The Kylie Blog

I made no secret of the great excitement with which I received the news that I was to get a free ticket (thank you, thank you, thank you) to the Kylie Minogue, ‘Showgirl – The Greatest Hits Tour’ Concert and, despite being acutely aware of the odium that such a scenario was likely to attract from the majority (and I think it turned out to be overwhelming majority) of my (not even principally male) peers, I went ahead unabashed and unashamed, made my feelings and intentions widely known, only to be pleasantly surprised that largely the type of reaction with which my statements were met was in fact even more vituperative than I ever expected or hoped.

You see, I seem to quite enjoy people feeling a certain abhorrence to me from time to time, but what I enjoy even more, is occasions like this when I can put my hand on my heart (as Kylie herself has told us to do) and know that I can't be convinced that I am not (at least nearly) entirely correct. But the real real pleasure is changing the minds of others (though I openly admit that this has not happened yet and is unlikely to happen with this blog - but hey, it's worth a try) and opening their eyes to the fact that all along they have always, and always will, LOVE KYLIE MINOGUE.

There is a lot of Kylie-hate out there. And it’s hilarious! But more to the point, it’s misguided and wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Furthermore, I believe Kylie-haters are in denial because they are afraid to face up to the truth. Not merely the truth about Kylie, but the truth about life.

I love Kylie in every way imaginable (that doesn’t involve buying any of her records or merchandise, or for a long time approving of her catchy, sweet and romantic duet with Jason Donovan (‘Especially for you’) - for personal reasons). And because I’m such a self-assured (and perhaps in some ways naively cocky) man, I’m not going to be brow-beaten by the opinions of otherwise reasonable people with good taste and average or greater intelligence.

But perhaps I should explain the genesis of my deep and unshakable love. As a very young child, I was exposed to what remains for me, Kylie’s most important work. Songs like: ‘I should be so lucky,’ ‘Put your hand on your heart’ and the less successful but heart-rending, ‘Je ne sais pas pour quoi’ and of course, ‘Locomotion’. These four songs combine to depict the purest most perplexing emotions that face young people in their romantic and social lives. ‘I should be so lucky’ begins the journey of romance as we all do, in the realm of fantasy and idealism, unaware of how unattractive and unlikely to succeed in romance that we are. ‘Put your hand on your heart (and tell me that we’re through)’ continues this theme of dashed hopes of happiness by depicting that moment when the person you devoted yourself to manages to transform your great love to a temporary but unforgettable hate of self, other (this one lasts longer) and the entire world (except for chocolate). We then come to the clincher with ‘Je ne sais pas pour quoi’: the inevitable realization that you are powerless against your foolhardy misguided affections, that the person who dumped you and cheated on you is your slim but only chance at anything resembling happiness and you are so confused and bewildered that there’s nothing left for you to do but to suck it up and resort to speaking French. ‘Locomotion’ is actually a song about escapism where you try to not think about what a shambles your entire life is (“A dance that’s so easy to do, it even makes you happy
when you’re feeling blue”) and the peer pressure that lead you there against your better judgment (I know you’ll get to like it if you give it a chance now(c’mon baby do the loco-motion)). Now all this may very well have a cheesey pop coating, but it’s it got a raw emotional centre. As a six or seven year old boy, what Kylie had done for me was to express my unconscious fears and foreshadow the romantic tragedy I was most likely to face in my future in a way that was… well, as the song goes, ‘as easy as learning you’re ‘a,’ ‘b,’ ‘c’s.

So I think that alot of people just don't expressly appreciate Kylie because they are afraid to face up to these harsh life lessons. But I also must confess that yes, even I doubted her at times.

Perhaps the main reason (among many) I felt a strong repulsion to ‘Especially for you’, was that it seemed anathema to Kylie’s otherwise consistent message and betrayed the depth of her perception about the phenomenon love in her other hits. But last Saturday night, I realized that the actually does follow in the sequence of disappointment and denial, shows how we pick ourselves up and go ahead and willfully make the same mistakes all over again. It also leaves us with the unforgettable warning that if we are not careful, we could end up with Jason Donovan. Why couldn't I see this before? I’m sorry I ever doubted you, Kylie.

Admittedly her newer stuff doesn’t excite me as much as the old stuff (I was positively ecstatic about the burlesque version of Locomotion and actually nearly jumped out of my seat when ‘I should be so lucky’ just burst out of nowhere – though admittedly part of me couldn’t but help think that there was something wrong with seeing a crowd moshing to this song), but I think it’s all pretty good shit, and would be among my favourite musical catalysts that have lead to my attempting to dance in the drunken uncoordinated jerky way I like to do sometimes when I forget that while I’ll not remember it in the morning, it’s a horrific sight that’s etched on everyone else’s minds forever. Well, ok, maybe the new stuff does excite me, but just not quite to the same philosophical depth as the old stuff.

Anyway, there were 7 discernible themes to the show which I will term as follows:

1. Showgirl (high class)
2. Freaky 80s
3. The Ballet sequence
4. What goes on in the hunky (pick a sport) team’s dressing room (the female fantasy + shower scene)
5. Kylie over (well ‘in’ more so than ‘over’) the moon
6. Showgirl (burlesque house ala Folies Bergere)
7. The encore

Abandoning all efforts to sound straight (which were admittedly slight to begin with), it has to be said that the male dancers were far more impressive than the female dancers in every respect. They used their feathers with much more grace in the opening sequence, one guy stole the entire show in the ballet sequence, and (from a purely objective non-sexual-preference point of view) the dressing room sequence was much sexier than the Burlesque house.

Though Kylie did do bits from her famous duets (not the Robbie Williams one interestingly), none of her partners cameod, and though ‘In Denial’ with Neil Tennant from the Pet Shop Boys, fitted perfectly in the ballet sequence, ‘Where The Wild Roses Grow’ (duet with Nick Cave) appeared (albeit briefly) rather unexpectedly and disconcertedly in the Boy’s Dressing Room bit. Classic song though. Now I didn’t realistically think that any of them would, but it’s nice to hope that they might. What I can be thankful for though is that Donovan didn’t show up, but what is a little disconcerting is that he is now doing with his career what I hope to one day do in mine: pretend to be a lawyer.

What is kinda funny about Kylie’s songs in general is that I think we all know more of them than we would reaslise or ever admit to knowing (& liking?). First of all, I’m pretty sure most of my anti-Kylie readers will recognise all (or vice versa: all will know most) of the following lyrics from 8 Kylie songs and what’s more, see if you don’t know (despite yourself) what the next few words are:

1. ’cause baby when I heard you/ For the first time I knew/ We were…
2. Slow down and dance with me/ Yeah, slow/ Skip a beat…
3. I just can’t get you out of my head/ Boy your…
4. It’s in your eyes/ I can tell what your thinking/ My heart is sinking too/ It’s no surprise/ I’ve been watching you lately…
5. I’m dreaming/ You fell in love with me/ Like I’m in love with you/But…
6. Everybody’s doin’ a brand new dance now…
7. You kiss me, I’m falling/ It’s your name I’m calling/ You touch me, I want you…
8. I’m breakin’ it down/ I’m not the same

Go on, try and tell me that there isn't a little Kylie in all of us... that not even a little bit of you doesn’t love Kylie... that she's not spinning around in your VERY SOUL!