Kylie Queen of the World

by Julie Aspinall

  Had she wanted to, Kylie had the chance to swap notes with another of Tim’s exes, Elle Macpherson, when the two appeared on the cover of Australian Vogue in September 1999. It takes something to be able to hold your own against one of the world’s greatest supermodels, especially when she’s about a foot taller than you – the interviewer describes the two embracing each other, during which Elle had to bend over double and Kylie sprang into the air – but Kylie managed it; for the record, she and Elle look equally sensational.

  The accompanying interview reveals little – when asked who the most famous Australian woman is, both chant ‘Nicole’ – but Kylie does let one interesting nugget slip on the subject of men. ‘I’d hate to be a guy dating me,’ she admits. ‘I think, Don’t clip my wings. Do not try and pin me down or bind me. I get very protective about my freedom, but at the same time I love the company of a boyfriend. I love being able to share certain things, certain parts of my life with that person. I kind of want the best of both worlds.’

  Kylie was also beginning to reassess her brief indie period in a different light. ‘I was in danger of becoming a post-ironic pet for alternative artists,’ she stated bluntly. ‘I think what my public really wants is pure Kylie.’ They were about to get it, too. Kylie had not spent that long label-less: Parlophone, which could see a good thing when it gyrated towards them in hot pants, had signed Kylie and work had begun on a new album, an album that would in many ways be back to basics. This had clearly healed some wounds and allowed Kylie to look back on the recent past with more equanimity.

  ‘I parted with deConstruction after a long and mainly happy time together because we didn’t achieve what we wanted to achieve with the last album,’ she said diplomatically. ‘There are no fingers being pointed. I made mistakes, they made mistakes. It was a harmonious split for both parties and at no point did I consider it to be the end of my musical career. Besides, I wasn’t without a deal for long. I shopped around for six months before I signed with Parlophone. Musically, I won’t be foolish and go back to somewhere I’ve been, but I am going down that pop route because that is when I am at my best.’

  These were brave words. Kylie might not have thought her career was finished, but there were some voices in the industry who were saying just that, and it was going to take time to get herself back to where she once had been. She went back to work with renewed determination: giving interviews, meeting industry figures and charming everyone she encountered. She was still experimenting and taking risks, too: in 1999 she appeared in a production of The Tempest in Barbados with the actor Rupert Penry-Jones. ‘We were playing the lovers Ferdinand and Miranda,’ said Rupert, ‘so naturally we got on very well.’

  They certainly did. Rupert, like many of Kylie’s amours, is tall, very good looking and has worked as a model, and so it was only a matter of time before life started imitating art. The relationship only lasted for a short while but would seem to have made a lasting impression on Rupe: ‘She’s one of the most incredible people I’ve met,’ he said. ‘I thought I was one of the luckiest men in the world and, to be honest, I can’t believe it lasted more than a week. She’s a very free spirit. I don’t think she’s ever going to belong to anybody.’ The romance was initially secret until the couple were spotted attending a performance of the ancient Greek play Antigone – ‘I don’t think I’ll try anything like this on the stage, at least not for a while,’ chirped Kylie. ‘I’m only here as a punter. It felt like hard work, though, didn’t it?’

  Rupert found the attention hard to bear and wanted to keep it quiet. ‘One part of me wanted to scream it from the rooftops,’ he said later. ‘But the other side of me thought it better to say nothing.’ The couple’s relationship was confirmed, though, when Kylie was spotted on the back of Rupert’s motorbike as the couple whizzed around Stratford-Upon-Avon; passers-by noticed that Kylie was wearing socks instead of gloves. But again, the relationship didn’t last. Kylie the free spirit wanted to break free and Kylie the workaholic had a new project to get on with. She was about to make one of the most sensational comebacks in British pop history – and it was all down to a pair of golden pants.

  11

  Spinning Around

  The release of ‘Spinning Around’ marked the moment that Kylie re-established herself as the über pop kitten of the day. It came out in the summer of 2000 and finally put Kylie where she wanted to be: back at number one both in the charts and the hearts of the nation. The single’s success also made the Guinness Book of Records, as it marked the first time an Australian female solo artist had debuted at number one in the UK charts.

  Kylie was now an old lady of 32, though, and so the doom mongers were out in force: was she going to be able to compete with youngsters like 19-year-old Britney Spears? ‘I think we’ve got slightly different markets, mine might be a little older,’ said Kylie tactfully. ‘Obviously we’re competing in that radio adds a few songs a week and there’s only ten songs in the top ten and everyone wants to be in there, and there’s always someone who is on fire at the moment. Currently it’s Britney. But,’ she added, ‘I know a lot of my fanbase are thinking, Great, move over everyone, she’s back.’

  She certainly was. ‘Spinning Around’ was pure Kylie: easy-listening pop with an absolutely sensational video to back it up. Kylie knew that a lot was riding on this and went all out for it. During the video, which portrayed people dancing in a nightclub, Kylie sports two outfits: a pair of white hot pants with a red top and a pair of gold hot pants with a gold top. The latter made such a deep impression on the public consciousness that they are remembered – by men, at least – with a positive longing, to say nothing of lustfulness.

  Poor Kylie subsequently had to put up with drooling on a major scale, not least from comic Frank Skinner, who offered her £50,000 for the shorts. Given that Kylie had bought them in a market for 50p about five years previously it would have been, as she herself observed, a good investment – though one that she politely declined to cash in.

  ‘Well, it’s some people’s favourite bit,’ said Kylie on the question of her bottom’s starring role in her video. ‘There is a bit of a story to this. One of my producers, Johnny Douglas, said he really liked the video for “Some Kind Of Bliss” and I asked why and he said, “Well, it was the little denim hot pants.” So I made a mental note. The concept for the video is basically people having fun in a nightclub and I just thought: hot pants.’

  No one can do sex kitten like Kylie, and nowhere is this more apparent than in that ‘Spinning Around’ video. She doesn’t so much dance as undulate, while her accompanying dancers writhe slowly in the background: close your eyes ever so slightly and you could almost be watching the preliminary scenes of an orgy rather than people having a bop. Men absolutely loved it – and so, according to la Minogue, did women.

  ‘When “Spinning Around” came out, I was so surprised,’ she admitted. ‘So many girls and women came up to me and said, “We love your song, you look so great and sexy in that video.” And it really touched me that they weren’t saying, “Huh, what’s she doing strutting around in those shorts making all of us feel insecure?” I was their mate.’

  Certainly, over the years, Kylie has established a relationship with her audience that is more complicated and goes deeper than the usual bond between star and fan. She is aware of that herself. ‘I imagine to a lot of people I’m like a sister or a distant relative you know about but have never met,’ she says. ‘I’ve got relatives like that. So you have some connection. They’ve seen all my ups and downs and blunders. Growing up in public could have been disastrous, but somehow it’s brought the audience and me closer together. They relate their experiences to mine.’

  There is a great deal of truth in that, but the fact that Kylie remains an astonishingly attractive woman doesn’t work against her, either. It was around the time of ‘Spinning Around’ that her bottom became a national obsession. The British have always loved bottoms and confronted with one of the pertest and prettiest
examples on the planet, they could scarcely contain their joy. One interviewer rather ungallantly asked Kylie if she had used a stunt bum in the video: ‘It’s me,’ said Kylie. ‘I guess everyone’s surprised because I’m supposed to be an old woman by now.’

  And although Kylie sometimes gets a bit tired of the attention received by her derrière, she often can’t resist playing it up for all she’s worth. At around the time of the ‘Spinning Around’ video, she was also pictured on the cover of the men’s magazine GQ recreating that famous Athena poster in the 1970s, in which a decorative tennis player, back to the camera, lifts her skirt to reveal nothing but a perfect posterior underneath. Kylie complained that the magazine had airbrushed out her knickers, but no one cared: she looked even better than her greatest fans could have imagined. ‘I just saw GQ and my heart went … even I’m shocked, and I knew what to expect,’ she said afterwards.

  ‘It’s a three-quarter-page pic of my bum. It’s quite odd. I’m getting older, I’d have thought I wouldn’t be doing that stuff anymore, but so many times I’ll be doing photo shoots and I end up in my knickers. I’m a very natural flirt, but I don’t see it in a sexual way – a lot of the time I’m like an over-excited puppy. I think I’m being friendly with someone, they think I’m flirting with them.’

  Now that Kylie had rediscovered not only success, but also the kind of work she wanted to be doing, she was able to reflect on the period that had caused her some problems. ‘It was difficult, it was frustrating, I definitely had happier times in my life, but in retrospect I am thankful for what it taught me and what it brought out of me at the time,’ she mused.

  ‘“Spinning Around” was exactly what I needed at that time and I don’t think I appreciated how important that record was then because I had every confidence it would work just because of how easily that album had come around. The people I was working with, the enthusiasm the talent – everything that was thrown into that pot was good. So I thought it would work, just didn’t know it would be quite as successful as it was, which was a fantastic surprise. Now I realise if it had not worked I would be in a very different position right now, so “Spinning Around” became a best friend for a while.’

  And then there was the follow-up album: Light Years, which was a full-on return to her pop past. It was pure Kylie: camp, disco and a lot of fun. The magazine Rolling Stone commented that given her immediate past, the attitude behind it came out quite strongly as ‘Fuck Art, Let’s Dance.’

  Kylie agreed. ‘I’ve been much happier doing this album,’ she said. ‘I actually can’t believe it’s done. The whole thing felt like a summer holiday, especially compared to the last album, where it was one problem after another. When I first met the different writers and producers for this one I said, “These are my key words: poolside, beach, cocktails and disco.” And I think we did it. I wanted to get back to what I do best and I learned that lesson mainly by doing that tour in Australia. I could actually feel for myself and see what the audience responded to, what they wanted. When I signed with Parlophone, we all wanted the same thing. There was a really good momentum, it wasn’t too laboured or rushed, I wasn’t sitting around thinking: What are they doing? Hello? Yoo-hoo!’

  Although she had put her unfortunate experiences to good use, Kylie clearly didn’t want to go through such a trying time again in a hurry. ‘It’s much easier to be working on something that’s successful,’ she reasoned. ‘I couldn’t do that slog again. I wanted to work on something that was fun. And just about everyone I worked with, aside from their talent, they’re funny! We’d just be tittering and giggling in the studio and some of the lyrics we’ve gotten away with are really funny.’

  Kylie particularly enjoyed recording the track ‘Your Disco Needs You’: one line goes ‘kick your ass’, at which the backing singers chime in with ‘aaaaassssss.’ ‘That’s a gooooooood backing vocal, isn’t it?’ said a delighted Kylie. ‘They had 10 male vocalists and they tracked them about three times so you’ve got 30 beefy vocalists going, ‘aaaaassssss!’ I think they were slightly embarrassed.’

  To add to all the fun, Kylie wrote a couple of songs with Robbie Williams, with whom she also duetted. Robbie had been very keen for the two of them to work together – fittingly so, given that the two were emerging as two of pop’s greatest survivors. They were also both considered to be heart-throbs – and both had had tangled and complicated love lives in the past. To cap it all, Robbie, like Kylie, had never managed to find a lasting relationship. So how did Robbie behave when they got together in the studio? Was Kylie subjected to the famous Williams charm?

  ‘I think he’s quite naughty a lot of the time,’ said Kylie coyly. ‘He was pretty well behaved with me in the studio. Especially with the song we did for his album, which is gonna be on my album as well, now. Robbie’s Robbie. Not only is he a great pop star, but he is a great songwriter. He came up with the title “Your Disco Needs You” and that’s how that one happened. Then I said I’d love to have a song called “Loveboat” and we did it. That simple.’

  By this time Kylie was dating the model James Gooding, of which more later, but the relationship was not yet widely known about and so there was some speculation about whether Kylie and Robbie were romantically involved. The video for Robbie’s single ‘Kids’ was a riot, and ended up with the two of them naked in a swimming pool. Given that both had active and well-documented love lives, were they getting it on in real life? The answer was, ‘In Robbie’s dreams.’ And he did try – ‘Kylie, do you fancy a good sex session?’ he asked publicly – but Kylie wasn’t interested.

  ‘Well basically, I fancy her,’ said Robbie, who also confessed to being extremely nervous when they met. ‘I always have and it’s a kick for me. She’s a fantastic singer with a lot of personality. Great charisma. I was like, “Kylie, I fancy you – can you sing on my record please?” I was really nervous when we got together to sing the duet. I couldn’t even speak to her. I could sing with her but that’s Robbie singing – Robbie can sing with anyone. Robbie’s brave.’

  ‘Kids’ reached number two in the charts. About a year later, Kylie gave an interview in which she said she regretted not dating Robbie. ‘Robbie has always said that I am his ideal woman,’ she said. ‘And I have always felt that he is gorgeous, attractive and totally interesting. I always felt it might have happened, that we might have been a couple. But I think the time has passed now. It just never happened, which I feel is a shame. But what can I do? We have been friends for so long we can’t really go backwards in life. Now we are just the best of friends.’

  That’s one way of looking at it, anyway. Some time later, Kylie gave an interview in which she admitted what had really been going on. ‘I had a boyfriend through all of that [the rumpus surrounding her and Robbie] and Robbie wasn’t able to cut through that. I haven’t actually seen Rob in ages. I think we both know how to play up to the camera and that really was all there was to it. There was certainly a chemistry when we were working but beyond that … he’s a good guy who makes me laugh.’

  At the end of her best year ever, GQ awarded Kylie the GQ Services To Mankind Award. Thanking the magazine and its readers, Kylie wrote a highly entertaining piece about her year, which included some revealing snapshots about the lives of the rich and famous. ‘Sometimes I think that if Robbie stopped actively looking for happiness, it might just come along,’ she wrote. ‘The work we’ve done together has been pretty tight scheduled so we’ve only had a chance to have a couple of heart to hearts – real personal moments – but I know a lot about the business he’s in. On that level, I get him and could talk to him about that stuff. But I’m sure that Robert Peter Williams – as opposed to Rob – is a highly complex individual and I would love to sit and have a proper conversation with him one day. I think I might be able to help him in certain areas.

  ‘My favourite moment with Robbie was when I appeared at his show in Manchester. It was just priceless because Rob’s so in control on stage, he’s almost impossible to
rattle. But he hadn’t seen the dress I was going to wear – it was the little silver slip of a thing that I wore at the MTV Awards too – but his face was absolutely beautiful because for a second he completely lost it. All the super-confidence was suddenly stripped away and he was like, “Unnghh!” It was excellent. As soon as I was out of sight he was back in control but just for a minute there he was sweating. I loved it.’

  Kylie also had an encounter with Prince Charles. ‘A friend recently asked what he smelled like, but how should I know? I didn’t sniff him. I was sitting next to him at a Vogue dinner and I’m sure he was wearing some very expensive and exclusive cologne, but I’m not a sniffer dog. Although having said that, I made just about every other faux pas possible. I didn’t know what to call him – I mean, I knew not to call him Chas – but I think in the most formal sense you’re supposed to refer to him as Your Royal Highness in as much as you can’t call him “you”. So I was supposed to say, “And what does your Royal Highness think of the soup?” But I just couldn’t do that. I tried but it was too much to remember. All that etiquette.

  ‘He had Camilla with him but she sat at the next table, which is kind of nice, but there’s a total method to the way everything is done with the royals. Although I was beside him it was made pretty obvious that I was due to be spoken to during the second half of the meal. So for the first half he spoke to the editor of Vogue, then he subtly turned round and started talking to me. But it’s all very smoothly done and he’s a very skilled conversationalist. He made me feel at ease and he listened as I was gabbling on and on. I wonder if he has any recollection of the evening?’ (Kylie was being disingenuous here, surely.) ‘I came away with the impression that he is very, very good at his job.