For 33 years the
Singer has been a byword for pop joy. She talks to Laura Snapes about disco, breakups and moving on from division
By the time you read this, two pivotal issues should soon be settled. There is the small matter of the US
election. Then there is the fate of Kylie Minogue. If her newly released 15th album, Disco, beats Little Mix’s Confetti to No 1 next week, she will be the first female artist to top the
UK album chart in five consecutive decades, a feat only previously achieved by Paul McCartney, John Lennon and Paul Weller. “I’m so glad I didn’t know that when I was making this album,” she says, her still thoroughly
Australian accent expressing real relief. “I would have felt the pressure.”
It is a Friday afternoon in mid-October, and we are in a
London photo studio, where Minogue has just finished an intensive two-hour, four-outfit shoot (this counts as elite-level efficiency, the Guardian’s photographer tells me). The only trace left is her pink glittery eyeshadow, a contrast to her Bruce Springsteen T-shirt and khaki trousers. The ankle-shattering silver stilettos have been replaced with cream plimsolls. Sitting at the other end of a velvet sofa, Minogue folds and unfolds a black face mask, aptly embroidered with “More Joy” (not bespoke, it turns out, but a designer Christopher Kane job).