Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Kylie steps back in time..
Pop icon vows to keep on dancing as new album out
disco and dance is somewhere within us even if we can’t physically go to a nightclub. Kitchen discos are popular now. We can’t go to the disco but this album still feels right.
“It is all about escapism and emotion. One of my happy places is emotional pop, where it’s up to you, you can just let loose and/or interpret the words and feelings.”
Kylie has lived in London since the late 90s and the lockdown in the UK began after she had started recording her 15th studio album in Brighton.
With the Government telling people to stay at home, Kylie – who spent lockdown with her boyfriend Paul Solomons, 43 – was desperate to carry on working on the album, so found a microphone and a recording interface in a cupboard and kept writing with collaborators via Zoom.
She said: “I was a third through the album and lockdown happened. My last big show was Sao Paulo in March, so I came back and was in the studio more or less every day. I stayed at
home like most people and learned how to record and send my own vocals, so look out.”
Lockdown has made us all look back – mainly as we cleaned out cupboards and attics to fill the days.
There is a current wave of nostalgia going on but Kylie, whose debut single The Loco-motion was a cover of a 60s tune, has always looked to the past for musical inspiration as much as paving the way for the future with songs such as
Can’t Get You Out of My
Head.
Tu n e s like Spinning
Around and On a Night Like
This had disco elements – and now she’s gone full Saturday Night Fever, even calling her new album Disco.
She explained: “In my early 20s, I had to be modern. I was clubbing and doing all of that. But then you reach a certain age where there’s just more nostalgia and I’m a sucker for that.
“It wasn’t something that I had on my mind going into this album. For me, it’s more a reaction to 2019, doing my Greatest Hits tour and all of that reminiscing. It’s celebrator y, it ’s emotional and you don’t have many opportunities to do that. It made me want to make new music.”
While most of her contemporaries in the 80s haven’t seen the top end of the charts for a couple of decades, Kylie’s career has always had peaks – from her 1988 UK debut I Should Be So Lucky, which gave her a first No1, to Confide in Me in 1994, which saw her move from teen pop pixie to sassy star, Spinning Around in 2000, which was grown-up pop, and of course Can’t Get You Out of My Head, her biggest tune which has sold five million copies around the world.
So does she have a favourite among her many hits? Kylie said: “There are a few, Slow being one of them. Love At First Sight is another. Dancing too.
“Say Something is in there as well and Loco-motion, because I recorded it as a demo when I didn’t have a record company. It had already been a hit but it’s where it all began for me.”
While Kylie has stuck mainly to singing since leaving Neighbours, she still enjoyed some screen time, such as her role opposite JeanClaude Van Damme in 1994 film Street Fighter and alongside David Tennant in the 2007 D o c t o r Who C h r i st ma s special.
She said: “Every once in a while I get to act and that’s such a thrill.
“I love not being ‘Kylie’ for a while and being someone else. It’s brilliant. I don’t have to look good. It’s a real sense of freedom.”
Speaking of freedom, we are all hoping next year the powers that be will get on top of Covid and we can start enjoying entertainment – especially gigs.
Kylie, who will perform a special ticketed livestream show, Kylie: Infinite Disco, on Saturday, is also desperate to be gigging again.
She said: “That’s the dream. We all want it. Music, concerts, sports, bingo, whatever it is, the dream is to get back to doing those things.
“But it seems insane now. It seems so extravagant to think we could once be in a different country every day. I long for it but, at the same time, it does seem pretty wild.”
And while she’s spent over 300 weeks in the UK singles charts, sold more t h a n 8 0 mi l l i o n a l b u ms worldwide and picked up three Brits, a Grammy and two MTV Music Awards, she is still hungry.
Kylie said: “There’s always new stuff. I’m always curious and I’m still completely inspired to find out what is out there that I haven’t done.”
Kylie’s Disco is out Friday.
This album is all about escapism and emotion KYLIE ON LETTING LOOSE DURING A PANDEMIC
Our forgotten scents feature has had many of you swooning with delight, and some of you are still wafting around in your retro heaven.
The one that got the most mentions was Aqua Manda, which basically sums up the
1970s for me – orangey brown and smelled like someone had just peeled an orange in the room.
“Remember Aqua Manda in the brown bottle with oranges, and Gingham by Innoxa? I wore both in the 70s,” writes Janet Roome, in Burton on Trent.
Hopefully not at the same time, Janet!
Also Angela Judson says: “Aqua Manda was a very popular perfume, but I also remember using bath cubes and if they didn’t break down properly, they gave you a gritty bottom! I loved English Lavender and Lily of the Valley, but who can forget the first Matey bath bubbles s – they smelled great.”
Reader Julie Coan, from Heywood, Lancashire, says: “I remember the advert for
Le Jardin perfume in the early 80s. I wanted to be Jane Seymour surrounded by tons of flowers. It was advertised as the ‘incurably romantic’ fragrance and I loved it.” Still living the 70’s dream is s Tricia Stonard, in Eastbourne, Ea East as Sussex, who writes: “I have us used se the original Charlie Blue sin since n I was 14 – and am now 59. Not ev even v sorry!
“What about Tramp by Lentheric, or Yardley’s Sea Jade?
“I sprayed it liberally on to a love letter to Donny Osmond when I was 11 and made the purple ink run!” Your story reminds me that at school we used to spray our homework with Anais Anais, until the history teacher Mr Judge asked us to “please desist” as he was getting funny looks on the tube when he took it home for marking.