Kylie! – Michael Hutchence, ‘Indie Kylie’ and those gold hotpants.

Talk ’90s to me

In this episode of Talk '90s to Me, host Miranda Sawyer and author Michael Cragg explore the multifaceted career of pop icon Kylie Minogue. T

Key takeaways

• Kylie Minogue's early career was defined by her role as Charlene in the Australian soap Neighbours, which established her photogenic appeal and intense work ethic.
• The era of producers Stock Aitken and Waterman was characterized by a 'factory line' approach to pop hits like 'I Should Be So Lucky'.

Main topics

• Kylie Minogue's career arc
• The Neighbours era

Notable quotes

Kylie, at her very core, is the essential of what great pop is.

Conclusion

The episode provides a deep, empathetic look at how Kylie Minogue navi

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) Hello and welcome to Talk 90s to Me, where we start the 90s as a pop muppet with a hot rock star boyfriend, move definitively into full gay icon with an unmatchable series of complete bangers, flounder a little in the weeds of indie music and rubbish films, before returning via gold hot pants and a white nylon hood into our correct position of impossible princess whose songs we can't get out of our heads. I'm Miranda Sawyer and yes, this week... At last, we are talking Kylie with the brilliant writer of the fantastic new book. Can't get you out of my head. In search of Kylie, it's Michael Craig. Hello, Michael. Hello. Thank you very much. I Speaker 5 (0:48) am so Speaker 3 (0:48) excited. Me Speaker 5 (0:49) too. Who doesn't want to be in Kylie world, honestly? Speaker 3 (0:54) Exactly, exactly, exactly. Okay, before we start, I just want to read out what Kylie has achieved. Okay. Okay. Two Grammy Awards, four Brit Awards, 18 ARIA Music Awards. She is the highest selling Australian-born female artist of all time. Sales surpassing 80 million records. She... before Madonna, scored UK number ones in five consecutive decades, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s and 2020s. She is, I mean, more than an icon. She is a great pop star. Speaker 5 (1:26) She is. Maybe the best, maybe my favourite. I mean, you know, I've written a book about her, so I would say that. But really getting into the book, I was like, this is, you know, that achievement is incredible from where she started to where she is now in pop. is monumental, I think. Speaker 3 (1:41) I think I would agree. OK, look, as ever with Talk 90s, we have to do a bit of pre-90s. With everything, it's really interesting. The more I do this show, the more I realise everything starts around 1988. Yeah. Anyway, so we need to do a little bit of pre-90s, Kylie. What we might call the Neighbours, Stock Aitken and Waterman smash hits. Yes. Right. So really, we can do a little bit about Neighbours. She plays Charlene in Neighbours in 1986. Jason Donovan plays Scott Robinson. She's a mechanic. Speaker 5 (2:15) Yes, she's a sort of tomboy. I think she's first seen punching Jason Donovan in the face because he thinks she's breaking into the house. But actually, there's like a convoluted sort of reason why. And I remember like watching Neighbours and seeing her and their relationship sort of blossom. you know, later down the line, they're a sort of secret couple in real life. And then, especially for you. But yes, the first time Kylie is seen on Neighbours is, yeah, punching him in the face. Speaker 3 (2:44) It's amazing how things work out, isn't it, really? It's like foreshadowing. Anyway, she's on Neighbours. And there's a couple of things that I think that are established on Neighbours. One is the camera loves her. Yeah. Like, without a doubt. I think that... we can argue that Kylie is one of the most photogenic pop stars ever. Yes. Like, you know, like if you see her, like this is often true of pop stars. It's particularly true of models. If you see people sometimes off screen, you think, who is that child? Yeah. They look really young. Speaker 5 (3:14) That Speaker 3 (3:14) normal looking person. Yeah. And then there's something about the camera that really loves Kylie. She looks incredibly beautiful. Also, it establishes her amazing work ethic. Speaker 5 (3:24) Yes. I think, you know, people can't really understand how much that show was sort of floundering at the beginning and so they brought in this younger cast to sort of do exactly what it did which was sort of get the younger audience in but it meant that they were sort of like pop stars they were sort of opening shopping malls and had thousands of fans sort of running after them and they were having to do all this extra stuff that, you know, Madge wasn't having to do or whatever. So they were having to sort of be here and everywhere. And I think that instilled in her this idea both of like work ethic, but also that when the light is on, you perform. And whether that's in front of the camera or whether that's in a studio or wherever, a photo shoot, you are like... I'm working now. And I think that really got instilled in her so early. Yeah, Speaker 3 (4:06) because she's young. She's really young. Yeah, she was Speaker 5 (4:08) like 19, 18, 19 when this was all happening. And, you know, the pop thing just sort of rolled into that. So it all became sort of one thing for her, her job. Speaker 3 (4:17) Yeah, very much so. Because actually she makes, so Locomotion is her first, I mean, attempt. You know, it sounds a bit, I'm going to say attempt because it was really, weirdly it was recorded by the floor manager. of Neighbours or something. It was so mad. Speaker 5 (4:32) Yeah, I think they had this sort of band on Neighbours that, you know, it was sort of boys only. And Jason obviously wanted to kind of be involved. And then Kylie was invited in, I think, to sort of do some singing and Jason would sort of tag along. And then it was from that that someone was like, oh, why don't we get you into the studio and see what you can do? And also she had recorded songs because she wanted to be an entertainer. And so you'd have on your CV that you could also sing. So she wasn't... unaware of a studio but she obviously didn't think that she would be a pop star and the locomotion was just sort of recorded by him and then the demo was sort of shopped around everyone was like yeah Speaker 3 (5:06) whatever Speaker 5 (5:07) whatever you know she looks bad yeah Speaker 3 (5:09) she yeah she it wasn't really taken seriously at all really um and she kind of signs to a management deal she goes through a little record labor she ends up working with Stock Aitken and Waterman, but they are quite dismissive of her and they keep her waiting when she turns up to work with them. And it's all a bit rubbish, isn't Speaker 5 (5:33) it? Yeah. And obviously the schedule is crazy. So she's given this sort of period off from neighbours to fly over to London to record with them. The connection is that one of the sort of team had recorded her in Australia for this new version of the locomotion, which had become a hit. Pete Waterman and everyone in London was adamant that they didn't know who she was, that they'd never seen Neighbours, even though it was this huge phenomenon and they were just like, we're so busy. And they probably were, to be fair. Or certainly, like, Stock and Aitken were very busy. Pete Speaker 3 (6:00) Waterman was busy, what, just going around? He goes around nightclubs at that time. Speaker 5 (6:03) Yeah, and he was sitting in his sort of throne chair in the office and just sort of watching over everyone. So she's sort of there waiting and she's knitting and people are coming up to her just being like, are you OK? Like, why are you here? And she's like, oh, I'm just waiting to... Speaker 3 (6:14) Because she turns up, they've got it the week wrong or something. They think she's turning up the week later. Speaker 5 (6:18) Yeah, everyone's slightly confused. She's sort of sent off to go to Madame Tussauds to look at the waxworks while a song is sort of created. And then it all gets a bit complicated because there's multiple stories about how I Should Be So Lucky came about and how that sort of phrase came around. You know, Pete has one idea and there are other versions of it. So this song still isn't sort of created until the morning that she comes back on her final day. She has to fly at like 3 p.m., shows up in the morning and everyone's still a bit like, well, what's she going to sing? Speaker 3 (6:48) Yeah, it's so bad. I mean, it's really, really shocking because what she says later is they basically handle the song one line at a time. So it's called I Should Be So Lucky and you very diligently try and work out where this phrase comes from. It does seem to come from basically like... the studio's club promo guy. It's probably... That's the story Speaker 5 (7:10) I like the most. When he goes out, they sort of tease him about like if he hooked up with any guys or whatever. And it's like, I should be so lucky. It's just a phrase that was in the office, I think. Speaker 3 (7:20) Yeah. Speaker 5 (7:21) But Pete's idea is that, you know, someone was like, she's waiting for a hit. And he's like, well, she should be so lucky to get one of our good songs or whatever. Can we Speaker 3 (7:29) just say they've only released one single before that, haven't they? They've only done Mandy Smith. Speaker 5 (7:35) On their own label, yeah. So it is a bit sort of, the arrogance is there quite early on. And I think Kylie comes out of recording session thinking, well, I've been in a recording studio before this. I know how this works. And that is not what I did before because she was literally being fed the lines. There was no finished track. It was just sort of the lines. And if you listen to that song, she doesn't sound... happy or engaged Speaker 2 (7:59) you know Speaker 5 (7:59) and the song is so sort of peppy and up and she's just a bit like what is going on and then she flies back to australia and doesn't really hear anything yeah Speaker 3 (8:06) and so they kind of think okay whatevs you know it's all it's all gone a bit wrong and then there's another kind of myth i don't know if it's true around this story which is that there's a pwl Christmas party and the DJ is Lenny Henry. Speaker 5 (8:23) Sure. It was in the Natural History Museum or something? They were Speaker 3 (8:27) making a lot of money. They were making Speaker 5 (8:29) a lot of money. They're really Speaker 3 (8:29) making a lot of money. Okay, so the DJ is Lenny Henry. He played this kind of character who's like a 70s character called Theophilus P. Wildebeest and he plays I Should Be So Lucky and Pete Waterman goes, what's that song? Speaker 5 (8:43) I'll have that. And it's like, you know, it is yours. It's Kylie Minogue. And yeah, which I think says a lot. maybe about Pete's approach to the truth or a story that maybe like just sounds great. And he's really brilliant at those. Like it's a brilliant story, but it also maybe speaks to how the studio work was done by Stock and Akin. And so they had created this song and remixes have been done of it in various versions. And Pete was quite rightly like, this song is great. Let's... See who it's by. Yeah. They were like, it's Kylie. Speaker 3 (9:13) It's Kylie, yeah. Remember that small child doing the knitting? Knitting Speaker 5 (9:17) in the corridor. So Speaker 3 (9:19) it's released the end of 1987. It goes to number one. It's been five weeks there. Okay. She's a hit. I mean, it's a huge hit. And Speaker 5 (9:28) they're much nicer to her when they fly over to Australia to record her the second time because I think they apologise and they were like, look, we didn't know what we had. Yeah. And we're very sorry. Speaker 3 (9:37) Yeah, quite right. Good. I'm glad to hear it. In the book, you associate this time slightly with Smash Hits, which is really lovely for me because I started at Smash Hits in 1988. And it was the Kylie and then Jason and then Bross era, really, when I was there. And there's a kind of synergy between those kind of pop stars and Smash Hits, which works really, really well. I never interviewed Kylie. I have never interviewed Kylie. The people who did interview her, who you talked to, is Tom Doyle and Sylvia Patterson. They interviewed her a lot. And they were really good at interviewing her, I think, because they actually fundamentally liked her. Speaker 5 (10:14) Yeah. And that was new for her. You know, Australia had been cruel or was in the middle of being incredibly cruel about her. We were sort of picking up on that. You know, she was this smiley, sort of curly haired Australian who just sort of had this naivety and this sort of sense of like, I don't really know what I'm doing because it was true. You know, a lot of the music videos around that time, they show her. that it's all built into her persona was that she would make silly gaffes even in the video and then they'd keep it in. So it was very much meant to be this sort of naive, sort of childlike woman. And so I think she quite liked just being treated like a person who was going through all these different things. And so those Smash Hits interviews I thought were very well done. I mean, Sylvia goes to Paris with her for like Speaker 3 (11:00) a few days and Danny's there. Yeah, I mean, Sylvia's an absolute genius. But also I do think that she... Because Kylie Minogue, especially, I mean, fundamentally, is really cagey. She never gives much information away. Throughout the whole of her career, she really doesn't. And that's just to do with her personality, I think, actually. It's just how she is. But Sylvia, because Sylvia is such a great interviewer, is able to kind of tickle her sometimes. She just gets on with her and gets much more out of her than anyone Speaker 1 (11:28) else. Speaker 3 (11:28) Which is a Speaker 5 (11:28) great start. And I think at that point, they were still allowing her to... Her interviews became 20 minutes long into her career because, as you say, she either just, she didn't like doing them, I don't think, she didn't understand, she wanted to be honest, but also knew that if she did, it would backfire on her. So she had this sort of step back away from it. But Sylvia and Tom and the smash hits vibe was at least allowed to give her some fun. You know, there's an annual where she's wearing all these hats that... Speaker 3 (11:56) The Easter hat. The Speaker 5 (11:56) Easter bonnet that someone made in the office. Yeah, me too. I got it on eBay. There's like a really amazing Pet Shop Boys like knitted beanie, which I really want, which she's quite negative about in the thing. But I think it was fun. But she was still a bit like, what is going on? Like, I'm not a pop star at this point. Speaker 3 (12:13) And yet weirdly, she's really good at her job. Because the other thing I really remember that Tom Doyle said about her is if you watched her in a photo shoot, she's... like a professional model meaning that uh they would put the camera on and she would pull a different but brilliant expression and position everything so click she'd do another one click she'd do a different one click she'd do a different one click i mean amazing you know because she's that's what i mean about her kind of work ethic she's not slouching in late she's not like arrogant about any of it she's trying to do it right yeah Speaker 5 (12:47) and i think we're in this era of the X factor meaning, you know, very specific thing. But back then, it meant something amazing. And she has that, you know, the actual ability and talent to like, turn it on when you need to. And not just in a way that's like, smiling, you know, we know she can do that. But to shapeshift as much as she has down the line meant that you have to be good at turning it on, but in a very specific way, and it's still kind of working. And you can see in those early ones, I do think She was like, I don't really know what to do with my hands and my legs. And someone, Jess Cantamore, made a really amazing point in the book that she sort of looked like we did in the 80s when someone put a camera in front of us, because it was this thing that suddenly everyone was doing and taking photos. And so she would just sort of be a bit awkward in some of them with her body. But I think she knew there was that thing in her eyes and in the way she sort of looked at the camera that she was going to get it. Speaker 3 (13:41) Yeah. And it happened very quickly. Speaker 5 (13:44) Incredible eyebrows. Speaker 3 (13:45) She has the Kylie eyebrow. Yeah. I've always wanted that. Oh, look, you can do it. Oh, my God. Lifting one eyebrow. I've tried for years. I can't do it. Speaker 5 (13:53) I'm so Speaker 3 (13:53) sad. Is Speaker 5 (13:56) it Speaker 3 (13:56) the Botox? Speaker 5 (13:57) No. It Speaker 3 (13:58) really isn't the Botox. You know full well it's not the Botox. Speaker 2 (14:04) This is an un-Botoxed eyebrow. Speaker 3 (14:08) Still, I can't do that eyebrow face. Okay. The kind of Kylie and Smash Hits era, they bolster each other. You know, we were selling loads. You know, I remember the Especially For You cover with Speaker 2 (14:20) Kylie Speaker 3 (14:20) and Jason was an absolutely huge seller. You know, it was like, you know, close. It was a million. It was absolutely. It was just. Isn't that mad? I know. Speaker 5 (14:28) A million. That's crazy. And Speaker 3 (14:30) that's the people who bought it because then people who buy it, like it's then read by other people because, of course, it's probably read by like four million. It's just so mad. So, so nuts. Anyway, especially for you, that's in 88, three weeks at number one in January 89, it gets, and then she's basically, she's already done an album called Kylie in 1908. She goes straight back in to make another album. I mean, it's hard, hard work. She makes Enjoy Yourself. That sells a million copies. Hand on Your Heart is in that one. Yes. She is working very, very, very hard. Speaker 5 (15:05) Yes. Speaker 3 (15:05) Yeah. And I Speaker 5 (15:06) think, It's around that time that she has... She Speaker 3 (15:09) has a mini nervous breakdown. Yeah, Speaker 5 (15:11) she calls it lots of different things throughout that period. But I think essentially that's what it is. And we're obviously much more aware of that now. And I don't think it really caused any sort of... Everyone was just like, okay, she just has a little break and then comes back. But it was her family that stepped in and were like, you need to take a break and you need to learn to say no. Which I think is... very difficult when you're just sort of flying by the seat of your pants and everything is happening around you and you're being successful and making money for lots of people hopefully some for yourself you know and she'd come out of Neighbours but only just and it was still being shown here so there was a lot going on and I think it yeah she couldn't keep up with it it's Speaker 3 (15:50) so Kylie as well to just kind of like dismiss it like you know what I mean I had like a time I had a tiny nervous breakdown but yeah we Speaker 5 (15:56) moved on had a tiny nervous breakdown where someone like had to sort of step in