A CHANGE OF IMAGE

Having made it to the very top of the pop music world, Kylie Minogue has now had a sudden change of heart. Or could it be that we are just seeing a girl mature into a woman? It is perfectly apparent from her latest album, that she has decided to change her image from that of teenage candy-popster to that of a more serious musician. This is an album from the heart. Not from Kylie the pop star, but Kylie the regular girl going about her daily life like anyone else.

Ever the romantic, Kylie Minogue likes to say she was born in Bethlehem. The truth is, she was born in Bethlehem Hospital in 1968, in Melbourne, Australia. She started her career in the public eye by acting in TV productions as a child and teenage artiste. When she left school she got a major role in Neighbours, the popular Australian daily soap which made her a household name across the country.

Having achieved fame on the small screen, she decided to try her hand as a pop singer, and was successful almost instantly. Her personal favourites from that earlier period are Better the devil you know, Shocked and What do I have to do?.

She had an astounding number of 23 consecutive British Top Twenty hits: I should be so lucky, Got to be certain, The locomotion, Je ne sais pas pourquoi, Especially for you (with Jason Donovan) Hand on your heart, Wouldn’t have changed a thing, Never too late, Tears on my pillow, Better the devil you know, Step back in time, What do I have to do, Shocked, Word is out, If you were with me now (with Keith Washington), Give me a little more time, What kind of fool, Celebration, Confide in me, Put yourself in my place, Where is the feeling? and Where the wild roses grow.

In the past three years there have been a number of opportunities for Kylie to explore new ground in terms of her creativity. Most memorably, there was the hit single, Where the wild roses grow, from Nick Cave’s album entitled Murder Ballads. The song cast Kylie in the role of a murdered lover.

But that immensely successful period of several years which brought her international fame, Kylie now sees as an initial phase. Having recently signed a music deal with De-construction, which has spawned her latest album, Kylie Minogue, Kylie sees this album as an initial stepping stone to finding a new creative freedom. For this album she wrote her own songs, something she felt extremely excited about. But then the question arose: what on earth was she to write about? So she decided to take a three-week holiday, driving across America with her boyfriend. And she took plenty of paper with her, in readiness for when inspiration struck. And sure enough, the words began to flow. Remembers Kylie, “I found myself writing about moments, experiences, personal feelings and much to do with what’s in my head. Confusion, a lot of the time.” Though she took the advice of established song writers she knew, such as Tricky, Bono and Nick Cave, who warned her against getting carried away, she found that “I still ended up getting carried away, lost in my head. I packed a lot of words in a lot of songs.” And this does reflect in her new album, which is best described as ’wordy’. And it is definitly a different sound from the Kylie one is used to.Kylie Minogue’s previous six albums are Kylie (1988), Enjoy Yourself (1989), Rhythm of Love (1990), Let’s Get To It (1991), Greatest Hits (1992) and Kylie Minogue (1994).

Kylie Minogue; BMG Crescendo; Rs. 125