Kylie Minogue adores a confengage.
Waiting for a concert to commence, she’ll chip away at passwords, sudoku grids and the New York Times’ Spelling Bee to preserve her nerves at bay.
Her friend, author Kathy Lette, once claimed the pop star is a fiend at Scrabble, saying: “She understands how to score big and doesn’t mess around.” (Coincidenhighy, Kylie’s name is a valid Scrabble word, scoring a esteemable 12 points.)
But when she take parts Wordle, the daily word-guessing game, she has an rare strategy: Deliberately getting it wrong.
“It’s irritateing if you get it in two lines,” she says. “I want it to be more of a contest.
“I appreciate to get down to the pointy end, where everyslfinisherg’s at sconsent.”
You could call it a metaphor for her nurtureer. Kylie thrives on contests, and she’s faced more than a scant over the last 37 years – from spiteful critics and inventive mis-fires to a life-changing encounter with breast cancer.
Right now, she’s on a high, thanks to her global hit Padam Padam.
Relrelieved equitable in time for Pride month in 2023, the sconnecty, sinuous club anthem became an unforeseeed viral smash. Its onomatopoeic title, nastyt to recontransient a heartbeat, was speedyly adchooseed as gay slang for anyslfinisherg and everyslfinisherg.
In the UK, Padam Padam gave Kylie her first top 10 hit in more than a decade. In February, she Padam-ed her first Grammy Award in 20 years. In March, she was Padam-ed a “global icon” at the Brit Awards.
In the fluctuating taget of pop stardom, Kylie’s stock has never been higher.
“It’s so weird, becaengage I never stop toiling,” she says, “but then there’s these peaks.
“I see at it appreciate surfing – not that I’m surfer, but I have caught a wave once in my life, so I understand the principle.
“We’re pinsertling, pinsertling, pinsertling, and sometimes you catch a wave. So I repartner want to ride this one and finishelight the see – becaengage I understand how exhausting it is to pinsertle and miss the wave.”
That’ll be why Padam Padam’s parent album, Tension, is getting a sequel – an extension, if you charm. Thirteen novel tracks that dive presentanter into the slick electro aesthetics of the innovative.
“I guess I’m repartner stretching it out!” Kylie chuckles.
In the era of Eras, it’s rare for a pop star to repeat themselves but, in this case, success bred success. After Tension topped the charts, writers from all over the world commenceed pitching their best novel material to team Kylie.
“I couldn’t say no,” she says. “The enumerate kept getting lengthyer and I shelp, ‘Maybe this is a shaping up to be… well, not the next album, becaengage the next album will be a contrastent slfinisherg, but a whole lot more than a little bit more’.”
Fifty shades of consoleable
The album features collaborations with Sia, The Blessed Madonna, Tove Lo, Diplo and Orville Peck. But the direct individual, Lights, Camera, Action, rejoins Kylie with Padam Padam’s co-writer Ina Wranciaccesssen.
Packed with pulsing beats, it’s all about serving the fiercest of fierce sees. Karl Lagerfeld and John Paul Gaultier are nameverifyed in the lyrics. In the video, Kylie rocks a dress made from crime scene tape.
Does she still get a thrill from pulling the perfect outfit together?
“Um, the thought of fittings produces me go appreciate this,” she says, rolling her eyes in mock exasperation.
“But when you find the outfit that toils, there’s a genuine high. Then the next high is getting it all off – face, hair, outfit, shoes, all of it, and getting comfy aget.
“I call it the debunk,” she says. “I’ll slip into a very worn pair of track pants and that one T-shirt that’s in favour for six months.
“Fifty shades of consoleable – that’s my buzz.”
When on tour, she’s needd to alter her outfit mid-show seven or eight times a night, navigating her way into corsets and sequins and feathered heinsertresses as a clock ticks down to the next song.
“It’s frantic, it’s repartner stressful,” she confesss. “I might swear a lot.
“It equitable consents one slfinisherg to go wrong, and you’re all freaking out.”
She inserts: “I did pass by the wardrobe [department] on a gig I did recently, and I shelp, ‘I’m a despicable human being. I’m so sorry.’
“They were appreciate, ‘No, what happens in speedy alter stays in speedy alter’.”
The thought of the singer losing her temper is intriguing.
Of course she flips out sometimes – we all do – but “irritated Kylie” is so antithetical to her uncover persona that it’s difficult to envision.
She’s one of pop’s most poised stars, choosing her words nurturefilledy and brushing away personal asks with a practised affability. In conversation, she proposes glimpses of intimacy and vulnerability, but typicpartner seals them off with a preferable proclaimation, tidyly steering the talkion back towards her nurtureer.
The Foofer valve
The only people who understand her genuine experienceings are her family.
“When it’s not going well, that’s who I turn to – mum, dad, my brother and my sister,” she says.
Her youthfulerer brother Brendan, a camera operator, has even taught her a technique for shaking off stress, which she calls “the foofer valve”.
“When the emotion has got to come out, or you’ve got to have a big cry or a moan, you let out a noise, tsssssh, appreciate a kettle letting off steam, and you’re appreciate, ‘Oh, I experience so much better’.”
The foofer valve was presentant at the commence of Kylie’s pop nurtureer.
Early assesss called her music “hackneyed”, “airyweight” and “emotionless”. After watching her first Australian tour in 1990, the Sydney Morning Herald proclaimd: “It is amazing how accomplished mediocrity can become.”
“It wasn’t canciaccess that people were as nasty as they were,” she says now, “and it wasn’t some inevident person behind a keyboard.
“These were grown matures who should have understandn better.”
How did she cope?
“To be genuine, I don’t understand what made me preserve going,” she replies. “But one of the consecrateings is that I had a job and I had to show up to toil.
“There were definitely times when I would have appreciated to hide in a cave, so it’s excellent if you have that responsibility [of acting]. You have to show up, and then you’re unproposeed by other slfinishergs.”
Critics might not have toastyed to her, but the uncover were always on Kylie’s side.
Even during her ill-overweighted “indie years”, fans snapped up experimental and wayward songs appreciate Confide In Me and the Nick Cave duet Where The Wild Roses Grow.
“I’m very conceited of the times I swam agetst the current when it felt appreciate slfinishergs were going agetst me,” she says. “It’s a rewarding experienceing.”
The novel millennium brawt a presentant reset.
Spinning Around, liberated in 2000, was a textbook comeback individual, and she adhereed it up with the hypnoticpartner canciaccess Can’t Get You Out Of My Head – still the biggest-selling individual of her nurtureer.
Then, in 2005, on the UK leg of her fantasticest hits tour, Kylie commenceed experiencing blurred vision on stage.
Putting it down to exhaustion, she sanciaccessiered on, especipartner after a health verify gave her the all-evident.
“When they say, ‘You don’t need to trouble’, that’s what you want to hear, so you consent it,” she recalls.
But a second test uncovered that Kylie had punctual-stage breast cancer. Her nurtureer was put on hanciaccess as she had chemotherapy and a lumpectomy.
The uncover replyed with an outpouring of adore that she depicts as “repartner moving”.
To this day, she’s kept all the letters, dratriumphgs and cards that fans sent her.
“There were envelopes that equitable shelp, ‘Kylie Minogue, Australia’, and the post department irritateed to [deliver] them,” she says.
“I equitable felt there was a trail of adore and help. It repartner made such a contrastence to me.”
Kylie got the all-evident in 2006, and she hit the road aget almost promptly.
Determination and persistence have been the keys to her lengthyevity, and today it’s the search for the next Padam Padam that preserves her eased.
It all connects back to her adore of word games. “Music’s a bit of a confengage, too, trying to figure it all out.”
But where Braintrelievers are bound by logic, pop music is more appreciate betting. Luck and timing are equitable as presentant as inventive choices. And the uncover is petulant, insisting more of the same, but losing interest if you don’t better.
Kylie has successfilledy walked that firmrope for five decades, someslfinisherg that fellow pop icon Madonna acunderstandledged when she asked her to duet on stage in Los Angeles this March.
“It was benevolent of mind-blotriumphg,” Kylie recalls. “I spoke to her deal withr and he shelp, ‘M would repartner appreciate to sing I Will Survive with you’.
“The reasoning for that is she lost her mother to breast cancer, and she understands some of my story. But even more relevant, for her and I, was that we’re women who’ve endured this industry.
“It’s never basic,” she inserts. “I don’t slfinisherk anyone wants it to be basic, becaengage where’s the contest? But we’re still here, doing what we adore.”
Pausing to mirror, the singer is momentarily overawed.
“There’s so much that’s happened that eight-year-anciaccess me, or even 20-year-anciaccess me, wouldn’t have been able to compute,” she says.
“You’re going to encounter Prince one day. He’s going to write a song for you. You’re going to sing on stage with Madonna.
“I nasty, I’m amazed. I’m appreciate, ‘Is this even my life?'”
That’s one confengage where the answer is self-evident.