Why a new generation of fans can’t get Kylie Minogue out of their heads

She thought she’d had her moment when Locomotion became the biggest-selling Australian single of the 1980s.

She thought she’d had her moment when a pair of second-hand gold-coloured hot pants from an op shop resurrected her career in 2000. Then there was the moment in 2001 when Can’t Get You Out of My Head became the most addictive song of a generation.

For a woman who has flogged 80 million records and boasts No.1 hits in five different decades, it really is a challenge to think about what’s left for Kylie Minogue to achieve.

But at 55, Australia’s pop princess finds she’s in the moment once again — scoring her ninth No.1 album in the UK with Tension.

The bubble-blowing I Should Be So Lucky singer has even surprised herself this time by going viral with a Gen Z audience.

It’s all thanks to the first single from her 16th studio album.

Padam Padam is a two-and-half-minute banger, specifically designed for young TikTok users to make memes with.

And the gimmick worked. Minogue finds herself back in the singles top 10, where she hasn’t been for more than 10 years.

“I’ve never had a viral sensation. It was not something that I thought was my zone. It turns out it is a really happy place to be,” the star said on the UK’s BBC Radio 2.

“What it ended up doing, being this zeitgeist kind of, way bigger than me, bigger than the song — what it became was crazy.

“I would have never even imagined that. No way! It was just so exciting to see it unravel. That’s the difference these days.”

It all comes down to a marketing mix, she says.

“I was hooked when I first heard (Padam Padam). Add in timing, add in imagery and branded red, the video is amazing and it’s arrived at the right time. I think it sounds like one of the main strains of me. The super highway of Kylie songs. I loved the song.”

The Kylie phenomenon is a rarity in music, with her long career appearing always to be on the rise.

Try, try again has been the mantra behind Minogue’s endurance.

But going viral in her 50s hasn’t simply been a matter of clicking her fingers and going, Padam Padam.

She admits she has previously tried to adapt and evolve for the Gen-Z platform, but flamed out.

“I had tried to engage with TikTok before and it was a total failure,” she happily confessed on TV’s the Project.

“I was like, ‘I don’t get it, it’s not for me’. And what has become clear is that it is the community that decides. They’re like, ‘We’re into this, we’re gonna give this our time and energy, and their humour, their love. It has blown my mind. I’m now officially in, I get it, and I’m loving engaging with them all.”

But perhaps her prominence on TikTok has been the happiest of mistakes.

“That was not part of the plan,” she said.

From playing Charlene in the long-running Aussie series Neighbours from 1986, to gaining her status as a global idol almost 40 years on, Kylie can never be counted out.

The All the Lovers singer said she first began clearing career hurdles when she leapfrogged the men in her adopted UK homeland in the 1990s.

She began a career transformation from cutesy girl next door to chart-topping sex bomb, with her relationship with INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence at the centre of it.

Britain’s lad culture and a still male-dominated music industry only made her stronger.

“I don’t think it impeded me. This might make no sense at all. Charlene was a feisty character, I think I was pretty feisty as well,” she told the BBC

“I had to find my voice, which took the time it took, but I didn’t feel so much that it was because I was a woman — although I think it is more difficult to be a woman in this industry. I’ve got to factor into that that I was also young and I was finding my way.”

Minogue has credited Hutchence for getting her match fit for the hedonism of pop superstardom.

Their electric two-year romance ended in 1991, six years before the Mystify singer died in a Sydney hotel room aged 37.

“Sex, love, food, drugs, music, travel, books — you name it, he wanted to experience it,” she said in the 2019 documentary Mystify: Michael Hutchence.

“As his partner, I got to experience a lot of that as well. If you’re a sensual being, all of your senses need stimulation. He definitely awakened my desire for things in my world.

“He had an insatiable curiosity, all the good things in life and some of the bad.

“He opened up a whole new world for me. A lot of it was based around pleasure, let’s face it. It felt loving, yet sad, but was probably doomed.”

Minogue admits keeping up wasn’t always easy.

“Go from the 80s and into the 90s, all of the lad culture, you name it and I have probably been through it. But I somehow — sometimes I’ve had to dig really deep, really deep — found my strength to get through whatever it was,” she said.

And once she beat them, she was happy to join them.

That included a global hit duet with Take That renegade Robbie Williams with the single Kids in 2000.

In fact, her interaction with famous men only provides good memories.

She is now happy to admit she fancied the pants off the Angels singer.

“If he had a crush on me, everyone was crushing on Robbie,” she said.

“So … I had my own crush. It was Robbie!”

Minogue says she’s never found “the one”, despite dating some pretty famous faces.

These included her Neighbours’ co-star Jason Donovan, English model James Gooding, French actor Olivier Martinez and Spanish model Andres Velencoso.

She got engaged to English actor Joshua Sasse in 2016, breaking it off a year later, and in February canned a long-distance relationship with London magazine mogul Paul Solomons.

And while others in the business have come unstuck career-wise as a result of break-ups (think Britney Spears and Madonna) Kylie has sailed through with her nothing-to-see-here, smiley-Kylie approach.

And she’s not beyond reaching out to career contemporaries and former pop rivals, this year saying it “would be amazing” to do a duet with the American Queen of Pop, Madonna, who in 2020 famously wore a Kylie T-shirt on stage to tease the comparisons between the two.

“I did record a Madonna song that wasn’t release,” Minogue says.

“Not with her, but it was a song of hers. The (duet) rumour has been going round forever, and let’s hope it happens one day.”

But Minogue’s famous unflappability was tested to the max in 2005 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

“It made me look differently at everything,” she said of the ordeal.

“My desires were still the same and my ambitions were still the same, my ideology was the same. It wasn’t like a moment where I changed my opinion of the world. It was difficult for sure. I learnt a lot more about being human and the capacity of humans and love and care, and my own hardship through that. But everything was different.”

The health bombshell came on the eve of a career dream of finally headlining the UK’s Glastonbury Festival.

She had to cancel, but the chance came around again in 2019 when she was invited back to the festival’s Legend’s spot, visibly shocked at attracting the biggest crowd in the event’s history.

“I was so overwhelmed. It was like ‘alright, there is no turning back now’”, she said.

“What a moment … I can’t put the vision into a box. Then with the history, I had to cancel my headlining slot in 2005, I was dealing with cancer in Australia watching Glastonbury going, ‘Oh my god will I ever? What’s happening?” And then I got to be there.”

Her stoicism throughout the illness earned her an honorary doctorate in health sciences in 2011 from the UK’s Anglia Ruskin University for her work promoting breast cancer awareness.

“I never went to university so my dad will be very proud when he sees the pictures,” Minogue, wearing her gown, told 220 graduates.

Minogue, who could easily be described as a chameleon, says she’s perplexed by being continually counted out by critics, despite her track record of success.

“It doesn’t irk me when they call it a comeback, but I find it funny, as I ­literally haven’t stopped,” she said.

“I didn’t come out with Padam or this album raging against the machine, but I find myself in this position and I am just really thankful that it is coming with positivity.”

Looking ahead to the next 30 years, Minogue is already sharpening her stilettos to take down her next barrier — ageism.

She now finds herself having to justify being hot-to-trot at 55. She’s not attempting anything new after setting sexy milestones at every turn of her career.

“It’s not about being sexy, it’s about being yourself. I’m not going down to (supermarket) Tesco’s in thigh boots and a catsuit, but in Popland, that is me,” she told The Sun newspaper.

“I don’t even call it sexy, as even that feels passe. I am happy there is a strength in inhabiting your own playfulness, your own confidence and empowerment.

“It is an acceptance and kind of daring to feel confident with yourself and be at ease. I am really comfortable with what I am doing.”

She agrees with her pop queen rival Madonna, who has been raging against detractors of her youthful get-ups for the past decade.

Madge, a decade ahead of Minogue at 65, said this year: “Once again, I am caught in the glare of ageism and misogyny that permeates the world we live in. A world that refuses to celebrate women (past) the age of 45. And feels the need to punish her if she continues to be strong willed, hard-working and adventurous.”

Minogue couldn’t agree more.

“Soon, ageism will be so uncool you just won’t do it. Just let that person live and breathe in their space. Of course it was evident to me that something was happening with Padam,” she says.

“You know, there is life and beauty in every decade of your life.

“I have gone from being the kid — the youngest person in the music scene — and having that, ‘Well, what do you know, you’re only 18 years old’ to now.

“So I have gone through every decade and thankfully, if people are talking about ageism in music, it is talking about it in relation to we shouldn’t be talking about it.

“It is almost irrelevant. I think younger generations are so open-minded they are not bothered about it.”

She’s sung for Queen Elizabeth II, starred in movies and belted out a tune at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

But her career highlight is an unexpected one.

“I would say just maintaining my faith in everyone. I get to meet a lot of different people and have them colour my life and that helps me do what I do,” she said. “What am I most proud of? Just being here and being a good person. That is what I would be most proud of.”