Can’t get her out of my head: The enduring mystery of Kylie Minogue

Sign up to Roisin O’Connor’s free weekly newsletter Now Hear This for the inside track on all things music Get our Now Hear This email for free Get our Now Hear This email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. In the darkest moment of my desire to own the picture of Kylie, this random press shot of someone I was only vaguely aware of, I swished my empty hand in the cash box to make it sound like I had dropped 50p into it and announced to no one, “I’m buying this.” Kylie Minogue, the sweetest, most angelic pop star we have ever known, had an ineffable and infinite power, one that had undone the influence of every parable that had ever been drilled into me. The album Impossible Princess dipped into a range of “cool” genres and involved “real musicians” like the Manic Street Preachers, leading the NME to brand Kylie “a total fraud” for daring to step outside the pop mainstream. In the 30 years since, the stylistic revamps have not stopped coming: indie Kylie gave way to sex-kitten Kylie, to gold hotpants Kylie, to country Kylie, to disco Kylie, to today’s freewheeling Padam Kylie. “I don’t know why it is that rock bands like Kylie,” Bono said in 2006.