The Singular Genius Of Kylie Minogue

This summer was going to be the best summer of my life, I thought. I’d worked and saved all of my money to attend a summer program studying Shakespeare and music theory at the University of Cambridge in England. The summer before I graduated high school, everything became so serious. Everything in my life seemed existential. I kept telling myself I had to press in; I had to map out my entire future; I had to soak up everything I could about Shakespeare and music theory. Everything felt so heavy. 

And then one night, a few friends asked if I wanted to go down to a local pub for food and dancing. Initially, I balked because I hated dancing, but I loved spending time with them. So, off I went. No sooner did we get into that pub than I had my first encounter with the bright musical light that is Kylie Minogue. The second her voice hit my ears, I started involuntarily moving my body. Her light, bouncy, unapologetically bubblegum pop songs had my friends and me spinning. I was carefree, having so much fun. I learned in that moment to stop taking myself so seriously; I could dance to pop, I could spin around and be joyful. I could lean into my playful, girly side. My lightness was not the opposite of my depth. 

That was a lesson Kylie Minogue had already learned.

The Princess of Pop

A new three-part Netflix documentary, Kylie, explores the rise, fall, and rise again of one of pop culture’s brightest figures, Kylie Minogue. An Australian girl-next-door actress, Kylie catapulted into international stardom as a singer in the late 1980s with a slew of pop hits, including her upbeat megahit, “I Should Be So Lucky.”

From there, she continued to pump out pop hit after pop hit, earning her the nickname ‘Princess of Pop.’ Her music had people dancing from Australia to America. The public loved her. Music critics, however, were less than impressed. 

“Lightweight,” “Emotionless,” and “It is amazing how successful mediocrity can become" were just a sampling of nasty criticisms hurled her way. The message was clear: her music was too sugary sweet, all filler and no real substance. The implication being this was just frivolous music for the unrefined. 

And Kylie took note.

The Pressure to be More Than Pop

In an effort to shed her good-girl image, Kylie swung the pendulum all the way in the opposite direction. “I’m not going to lie, we went a bit far.” She wanted so badly to escape her girly, sweet image that she created a raunchy Madonna rip-off persona. Again, the press took notice.

“Erotic Kylie,” “Sauce but no substance” and especially biting was she “went from the girl next door to the girl next door around the block.” Her tour choreography shocked the public as she simulated sex acts on stage. The press and public backlash around her tour and album Rhythm of Love was intense, and Kylie recognized she had gone too far, stating “It was tricky to defend those decisions.” 

But when the raw and raunchy persona didn’t work, she tried indie/edgy. That failed miserably, too. With her following album, Impossible Princess, she tried to sound and look like a discount version of Garbage’s Shirley Manson. In the documentary, Kylie shared that radio stations wouldn’t even play it, the public didn’t love it, and that it culminated in her own record label dumping her. Kylie had to have an honest self-reckoning. She was trying to earn credibility and prove herself on others’ terms. 

But what was she running from, and where was she running to?

The Rediscovery of Miss Minogue

It was at one of her lowest moments that Kylie linked up with one of her strongest (and most unlikely) friends, Nick Cave. A brooding, gothic-style singer who wrote dark music, the exact opposite of Kylie. He encouraged her to dig deep and rediscover herself. And he gave her a kickstart.

Cave confessed that he and his bandmates recognized that Kylie had something special that the world needed. “We were a dark force…broken men. A lot of drugs, a lot of contemptuous pessimistic views of the world. But when she came into the studio, she was like this sort of beam of light with this incredible positivity. I don’t think we’d met anyone in our lives really that liked life. This sort of bold brightness.” 

So he devised a plan.

Nick Cave dragged her to an elitist Poetry Olympics being performed at the Royal Albert Hall in London. A multi-day event where people conducted nonstop poetry readings in front of large crowds. Kylie walked out on stage and began her spoken-word reading. Line by line she read from one of her earliest bubblegum pop hits, “I should be so lucky. Lucky, lucky, lucky. I should be so lucky in love.” Slowly, across the crowd, people began to smile and catch on. Cave said of her playful reading, “She broke the night open.” 

The lightness and softness that defined Kylie were back. “It was like being face to face with my old self, the one I was trying to turn my back on.” She’d now given herself permission to go all in, unapologetically. 

As she put it, “Let’s get the jet packs on and get back to the dance floor.”

The Soft Girl Lesson

Kylie’s epiphany to lean into her soft girl image, and her fun, flirty, and feminine ways, gave way to what would be her highest-selling and career-defining album. The pop princess was back. She’d proven that her softness was not weakness, her warmth was not naïveté. And that being demonstrably feminine, joyful, and playful was not intellectual surrender. She could be all of those things and still earn respect. 

Over the years, Kylie tried on different personas, but the version people continued to love was the one she'd spent years trying to outgrow, her soft girl image, one she fully embraces now. Even people like her gruff rocker friend, Nick Cave, could see it. “With Kylie I could see the world in a positive way…[she] is this force.” 

And haven’t we all known someone like Kylie, who has leaned into their light? In my lifetime, I’ve known a few people like this, people who are so attractive. They’re not afraid to drop pretenses and light up a room with their warmth. They’re people you see across the way and automatically know: I want to be their friend. They have a love for life that emits from them, and it’s contagious.

Light is Not the Opposite of Depth

And perhaps that's the singular genius of Kylie Minogue.

In a culture that claims cynicism for intelligence and aggression for strength, Kylie Minogue built her career on a different premise. She stopped apologizing for being a bright light, and she stopped running from qualities that made people love her in the first place. Instead of trying to become darker, edgier, or raunchier, she leaned into femininity and fun.

And when she did, she became more powerful, not less.

I think back to that night in Cambridge when I found myself spinning around a crowded dance floor to a Kylie Minogue song. At the time, I thought I’d traveled across the world to learn about Shakespeare and music theory. And I did. But I also learned something else: that life is too short to spend it proving how serious you are. 

Sometimes the most radical thing we as women can do is remain warm in a cold world, to stay soft in a culture that insists we harden ourselves. 

That may be Kylie Minogue's most lasting legacy; her lightness was never the opposite of her depth, it was the thing that revealed it.