Kylie Minogue is Vogue’s October cover star – ’I’m happy where I am, I just will state that!’
Superstar Kylie Minogue opens up on life, love, and the personal significance of her 16th studio album Tension.
As is often the case, Kylie Minogue is in high demand. This weekend, the Australian superstar releases her 16th album Tension (a rotation of pop hits anchored by colossal single Padam Padam), before the Melbourne-based star will head Stateside, where she’s putting the finishing touches to More Than Just A Residency, her tenure at The Venetian Resort, Las Vegas.
“Even by my standards, I’m pretty go, go, go, but it’s just … extra,” Minogue says in the new October issue of Vogue Australia.
It’s been 37 years since Neighbours introduced Minogue to the world as naive tomboy Charlene. Her 1987 single, Locomotion, kickstarted a music career with sales totalling more than 80 million, and through it all, Minogue’s music has documented her ups and downs as life continues to become, in her words, “richer and more complicated”.
Fascination with her romantic life has been a constant throughout her career, and when asked if she has accepted such probing may never go away, she reveals, “I’ve often wondered if a lot of that started with the fact that I was Scott and Charlene or Kylie and Jason,” referring to the Neighbours on-screen romance that became a real relationship with co-star Jason Donovan.
“Because it seems slightly disproportionate to me, or someone like Jennifer Aniston, where (public interest) is disproportionate to the other stuff you do.
“Yes, there’s a level of acceptance that that’s the way it is, and I think mostly it’s driven by, we all love a bit of gossip. It’s kind of like, what would’ve happened over the fence forever ago. But it would be great to move on from the ‘she’s lucky in love, she’s unlucky in love’, because it’s not that simple.”
She caveats: “But I’m happy where I am – I just will state that!”
Baz Luhrmann, the director and Minogue’s close friend, is also quoted as admiring her resilience. “No matter what curveball is thrown at her, she is able to turn it around and reflect light back into the world, not only as an artist but on a human level as well,” he says.
Minogue may be known for her pop music mastery, but she’s proven herself outside the genre, nailing indie and country and even duetting with alt crooner Nick Cave. Tension’s pop sound and poignant lyrics mark a return to her roots; in her words, “I wanted this album to be able to propel me to performing again and be able to share the music”.
High demand for her Vegas residency caused dates to expand to May 2024, totalling 20 performances, and given the city’s resurgence as an entertainment capital – Adele and Lady Gaga are Kylie’s compatriots on the strip – any presumption this is a retrospective exercise or harbinger of a career pause are incorrect.
“I feel like it’s the mid-part, or maybe just past mid-part, of my career, and it feels like a good time where I’ve got the energy and the verve … to do (Vegas),” she says.
The residency, Minogue says, will be a “mixed bag” of current hits as well as past songs taken from her previous albums.
The October issue of Vogue Australia is on sale on Thursday, October 5
