’Il hear it and I know.” I’ve only got ears for Kylie.
This week’s most extraordinary coup de théâtre has not been the one concerning the Roy family, nor the drama consuming the fate of UK morning television and its woebegotten cast of sofa-surfers. It’s the one being executed by Kylie Minogue who, at the age of 55, has tippy-toed her teeny tiny scarlet-Lycra-clad being up the singles charts, reaching her highest position since 2014 with an insanely catchy onomatopoeic hymnal to the heartbeat, “Padam Padam”.
The only female artist to have had a number-one album in the UK in five consecutive decades, the Australian pop star’s latest assault on immortality follows a period of quiet semi-retirement in Melbourne, where she has settled to be closer to her family while also nurturing her side hustle as purveyor of one of the world’s bestselling rosés. Fool, if you thought her pop career was over though. The lead single from her 16th studio album, “Padam Padam” is an electropop dance banger inspired by Édith Piaf’s 1951 song of the same name. Since its release on May 18, it has hit number one in the UK singles sales and download charts thanks mainly to its being embraced by the gay community (Kylie’s first and forever disciples) as well as its proliferation on social media, where it has become the soundtrack of a bajillion memes.
And who would have doubted it?
Perpetually overlooked, dismissed and patronised by critics and media intellectuals, who typically seek greater truths and insights from our contemporary cultural icons, Kylie remains the people’s princess of pop. An effervescent Peter Pan, she may offer little more to the cultural dialogue than a saucy pair of hot pants and a thumping disco bass track, but she nevertheless delivers, decade after decade, by remaining true to what she is.
Kylie’s latest triumph prompts questions about what contributes to longstanding cultural fame, especially at this moment when pop’s big swingers are in town. In July, Madonna, now 64, will commence her latest comeback with her six-month Celebration tour. Beyoncé (41) is currently staging her “Renaissance”, like a resplendent silver Nefertiti, while Taylor Swift is consolidating a near two-decade contribution to aural greatness with an epic 40-plus-song Eras tour. At 33, Swift is still only a stripling compared with the others, but given she was plucking banjos straight out of the birth canal, her experience bequeaths her a longevity that belies her junior years.
Each of the above is celebrating a career defined by reinvention, and the trajectory of female singers has tended to mean making major career moves. By contrast, Kylie’s evolution has remained astonishingly subtle: she found her fail-safe formula sometime in the early 1990s and now only tweaks the knobs. OK, so there was that raunchy dalliance with Michael Hutchence and a Nick Cave duet, but that moment was no more a commitment to an “era” than the brunette rinse that dyed her hair. Kylie’s mood is “eternal pop poppet” in a world of inconsistency: kind and bubblingly inclusive, while remaining a paragon of reliability.
In ignoring the relentless quest for relevance, Kylie finds herself on trend. She doesn’t swing between genres or search for outré, folksy collaborations: she just gets in and grabs the tunes.
In some sense, Kylie the pop star is the perfect cipher — a genre contained in one pint-sized human being. Little is known of the real Kylie: she’s never played with the artistic female tropes of girlfriend, mother, wife. If anything she’s become more artificial — she’s more vocoder-tuned and plastinated — and as her career matures she’s becoming ever more unreal. And good for her, quite frankly, I love plastinated Kylie — it’s a great guise for someone who wants to turn out a hit record every decade and then return to relative obscurity.
Snobs will no doubt sneer at her successes. They may lament her music’s lack of depth. Worse, they might define her as a “guilty pleasure” — that most annoying of misogynies — because it would be too shameful to give her any actual cred.
But in a landscape in which artists are all about their narratives and journeys, and amid a frothing need among the famous for the constant overshare, there’s something magnificent about a 55-year-old former soap star sneaking out of nowhere to drop the soundtrack of the year.
Email Jo at jo.ellison@ft.com
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