Kylie Minogue: Riding the Wave of Success

You’ve been doing this for thirty-four years, you’ve sold eighty million albums and you’ve achieved everything the music industry has to offer. Why are you still at? Why put yourself through all the stress?

That’s a good question! Why the stress? Because of the thrill, because of the creative desire. I love that. But honestly, I often ask myself that same question – and then I tell myself I can’t go on, I’ve got to stop. But then my team will roll their eyes and say, “You’re not stopping.”

What’s left to achieve? From November 2023 on you’ll be starting a six-month residency in Las Vegas. Do things like that keep you going?

Yes, Vegas is new. Still, I think it’s less about achievements but just wanting to create and share stuff with my fans. That’s the real challenge for me.

Many of your female colleagues – like Madonna, for example – have complained about the age trap, about their songs not being played anymore when you’re over forty or fifty. Is that something that you’ve experienced yourself? Or have you managed to defy this trend?

Would you say that “Padam Padam”, your most successful single in years, is blazing a trail here, because it shows that you can still storm the charts at fifty-five?

You could say that. The success of the song took all of us by surprise – and that it was picked up by quote, unquote “youth radio”. It’s just so refreshing how the song has been taken at face value. The younger generation today, they’re so open-minded. I remember being twenty and thinking, “God, someone forty is just so old.” So I understand that. We’ve all been there. But the young people today are exposed to so much now and they know it’s not cool to be judgmental like that.

What made you go for another dance pop album? Is it because that’s what we need these days? Something lighthearted that stops us from thinking about the weight of the world?

When doing promo for the album, it’s always a weird stage for me at this point because I’m not removed enough from the album yet to have a neatly formulated expression of what it’s all about. The best answer that I can give at the moment is this: I recorded and released my last album, Disco, during the lockdown and couldn’t go on tour with it. And it just felt like old news to me. So I wanted to start with something fresh, something new. I didn’t really know what I was doing, I just wanted to create something new. But I think it’s evident in the album that we just wanted to let go and breathe. It’s what a lot of people are doing now. And I can feel that in this album.

Do you still go out? Does Kylie Minogue still go clubbing?

Not as much as I used to, if I’m honest. My wild clubbing days were ( … )

→ Read the full interview in rampstyle #30.