Kylie Minogue

Kylie Minogue is an Australian singer, songwriter, and actress. Often referred to as the Goddess of Pop with a career spanning over 30 years, she has transformed from girl-next-door soap star to ‘90s pop starlet, and short-lived indie darling to bona fide superstar.

Kylie earned her first big break on the Australian soap opera Neighbours, playing tomboy mechanic Charlene Mitchell. An on-screen romance with Jason Donovan – who played Scott Robinson – blossomed into a real-life relationship, and their wedding on the soap drew in millions of viewers. However, her real ambition was a successful career in music, and by 1988 her debut album, Kylie, was released, reaching #1 in the UK and Australia. Notching up 10 UK Top 3 singles by 1993, she was one of the defining popstars of the early ‘90s. Her follow-ups to the debut album – Enjoy Yourself, Rhythm of Love and Let’s Get To It – all reached the Top 15 in the UK.

With a blossoming relationship with late INXS frontman Michael Hutchence, Kylie was encouraged to be more ambitious with her image and sound. As such, she left her former label, PWL, and released the daring “Confide In Me” in early 1994. Critics praised her re-invention, and the single restored the success she had somewhat lost with her previous album. Impossible Princess was another critical success but failed to make much of an impact on the charts, which led some media outlets to believe that her “15 minutes of fame” were over.

By the turn of the century, Kylie signed with Parlophone and returned head-first to pure pop with the comeback single, “Spinning Around”. A resounding success, it – and its parent album, Light Years – set the benchmark for her most successful single yet to follow shortly after. “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” was one of the best-selling and most-heard singles of the 2000s, and even reached #7 in the US, a market that she had all but vanished from. Fever spawned a number of other hit singles, and earned her her first GRAMMY award for “Come Into My World”. 2003 saw the release of the R&B-inflected Body Language, which included the sultry single “Slow”.

The following year, Kylie released a career-encompassing greatest hits collection, Ultimate Kylie, and embarked on a world tour in 2005. Just as she finished the UK leg, she was given a devastating diagnosis of breast cancer, which sent her into recluse for many months. By 2006, she resumed the tour and began work on her 10th studio album. X was preceded by the single “2 Hearts”, and was a triumphant return to form. 2010’s Aphrodite signaled a move towards dance-pop and electro, and included the hit single “All the Lovers”. In 2012, Kylie celebrated her 25th year in the industry with an orchestral greatest hits, The Abbey Road Sessions. Her 12th studio album, Kiss Me Once, followed in 2014, and the following year she released her first holiday album, Kylie Christmas.

In early 2017, Kylie left her long-time label, Parlophone, and signed with BMG Rights Management to release her 14th studio album. Golden, released on April 6, 2018, features the country-pop single “Dancing” and is said to overall have a more country-influenced sound, inspired by her writing trip in Nashville. Golden became her sixth UK Number One album and her first to be atop the charts in both the UK and her native Australia since 2001’s Fever. Owing to the success of the album, she played Glastonbury’s esteemed Legends slot the following June and released an updated greatest hits. Step Back in Time: The Definitive Collection became her second UK and Australian chart-topper in 18 months, with its accompanying tour and aforementioned Glastonbury performance receiving critical acclaim. Eschewing the typical extended break between albums, Kylie released her fifteenth studio album DISCO on November 6, 2020. Its lead single, “Say Something,” was released on July 23 alongside the announcement of the album. Because it topped the UK albums chart, Kylie became the only female artist to have placed at least an album atop the chart in 5 different decades.