Has Kylie Minogue finally been exposed?

So I was reading MX on the way home, as you do, and I came to the bit about the recent Q Awards in Britain.

Ian Brown, former singer in what I regard as one of the greatest bands ever, The Stone Roses, had just received an award. Inexplicably, so too had Kylie Minogue.

Brown allegedly had this to say about Minogue:

"I don't think she's cute. I don't think she's good-looking. Her music's rubbish - she makes music for little kids.

"I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm putting her down, but there's a lot of great minds out there making music and she's not one of them."

This is truly one of those moments where, one would think, that the music media turns and says, "Hey, that kid's right. The Empress truly has no clothes on," before turning on this media darling in a spectacular bloodbath of stinging criticism and unmitigated censure.

Minogue somehow gets away with particularly grievous musical crimes against humanity, and I'm tipping that her next album, due in November, is one of the world's truly memorable musical disasters. Or at least holding my breath.

Incidentally, for the pair of you who regularly read this blog, I do plan to finish off my gratuitous character assassination of Minogue soon. Just getting around to it, is all.

The Deconstruction years (Kylie the showgirl princess? - Part four)

This is Part 4.

Part 3 is here.
Part 2 is here.
Part 1 is here.

News to hand – Kylie Minogue has just dumped her boyfriend of 4 years, Olivier Martinez. Good for her.

Mind you, is this any of anyone’s business?

Anyway, we’d got to the point in the story where Minogue had just signed a deal with Deconstruction Records.

About 1994.

She immediately got to work by picking out some songwriters and producers with the best track records in the British music scene.

Her first album for Deconstruction featured a staggering 8 producer and 19 songwriter credits including the Brothers in Rhythm and the Pet Shop Boys. Minogue wasn’t messing around.

The first single, “Confide in Me”, was hugely successful, but the album itself was only moderately more successful than the previous one that she recorded. Minogue wasn’t happy, and could not understand why her albums weren’t selling more.

Some reasons for this are now, in hindsight, pretty obvious:

• Minogue’s work is hugely popular with dance music fans who largely do not buy albums;
• In fact, albums themselves had been declining as a preferred package of music. This had previously come and gone in cycles, but the rise of clubby Eurotrash was proving to be fairly much unstoppable at this point in the 1990’s; and
• As much as she tried, Kylie’s attempts to garner a more grown up audience was yielding her old audience, but all grown-up, only. They had long since reached the age where they stopped buying long players outright;
• Lastly, Minogue continued to be popular with a segment of the music market who didn’t buy music all that often anyway – the incidental fans.

I won’t accept the shitcanning it got from the critics as a valid reason for it not selling – Kylie’s previous works were similarly pilloried, and they still sold.

Minogue simply wasn’t getting the extra audience boost that she had hoped for. This was, no doubt, frustrating for her.

It was probably symptomatic of a rising threat to Minogue’s career – in mid-1995 the Brit-pop explosion of the nineties was pretty much going full blast, and by the end of the year, Oasis had released their now classic album, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? and Blur had released their not-quite-so classic, The Great Escape. In their wake came efforts from Pulp, The Verve and (The London) Suede, further cementing the Brit-pop revival as a movement to rival that of Grunge 5 years beforehand.

Record companies across Britain and, indeed across Europe and the rest of the world (except North America) abandoned their Eurotrash filler for another couple of years as they got behind Brit-pop for all it was worth.

I always wondered why it was Brit-pop and not Brit-rock. After all, these guys were playing rock and roll with real instruments.

At about this time, Nick Cave embarked on an ambitious concept album called Murder Ballads. On his wish list was a duet with Minogue called “Where the Wild Roses Grow”. The song was released as a single, and was a rip-roaring success.

For Minogue, there was but one option after seeing the new audience that this single opened up for her:

Milk it!

Minogue started writing her own tunes and ensuring that her image was a little more “rocky”.

She wasted no time getting back into the studio and recording a new album, and she supplemented her stable of writers and producers with the likes of Dave Ball, Rob Dougan and James Dean Bradfield from the Manic Street Preachers.

She hung out with all the right people, and made sure that she was seen in all the right places.

Then boyfriend, photographer Stephane Sednaoui, ensured that her image was absolutely spot-on.

And when the new album, Impossible Princess was released, it was an unmitigated disaster for her. Sadly for her, Brit-pop was over, and Eurotrash was on it's way up again.

Minogue had timed her move into this sphere appallingly.

Kylie meets Hutch (Kylie the showgirl princess? - Part three)

This is part 3.

Part 2 is here.

Part 1 is here.

Around the turn of the 90's, Kylie Minogue began making greater demands on her producers, Stock, Aitken and Waterman.

One of her demands was to create a more 'adult' sound to go along with her newer, more adult image. She was, understandably, miffed that the kiddies who were buying her records now were going to be completely disowning her in another year or so, just like so many other disposable pop stars.

She had to revise her image and sound, and fast.

SAW did their best - but Minogue wasn't taking any chances. She roped in (then) big-name producers such as Teddy Riley and Stephen Bray to assist with her third album.

In normal circumstances, this all could have sunk like a stone.

But Minogue had an ace up her sleeve. Just prior to the release of her third album, she began a very public and very messy affair with probably the one person no one expected - the then INXS frontman, Michael Hutchence. At the time, INXS were probably the second biggest band on the planet.

Hutchence was a typical lead singer who had had scores of affairs mainly with supermodels, singers and actresses and was rumoured to be into all sorts of nocturnal activities ranging from merely suggestive through to bizarre.

In fact, rumours persist to this day that suggest that his suicide in 1997 (which was what the coroner's finding officially said) was a peculiar accident instead. The day of his death I was told this:

"Apparently, he had a belt around his neck that he had closed in the doorway between the top of the door and the doorjamb. He then had a bit of a thrash and, unfortunately, slipped in a pool of his own semen and accidentally hung himself."

Anyway, the fact that this is even remotely plausible should give you an idea about the quirks of this bloke.

So Minogue started seeing Hutchence, and because INXS' star was at its zenith and Minogue's was in the ascendant, the media went absolutely wild for it.

The media, incidentally, had a picnic painting Hutchence as this lecherous rockstar and Minogue as the innocent ingenue. Hutchence was even quoted once as saying that one of his favourite hobbies was 'corrupting' the young Minogue. It is now obvious, ironically, that the roles were reversed, and it was the ambitious Minogue who chewed the fragile Hutchence up and spat him out.

Needless to say, Minogue's third album was a smash hit and her extreme image makeover worked like a publicist's dream.

(Incidentally, the hit song, Better the devil you know was on this album. Nick Cave once claimed that this song had the saddest song lyrics he knew. The fact that he meant sad-sad and not pathetic is testament to the brain-sapping combination of a lengthy heroin addiction and the pretence of a Byron complex)

Minogue quickly threw her efforts into milking this sudden rush of mature respect by recording a fourth album. It was to be her last with SAW.

It wasn't a hit. Apart from the track Word is out, she just couldn't latch on to the record-buying public with this work.

Unsurprisingly, she sacked SAW, and left PWL - her contractual obligations were over.

She was now a free agent. And she was still a marketable commodity. A wonderful spot for a musician, or 'artist' as Minogue would prefer to be described, to be in.

What she craved, however, was cred. Not just any cred, mind you, it had to come with sales attached.

At about this time, a label called Deconstruction Records had just struck 24 carat gold with two acts - D:Ream and M People.

Minogue's people knew that this wave was breaking and also that new owners BMG were throwing a lot of money at the label.

She hardly needed much more convincing to sign on the dotted line. For a very short window, she had an opportunity to receive both a ridiculously lucrative deal funded by a major label, but with the cred and cachet of a minor label, which just happened to be the hottest dance music label in the world.

Deal out of the way, she proceeded to celebrate this new phase of her life by recording a new eponymously titled album with new songwriters, producers and money and also by dumping Hutchence.

Her first album with Deconstruction was a moderate success. Hutchence and INXS, however, never had the same level of success again.

Stock, Aitken and Waterman (Kylie the showgirl princess? - Part two)

This is part 2.

Part 1 is here.

"In the beginning there was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God."

Makes perfect sense if you think about it, and yet this particular phrase has confounded scholars for millenia. Personally, I wonder myself why people don't just call it a punctuation error and move on once and for all.

Kylie Minogue moved on from Stock, Aitken and Waterman many years ago. But it is important to note the disgraceful role that these miscreants played in shaping, not only Minogue's career, but also modern popular music.

SAW got their name by producing a Hi-NRG disco style that they rapidly got a reputation for, initially by producing acts like Divine and Hazel Dean. They soon hit the big time with serious hits from the likes of Banananarama and Dead or Alive.

At this point, SAW had complete control over the music that they made - writing, playing and producing. The singer soon became an afterthought.

They developed a sausage-machine method where they could pretty much write whatever they liked and then get in anyone off the street to sing over it. One of their toys was a microphone that allowed them to do all sorts of playing around with singers' voices to ensure that dud notes never came out. (Minogue had this used on her a bit)

Hits followed from a bunch of insipid and vacuous popstars who were pretty much never heard from again - Rick Astley, Mel and Kim, Sinitta the list went on and on and on.

At one stage, SAW had every position in the UK top 5 singles chart nailed down. Oh my poor ears!!

It was at this point that - and there seems to be no consensus as to who approached whom - but Minogue signed a deal with PWL (SAW's record label) and proceeded to get them to give her the once over.

The most likely version is this: Minogue wanted in to the music industry. Minogue's management would supposedly have sold her first born in order to get her there. If she wasn't successful first go, her career was cactus (she'd already given notice to Neighbours). It necessarily follows that SAW were more important to her than she to them.

At any rate, if SAW weren't big before, this pushed them over the edge. Minogue was a chain of smash hits and, theoretically at least, SAW should never have needed to work ever again.

This was the period that she perpetrated "the Loco-motion", "I (we all) should be so lucky", "Got to be certain" and more on us.

By this stage, a certain sameyness had crept in. SAW were lampooned for this mercilessly for this by comedian Tony Hawks with his band Morris Minor and the Majors who released the satirical "This is the chorus" which, I felt, did a reasonable job of imitating SAW's style.

There were several reasons for this sameyness - most notably, SAW's refusal to deviate from their tried and tested formula of a Fairlight CMI sampler-synthesiser, Linn LM1 drum machine (cutely credited on all their releases as "Drums - A. Linn") and Hi-NRG disco.

Actually, I have this theory that SAW owe the Fairlight Corporation lots of money. Most of their "tunes" were allegedly written by feeding a couple of chords into their CMI and using the auto-arpeggiator button to churn out a random tune. At the very least, Fairlight should have had a co-write credit on every tune that these cloth-eared nincompoops churned out. But I digress.

Putting two and two together, their luck would have to run out eventually, so SAW tried other possible avenues, just so that they'd be ready if and when this eventuated.

Firstly - they recorded a few ballads. What they recorded with Rick Astley and Jason Donovan were successful enough initially. They even did something approaching pop-rock with Donovan.

Then they did a big charity single - "Ferry cross the mersey" with a number of musicians including Paul McCartney, Holly Johnson and others.

Lastly, they had a go at moving well outside their comfort zone and produced a Judas Priest album. Fortunately for all concerned, this never got a release. I understand that bootlegs exist and are spectacularly funny.

However, none of these moves worked consistently well for them, and they were back to the disco that worked for them. Their overall preferred style moved gradually away from Hi-NRG disco towards plinky-plonk piano house. And this was reflected best in their work with Minogue, by this stage, pretty much the only one left on their roster.

And then she left too.

The three producers stopped working together. They did other stuff. Matt Aitken got into motor racing. Pete Waterman ran a rail vehicle maintenance business. No idea what Mike Stock did. Any efforts they've made to get back into music have been largely unsuccessful.

Do you know how good that makes me feel?

Meanwhile, Minogue's career just sauntered on...

Stay tuned for part 3.

Kylie the showgirl princess? - Part one

Jack Marx's blog in The Age is required reading.

And today, he has had a very much needed shot at Kylie Minogue.

Have a gander:

The Age Blogs: The Daily Truth / Kylie The Showgirl Princess Archives

Now, after this kind of bagging, I couldn't let this one rest. Because Minogue needs to be bagged, and here's where it continues.

Kylie Minogue's career started off, not in singing, but in an annoying, yet inoffensive Australian soap opera called Neighbours. Neighbours is a lightweight family drama that has more in common with the great soap operas of Britain (think EastEnders or Coronation Street) rather than those of the USA.

She was only young when she worked on Neighbours, but already, at the age of about 16 or seventeen, she was easily one of the most popular people on the TV show. This was in about the late 80's.

Actually, she was easily the most popular TV star in Australia (with the kiddies anyway) full stop. She won something called a Gold Logie - which would deserve kudos, if it actually was something, but instead, it's the award for the Most Popular Personality on Australian Television. Although it greatly pains me that the most prestigious award you can win in the Australian TV industry is a popularity award, I found Minogue relatively innocuous up until this point.

Minogue had her eyes set on bigger things than just TV. And as a middling actor who wasn't a classic Hollywood beauty, she really was not going to set the acting world alight.

So she launched herself along the career path that the world now knows her for. Singing.

This is where she started to annoy me. The critics were similarly annoyed, because they completely went to town on her. They've long since lightened up.

Incorrectly so, in this blogger's humble opinion, because, with the exception of one period where she actually churned out something interesting, the bulk of her career has been unrelenting claptrap, out-bubblegumming all other bubble-gummers along the way.

And boy, were there some when she started. Remember Tiffany? Debbie Gibson? The entire Stock, Aitken and Waterman stable?

Minogue outlasted all of them.

One of my friends has, incidentally, this theory that suggests that Minogue is the only Australian artist to have never "sold out".

That word "artist". I'm going to come back to it later on. Maybe not necessarily in this post, though. Sorry.

Also, the term "sold out" is a loathsome term originated by mindless cucumber impersonators who think it's admirable to have suffered for one's art. Not to mention highly subjective.

But getting back to his theory. And to stop my blood pressure creeping over the scary level, we'll replace the offending word "artist" with "musical act." I did think for a moment of using the word "musician", you know. Oh yes, I will be self-flagellating for this.

Anyway the theory. Have any Australian musical acts been successful without having "sold out"? I can only think of two:

• AC/DC - they never caved in to record company pressure and recorded the power ballad that The Man so desperately wanted from them. Kudos; and
• The Wiggles - these guys couldn't possibly sell out their core demographic. In fact, we often hear about acts growing with their audience - the Wiggles seem only too happy to say a big metaphorical, "f2ck you," if their audience was to collectively say, "The Wiggles are too juvenile for me - I'm into Ashlee Simpson, now."

But Minogue?

I can think of at least 4 points in her career, where didn't just slightly sell out. Oh no, Kylie went into full on artistic whore mode.

So why is it that I believe that Minogue needs to be literarily keel-hauled?

Firstly, Minogue is an unrelenting sadist who perpetrates some horrible crap on us. I work in an office where Melbourne's most annoying teenybop station NOVA is on high rotation on several desks. I get to hear Sandi Thom's "I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker (With Flowers in My Hair)" several hundred times a day.

Minogue has made a career out of such sh!te, only in Minogue's case, hers comes with a delightfully camp dancy rhythm.

EWWW!

Secondly, Minogue has demonstrated more than amply that she is a morally bankrupt capitalist swine. Normally, I'd defend arch-capitalism as a quality to my dying day. However, Minogue isn't just any kind of capitalist: Just like tobacco and alcohol companies, Minogue has both barrels of her marketing 12 gauge aimed squarely at the kids of this world.

This is getting kinda long, so I'm gunna have a go at stopping here.

Stay tuned, though. This woman is bad!!