What Kylie Means To Me - Reflections on the Book "Kylie: La, La, La", by William Baker and Kylie Minogue

I've been reading an autobiography of Kylie Minogue (Kylie: La, La, La; Hodder & Stoughton, London, 2002), ghostwritten by her stylist (and now creative director) William Baker, with extensive commentary by Kylie herself (available at Kylieshop). The book has lots of photographs and is helpful in satisfying curiosity regarding details that only an insider can provide about her career, particularly after 1994 (when William Baker first met Kylie), and especially in regard to costumes. Nevertheless, Baker reveals little about certain aspects of her career, particularly in regards to those things he wasn't personally involved with, such as how her family life affected her ambition. His discussion of her larger place in pop culture is welcome, but a bit sketchy.

Baker summarizes the important role pop artists provide in culture:

Pop stars should entertain, inspire, educate, and provide escape. Their influence as role models is a vital function of their work.

In the book's preface, Baker cites pop guru Andy Warhol regarding the definition of pop culture, and discusses his own pop culture heroes and references:

It was Andy Warhol who defined popular culture as the result of the elements of branding that pervade modern culture, logos and symbols that are everywhere and familiar, with celebrities representing the ultimate commodity; and escapist culture built like a house of cards on its own fickle foundations.

... Pop icons and the images they produce had always captivated me. I grew up with Madonna and Boy George, two champions of the philosophy of self-reinvention, their own chameleon instincts inherited from the pop generation that worshipped at the platform shoes of David Bowie. Their image changes are not just superficial, they are deep-set revolutions of identity, achieved through the manipulation of clothing and make-up. Kylie is such an artist, a manipulator of image and audience.

I live in the U.S., well outside the established arc of Kylie's Australian and European audience, but within her newer, larger community of fans. I've never lived in or visited Melbourne or London, or seen the soap opera 'Neighbours,' or spent that much time in the club scene, and there is an entire universe of experience someone such as myself can never fully appreciate. Baker's book is helpful, but it has a lot of very-specific UK pop culture references, and it focuses much attention on costumes I haven't yet seen, or can't recall. Perhaps that's just the nature of learning a little bit about a fascinating person: there is always the hunger for more. From my great remove, of location (Sacramento, CA, USA), age (48), and experience (participant in local, amateur musical theater, but no professional experience), I nevertheless feel moved to comment on Baker's book.

When was the first time I heard of Kylie Minogue? I have hazy recollections of 'The Locomotion,' Kylie's 1980's cover of Little Eva's hit. I also remember seeing a picture of Madonna wearing a T-Shirt emblazoned with Kylie's name, which apparently caused a stir in the early 90's. But it wasn't until U.S. radio stations put 'Can't Get You Out of My Head' on their playlists in early 2002 that I even heard the name being bandied about. Sadly, the U.S. is a backwater in regard to certain musical trends, particularly those concerning European dance hits.

In March, 2002, I traveled to Mesa, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix, for a family reunion. In my motel room, I had the TV turned on either MTV or VH1. They don't play many music videos these days on either cable channel, but I was in luck, as they started playing Kylie's video of 'Can't Get You Out of My Head.'

Who WAS this person, this Kylie Minogue? Despite following the dance scene over the years, a legacy of my days as a disco fan, I couldn't recall her. The video was certainly captivating, though, and allowed me to connect face and name with the tune. The fantasy cityscapes reminded me of the alien cities that refugees from Planet Earth discovered in Philip Wylie's book from the 1930's, 'After Worlds Collide': exotic, strange, and very, very appealing.

Shortly afterwards, I saw the "Fever" CD on sale at Tower Records. Recollecting my favorable impression of the video, and having caught a few more bits on the video on MTV, I decided to pick up the CD and found her music to be reasonably good. Then, the following week, I saw her "Live in Sydney" DVD. It was costly ($30), but I had already noticed that Kylie's video was, if anything, more entrancing than the music. The DVD's cover promised dancing, however, so I went ahead with the purchase, and was instantly carried away with the magic of her performance, as well as the performances of her Italian backup dancers. It was a revelation! I quickly became a fan, but because of my late start, there are still many things about her that seem perplexing, or strange.

What needs does Kylie fulfill in someone like me? Dance music gained prominence in the 70's partly as a reaction to the narcissistic excesses of rock-and-roll. The musical star's ego was downgraded, and the personal theater of the dance floor was correspondingly raised. Nevertheless, there was, and continues to be, a serious vacuum at the top in dance culture. We all hunger for someone to lead us through the loud and garish wilderness. The cult of the DJ expanded to fill the gap, but the DJ just relays and assembles the musical product - the DJ creates the evening, but doesn't create the product. Hunger for the star remained. Something like a 1950's MGM Studios musical theater powerhouse treatment was required: a complete product of music, song, and dance, but aimed primarily at the dance audience. By the happy coincidence of training, opportunity, and ambition, Kylie divined the need and she moved to fill it. The star had returned!

In attempting to integrate the disparate aspects of dance pop culture under one banner, it was required that the audience leave their cares behind and move into an alternate universe: one had to come into Kylie's world ('Come Into My World' - "Fever", 2002):

Come, come, come into my world
Won't you lift me up, up, high upon your love

Take these arms that were made for lovin'
And this heart that will beat for two
Take these eyes that were meant for watching over you
And I've been such a long time waiting
For someone I can call my own
I've been chasing the life I'm dreaming
Now I'm home

I need your love
Like night needs morning

So won't you...Come, come, come into my world
Won't you lift me up, up, high upon your love
Oh baby come, come into my world
Won't you lift me up, up, high upon your love

Take these lips that were made for kissing
And this heart that will see you through
And these hands that were made to touch and feel you

So free your love
Hear me I'm calling

Better than any pop star before, Kylie fused the worlds of current high fashion and dance pop culture, in a highly-stylized form. The final product, witnessed best in the 'Chocolate' video from her album "Body Language", really inspires!

Kylie's work is well grounded in the world of musical theater and movies. Unlike other pop stars (e.g., Britney Spears), Kylie could, and frequently did, use historical references to ground her efforts. I find it refreshing when she refers to "Singing In The Rain," or "The Sound of Music." To Kylie, the past is alive, and highly-relevant.

Most importantly, Kylie is moving to ameliorate the various, bruising discontinuous breaks in the history of pop culture - jazz vs. rock and roll, dance vs. rock, movies vs. television. These breaks thrashed or destroyed the careers of musicians in the past - survivors like Tony Bennett, for example. To Kylie, all the past forms of pop music are important, and can inform and inspire the present. If she lived long enough, Kylie might try to unite the entire world of pop music, using her songs as examples.

The disco culture of my own youth (and her childhood) is but one inspiring form of pop culture that she uses ('Step Back In Time', "Greatest Hits", 1992):

Non stop dancing the bus stop
To the funky music
Hustle, pumpin the muscle
Blame it on the boogie

Remember the old days
Remember the O'Jays
Walkin' in rhythm, life was for livin'

When you can't find the music
To get down and boogie
All you can do is step back in time
Ball of confusion
When nothing is new, and
There's nothing doin', step back in time

Keep on truckin' along
Riding on a love train
And then we can float on
You'll never go wrong

Step back in time
Step back
I wanna step back, step back

How was it that Kylie moved into pop music, after her early start in the Australian 'Neighbours' soap opera television series (which was also a hit in the UK)? Baker discusses pop music in the 80's, and how young Kylie found her Stock, Aitken, and Waterman (SAW) niche:

Whilst the infant Kylie was snagging her nails on her violin strings, a musical genre that had been defined as 'Boystown', after one of its early ambassadors, had become the dominant sound in gay clubs all over England. Ian Levine, record producer and resident DJ at Heaven, London's biggest gay club, had rechristened the new trashy disco sound 'Hi-NRG'. It was a fusion of white and black vocals, formulaic metronomic beats and synthesized electronica inspired by such dance music luminaries as Georgio Moroder ('I Feel Love'), Patrick Cowley, the producer behind the West Coast gay dance masters Boystown Gang, Bobby O, a producer who went on to perfect the sound of The Pet Shop Boys and Ian Levine himself, who also produced Hi-NRG in the UK under the Record Shop label. The sound gave birth to a new generation of disco divas who could often be found miming or singing along to a backing track on the makeshift stages of underground gay haunts.

Producers Stock, Aitken, and Waterman realized early on the potential of the pink pound and the power of the gay scene in breaking new artists. The transformed and diluted the Hi-NRG sound and mixed it with elements of Italian dance pop, creating a formula that was deemed more appealing to the masses and, soon, the charts. The Hit Factory, as they became known, effectively marketed and created gay music for mass consumption.

There was no certainty that pop artist Kylie would ultimately move into dance music, or incorporate it into her own pop style: she could well have veered into jazz instead. What was the determining factor in her direction?

The Summer of Love in 1988 was the 'official' advent of house music, and eclectic fusion of electronic disco beats and funk, often using breakbeats. The hitherto exclusive doors of clubland blew open and the underground became mainstream and club culture became public property. Pete Waterman and Michaela Strachan presented The Hit Man and Her, a late night TV show that attempted to bring clubbing into our living rooms. Suddenly the technology to create a 'loop' of beats was available and affordable, a four-track mixing desk, decks and samplers were being sold down the high street.

The lack of understanding of any laws governing copyright of covering sampled tracks made it easy to produce home-made dance tracks: DIY disco. It also marked the official birth of the E generation, as legions of teenagers all put on their hooded tops and smiley badges and headed for Ibiza. The boundaries between pop and dance blurred, house music beginning its onslaught of the top ten. Pop became synonymous with dance, but all this marked a trend towards anonymity: the faceless diva hollering over a synthetic dance beat. The charts became overrun with dance one-hit wonders, thus auguring the decline of the pop star as we knew it.

Record bosses swiftly recognized the changes and poured copious amounts of money into 'remixes' wherein you could have a purpose-built pop song of any genre crossing into clubland. DJs and the producers became the pioneers of the dance era and were brought in to increase the sales and maximize potential. With her move to deconstruction, Kylie began working with names from the dance world, combining a pop sensibility with the innovations of the dance underground.

Brothers in Rhythm were well aware of the crossover and its appeal and realized that Kylie was the perfect vehicle for their own dance/pop hybrids. Her vocal range and willingness to experiment musically meant that Anderson and Seaman could push the envelope further.

Given the energy of the times, Kylie apparently never really considered NOT moving into the world of dance. She was tailor made for the new sound, and she was going to make her mark!

Since last year, when I started listening to the strange clashing collision of styles known as Goth music, I always thought that Kylie would have made a fine Goth artist. Apparently she did venture onto that terrain, as Baker explains:

Prince of Darkness and Gothic guru Nick Cave metaphorically killed off deconstruction Kylie mark one with a sharp blow to the head with a rock in his October 1995 murder ballad 'Where the Wild Roses Grow.'

Coincidentally, listening to my new "Ultimate Kylie" album just last weekend, I first heard 'Where the Wild Roses Grow.' My initial emotional reaction was that it was the worst pop song I had ever heard, particularly Nick Cave's amateurish singing. But as with all Kylie's work, the best effort is usually focused on the video, and so I have to reserve full judgment until I see the complete work.

Baker discusses some of the framing problems a diminuitive star can experience when discussing the "On a Night Like This" tour:

Some of the dancers got so carried away towards the end of the tour that it was sometimes difficult to hear or so Kylie over their waving and whooping. Each had become a mini celebrity and their personalities quickly became overpowering on a stage that was meant for one star, a band, and backing dancers. Everything seemed to distract from rather than frame the woman around whom the show was built.

Actually, what Baker sees as a problem, was, for me, the special charm of the "Live in Sydney" DVD. Maybe that's my bias: coming from amateur musical theater, I appreciate a lead player who can share the spotlight, letting others flourish in the glow of her sphere of influence. In addition, the competition for the limelight forces the lead player to perform at her best.

As creative director, William Baker was apparently in the position of booking dancers for the various videos associated with the "Fever" tour. His account speaks of a greater responsibility for the final product, and not just with the costumes.

To solve the framing problem, a vast gulf was created between Kylie as queen, and her backing dancers, portrayed as faceless droids (or Kyborgs). Baker emerges as, depending on one's point of view, either a colossal ass, or a hard-working artist driven to perfection (or both - you decide - the two incarnations can co-exist, of course):

The dehumanizing of the dancers and the choreography were driving forces integral to the imagery in Kylie's next two videos.

... Michael Rooney, unfortunately for us, lived in LA, so it was difficult to establish a continuous working relationship. I now had a forthcoming tour to choreograph. I knew what it was I was looking for, but lack of choreographic jargon meant that I found it hard to express in words. We had worked with various choreographers, all remarkable in their own way but failing to give a pop routine the depth and integrity that we desired.

The answer to my prayers came in the form of movement junkie Rafael Bonachela.

...The man/machine hybrid we'd been experimenting with was pushed to its limits when we created the Kyborgs for the performance piece which opened the ceremony. Based on a faceless, lithe robot which had featured in a Doctor Who episode, jeweler Johnny Rocket and I created a whole race of robotic drones. Johnny created a 'helmet' that completely covered the face, based upon my drawings which consisted of elements of Marvel superhero Silver Surfer, Star Trek's Borg character Seven of Nine and a cyclist's helmet. The helmets were metallic silver and under the light they took the form of liquid mercury, distorting the shape of the head. The sculpted silver bodysuits, made again by Stevie Stewart and Sandy Gordon, were skin-tight, creating the perfect silhouette to display and enhance Rafael's choreography.

... Some of the dancers were miffed that I was covering up their faces and denying them their three-minute fix of fame, which slightly annoyed me. If they couldn't take pleasure in movement itself and the visual effect that they were generating, then they were welcome to pack their bags and audition for Steps. Removed from a human backdrop of dancers, Minogue's clone army framed her well, and she stood out as immediately iconic as the only human form.

Baker misunderstands his colleagues. The dancers were miffed at being effaced, and thus degraded, not at losing their place in the spotlight. No 'pleasure in movement itself' can replace one's dignity. The subjection of hard-working performers is not the proper object of musical theater: otherwise, our role models would be the Nuremburg Rallies, and Kim Jong-Il's marvelous but appalling sports stadium extravaganzas.

It is rare in dance when the dancer is masked, but when that is done, the dancer generally wears a variegated costume (e.g., at a costume ball): a good example within the same show comes later, when the alien dancers are masked again, but not as Kyborgs exactly: they wear differentiated, colorful spandex suits. No complaints there! Backing dancers are degraded when they lose all face: not even Busby Berkeley attempted that. And, curiously, despite the better framing Baker was aiming for, the opening ceremony of "Fever" loses punch, because both Kylie and her encasing shell are rather static. One problem (framing) was solved, but two more were created. Not only do the dancers have a proper complaint concerning their direction, but the marvelously large and sophisticated set itself overawes Kylie: she is dwarfed by the lights and machinery.

Unlike most popular musical stars, Kylie seems captivated by the idea of perfection: the perfect look, the best dancers and musicians. Visual aesthetics dominate. There is a word for this, of course: classicism. Kylie seems to be reaching out for a kind of sensual classicism, or classical sensualism, in her performance. There is a sense of perfect, almost yogic, stillness - perhaps that's a legacy of her work with Stephane Sednaoui and Towa Tei in the mid-to-late 90's.

I suppose it shouldn't be surprising to the classical impulse in music, but it's a bit strange to see it in pop music. I remember last year, flipping channels on Cable TV, I saw the movie "Xanadu" again, and I was struck at how this musical's style (Gene Kelly's last full-length movie) seemed so akin to Kylie's style. She would have been about 11 or 12 years old when the movie came out - just the right age to make a tremendous impression. I wonder if she was influenced by "Xanadu"? The plot description is very suggestive:

The Greek muses incarnate themselves on Earth to inspire men to achieve. One of them, incarnated as a girl named Kira, encounters a musician/artist named Sonny Malone. With the help of Danny McGuire, a man Kira had inspired forty years earlier, Sonny builds a huge disco roller rink.

Fellow Australian Olivia Newton-John played Kira, of course, but maybe she was a false prophet. Kylie's (aka Kira's) disco roller rink now encircles the entire Earth, and Gene Kelly himself would no doubt be pleased!

As noted before, one reflection of the classical urge in both 'Body Language' and 'Fever' is the anomie of the dancing corps. On the 'On a Night Like This' DVD, a few men in the dancing corps had remarkable impish personalities that they were able to express on stage. The more-effacing women, however, had sensed Kylie's true direction. On 2002's 'Fever' DVD, the dancing corps had nearly been stripped of personality foibles. The effort relaxed somewhat with 2003's 'Body Language', but it's definitely still there. Not that the dancers are metronomes, exactly, but the demands of perfection necessarily squelch individual expression. For the dancing corps (their many successes notwithstanding) I yearn for the imps of 'Light Years', and a greater equality with 'Venus de Melbourne'. So unusual, and so refreshing!

On the older CD's, sometimes you heard a different Kylie, a more rebellious, troubled, even lazy Kylie. That Kylie is gone now: years of discipline have exiled that bad girl, but she may still be in need of her own version of a Romantic revolt. Her recent bout with breast cancer may set the stage for a different kind of comeback.

Kylie could now be a better 'Satine' than Nicole Kidman was in Baz Luhrmann's "Moulin Rouge" (and not just have a cameo role as The Green Fairy). Maybe there will be a new synthesis, after the postponed "Showgirl" tour eventually finishes (and I can hardly wait, with my Australian plane tickets already reserved, to see that 'Greatest Hits' exhibition). Triumph in tragedy!

William Baker and Kylie Minogue are to be commended for an interesting work: it would be too much fun to be in their place! Let's hear it for Kylie, and the team that have made her the best pop star to have ever lived!