Kylie is the debut studio album by Australian singer Kylie Minogue, released on 4 July 1988 by Mushroom Records. Minogue had established herself as a child actress before signing to the record label in early 1987. The success of her debut single, "Locomotion", resulted in her working with Stock Aitken Waterman, who produced the album and wrote nine of its ten tracks. Their recording sessions, commencing in October 1987 in London and Melbourne, coincided with Minogue's filming schedule for the soap opera Neighbours.
Musically, Kylie is a bubblegum pop and dance-pop album. It received mixed reviews from music critics who praised individual tracks but criticised Minogue's vocals and the album's formulaic production. The album has been received more positively in retrospect, with praise being towards Minogue's charm and the album's nostalgic sentimentality. It was a commercial success, peaking at number one in the United Kingdom for six weeks and becoming the fifth highest-selling album of the decade. It peaked at number two in her native Australia, while reaching the top ten in Germany, Norway, and Switzerland. Kylie was re-issued in 1988 as The Kylie Collection, in 2015 and 2023 when it returned to the UK Albums Chart. The album has sold over five million copies worldwide.
Six singles were released from Kylie. "I Should Be So Lucky" reached number one in Australia and the United Kingdom, the first for any artist. The subsequent singles—"Got to Be Certain", the re-recorded "The Loco-Motion", and "Je ne sais pas pourquoi" all peaked in the top two on the UK Singles Chart. "It's No Secret" was her third top-forty single on the Billboard Hot 100, while "Turn It into Love" was released exclusively in Japan. The album's commercial success helped Minogue establish herself as an international teen idol and launch her recording career.
Background
Kylie Minogue was born in Melbourne in 1968, the eldest of three children. Kylie learned to play violin and piano at a very young age while taking singing and dancing lessons with her sister Dannii. In 1985, Kylie used her earnings from The Henderson Kids to record three songs with producer Greg Petherick at Young Talent Time, a weekly Australian music programme which already featured Dannii as a regular performer. In April 1986, Kylie played Charlene Mitchell, a schoolgirl turned garage mechanic, in the soap opera Neighbours. Jason Donovan, whom Kylie began dating at the time, played her onscreen love interest as Scott Robinson. Their romantic relationship culminated with a wedding in an episode that attracted an audience of 20 million British viewers in 1987.
During her time in Neighbours, Minogue joined a band along with cast members Guy Pearce, Peter O'Brien and Alan Dale, which Petherick arranged. He later suggested Minogue cover the song "The Loco-Motion" with the band during a Fitzroy Football Club benefit concert at the Festival Hall in 1986, where she also sang a duet of "I Got You Babe". Impressed by the performance, Petherick arranged for Minogue to record the former song, re-titled as "Locomotion", with producer Kaj Dahlstrom, who invested $10,000 to record it. Petherick submitted the demo track to many record labels before reaching out to Michael Gudinski, head of Mushroom Records. During a trip to London several months after receiving the demo track, Gudinski decided to sign Minogue because of her popularity from Neighbours. Critics and employees of Mushroom Records gave polarised opinions; many thought it would be the end of the company and dubbed Minogue as "The Singing Budgie." He was asked to remix the "Locomotion" demo track with the help of a synthesizer to make it sound more like Bananarama's cover of "Venus" (1986). Instead of remixing the track, which was originally in a big band style, Duffy opted to record a completely new backing track, inspired by the hi-NRG pop of UK band Dead or Alive. It was the first time he had produced a record himself. A week after its release, the single topped the Australian charts, remaining there for seven weeks and becoming the best-selling single of the decade. Around that time, Minogue was set up with Terry Blamey, who would be her manager for 25 years.
Recording
upright|left|thumb|alt=Photograph of Pete Waterman, an elderly Caucasian man with white hair, wearing a suit|[[Pete Waterman (pictured in 2014) wrote and produced Kylie along with Matt Aitken and Mike Stock]]
The success of "Locomotion" resulted in Minogue and Blamey travelling to London to work with Stock, Aitken and Waterman in September 1987. Pete Waterman, the only member of the trio aware of Minogue's trip, was unavailable; he was busy making The Hitman and Her and had not told Mike Stock she was in London. Minogue and Blamey waited for ten days in their hotel without hearing from the producers. A worried Blamey resorted to lying about Minogue's UK departure date, in order to force SAW to schedule a session with her. The duo were then given the studio time, purportedly at the last minute, after PWL's director David Howells intervened and arranged it for Minogue. Stock recalled the abrupt session: "Her ear is very tuned in so I sang her the tune and she sang it back at me and at that point I put the tapes aside and went on to other things ... We treated [Minogue] rather shabbily." Minogue left the studio angry, complaining she had no idea what the song sounded like, after being fed the lyrics to sing line by line. They did not even listen to the song until Waterman heard it played by a DJ at a Christmas party that year and thought that it was remarkable.
In February 1988, Stock traveled to Melbourne and apologised to Minogue for her previous recording session. Recording sessions with Stock and engineer Karen Hewitt took place at Allan Eaton Studios and RBX Studios in Melbourne for only a couple of hours at night, between filming her last episodes for Neighbours. She frequently broke down emotionally at the studio due to pressure from work. Waterman recalled, "If you could get four hours with her, it was the most you could get... We were almost not able to even play her the songs!" Despite the pressure, he found the sessions were not stressful because of their work ethic: "That's what we were used to. In fact, in hindsight, the truth is it was so enjoyable because we didn't have time to get stressed." Waterman justified the decision by slating the original Australian recording, which he claimed to be poorly produced. Mike Duffy, the original producer, instead blamed the decision to re-record on Waterman's alleged wish to claim the royalties from the track's placement on the soundtrack of the 1988 film Arthur 2: On the Rocks.
Music and lyrics
The producers wanted to make a synthesised pop album that appeals to teenagers. The singer was interested in recording more contemporary R&B material but her request was denied by Waterman. Her voice was double-tracked for most of the album; the producers only allowed Minogue to use her real voice on "Look My Way", a track that she felt sounds more like herself than the rest. Three tracks were written for other PWL artists in the previous year before appearing on the album: "Got to Be Certain" was recorded by Mandy Smith for her debut album but abandoned; "Look My Way" was originally written for Heywoode; "Love at First Sight" was an instrumental demo track for Sinitta and is unrelated to Minogue's 2002 song with the same title. Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine described it as a collection of house tracks blended with "hi-NRG beats, Italo-disco synths and Motown melodies." Kylie opens with "I Should Be So Lucky", a light dance-pop track that uses a drum machine, keyboards and bass by Stock. The track has been compared to the work of Rick Astley, a fellow PWL artist. For the album's version of "The Loco-Motion", the producers re-recorded the backing track from Duffy's demo, featuring railway sound effects and less spontaneous vocals.
The slow-tempo "Je ne sais pas pourquoi" reminiscent of Waterman's earlier work in the 1960s at the Mecca Dance Hall, and the reggae-infused "It's No Secret" features cascading synth and a jaunty melody. It was followed by Hi-NRG tracks "Turn It Into Love" and "Got to Be Certain"; the latter work gained comparison to the soundtrack of the 1983 romance film Flashdance. The mid-tempo "I Miss You" and "I'll Still Be Loving You" resemble other late-80s pop tracks, particularly the work of Climie Fisher and Living in a Box. "Look My Way" draws musical inspiration from The Whispers' "Rock Steady" (1987), Madonna's "Into the Groove" (1985), and Debbie Gibson's "Shake Your Love" (1987).
The album avoided getting into heavy statements and deep themes that might alienate Minogue's young fans. Sweeney commented that such themes would later infuse Minogue's post-millennial work. Sheridan found the album demonstrates a refreshing carefree attitude in its lyrics. Matthew Lindsay of Classic Pop, on the other hand, pointed out the main themes about heartbreak, betrayal and frustration. "I Should Be So Lucky" depicts a frustrated young woman who feels unlucky in romance. In a 2019 interview, Minogue said that she did not realise at the time about the dark tone in the lyrics—in the case of "I Should Be So Lucky", she stated, "we all sing like it's really happy, but it's not. She wishes she was lucky in love." "Turn It Into Love" discusses unrequited love with a wistful-yet-optimistic approach. Minogue sings the lovelorn "Got to Be Certain" in an upbeat and carefree way, while affirming a false love affair in "It's No Secret". The hat was made by London designer Bernstock Speirs, who was embarrassed with the design and kept the work in secret for a long time. Howells said the artwork shows Minogue in a girlie and carefree way that kids can relate to, instead of "some icon on a pedestal". He was inspired by the way teenagers tear pictures out of magazines and stick them to walls, referring to it as the "magazine approach". Other PWL artists posing with hats using the same strategy can be seen on the covers of Mandy Smith's Mandy (1988), Minogue's follow-up Enjoy Yourself (1989) and Sonia's Everybody Knows (1990). Ernie Long of The Morning Call noted similarities between the release of Kylie and the 1988 eponymous debut albums of Tracie Spencer and Rachele Cappelli: all three shows close-up shots of the singer on the front cover, while making silly facial expressions on the back.
Kylie was first released in the UK on 4 July 1988, and was released in Australia a fortnight later, on 18 July 1988. Similar to other late 1980s albums, the record label took charge of Kylies running orders and pushed upcoming singles to the front.
Additional releases
Kylie was repackaged as The Kylie Collection in Australia on 5 December 1988, featuring bonus mixes and music videos of the singles. Ian Gormely of Exclaim! called it a compilation of "unremarkable and cheesy clips that present the singer as a clean-cut teen". In October 2014, Cherry Red Records and PWL announced to re-released Kylie along with her studio albums Enjoy Yourself, Rhythm of Love (1990), and Let's Get to It (1991). The release date was later postponed to 9 February 2015. A limited vinyl edition of Kylie was released by BMG on 24 November 2023 to celebrate the album's 35th anniversary. The physical album came in two coloured vinyl variants.
Minogue's debut VHS release, The Videos, which was distributed by Mushroom Records in 1988 in Australia, contains the music videos for "The Loco-Motion" and "I Should Be So Lucky", as well as the behind the scenes footage. That same year, a follow-up VHS titled Kylie: The Videos was released in Japan, France, and the United Kingdom. It included an interview with Minogue, as well as music videos for "Got to Be Certain" and "Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi". Kylie: The Videos was the top-selling video in 1988 in the UK, with 330,000 copies sold after 42 weeks of release. Kylie's Remixes, a nine-track remix compilation of seven songs from Kylie, was released in 1988 in Japan. It peaked at number 13 on the Oricon Albums Chart and sold 84,000 copies, as of 2006. It was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of Japan in May 1989. The compilation was later released in Australia in 1993.
Promotion
After filming her last scenes for Neighbours in June and July 1988, Minogue was able to relocate to London to concentrate on the promotional work for Kylie. This included her performances on Terry Wogan's television talk show and the opening for a new ride at Alton Towers amusement park. Waterman also spent a large amount of money on TV advertising for the album. In September, Minogue did a three-month promotional trip in the United States, Japan, Melbourne and the United Kingdom. The singer had to cut it short due to emotional exhaustion. In October 1989, more than a year after the album was released, Minogue launched her first concert tour, Disco in Dream performing several songs from both Kylie and Enjoy Yourself. It began in Japan, where she performed in front of 38,000 fans at the Tokyo Dome. She later joined other artists from the PWL label on a ten-date theatre tour in the United Kingdom, which attracted 170,000 fans. Its run in the United Kingdom was sponsored by local radio stations and was re-titled The Hitman Roadshow. ALFA International and Video Collection International released the video album On the Go: Live in Japan in April 1990 in Japan and the United Kingdom. It contained footage shot during the Disco in Dream concert tour and was available in VHS and Laserdisc formats.
Singles
thumb|left|upright|alt=A photograph of Minogue dressed in a pink costume singing on a stage|Minogue performing a medley of album singles "[[I Should Be So Lucky" and "Got to Be Certain" during the Kiss Me Once Tour (2014)]]
Despite the buzz surrounding "Locomotion" in 1987, Waterman could not get a major label interested in "I Should Be So Lucky". He decided to issue it on his own PWL Records imprint instead. Released as the first single from Kylie in late December 1987, "I Should Be So Lucky" topped the charts in the United Kingdom and Australia, the first time this had been achieved by any artist. It remained at number-one on the UK Singles Chart for five consecutive weeks, and on Australia's Kent Music Report for another sixth consecutive weeks. It peaked at number twenty-eight on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the charts in Switzerland, and Germany. Two music videos were made for the single: one with Minogue singing in a bubble-filled bath, and another where she hangs out of a convertible BMW driving through Sydney.
"Got to Be Certain", the second single, was released on 2 May 1988. It was Minogue's third number-one single in Australia. In the United Kingdom, it reached number two for three weeks, while peaking within the top ten in Germany and Switzerland. Its music video shows Minogue doing a fashion photo shoot, singing on top of the KPMG Tower and alongside the Yarra River. "The Loco-Motion" was released in Europe and the United States on 25 July 1988 as the third single. It debuted on the UK Singles Chart at number two, setting the record for the highest entry by a female artist. It also peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100, and number five on the RPM Canadian Top Singles chart. The music video for "The Loco-Motion" was re-edited from footage of the original Australian release, which was shot at Essendon Airport and the ABC Studios in Melbourne. In the video, Minogue is seen dancing against a backdrop of graffiti and singing in a studio, while her brother Brendan appeared as a cameo at the end of the clip.
Originally planned as a double A-side with new track "Made in Heaven", "Je ne sais pas pourquoi" was released as the fourth single on 17 October 1988. It was re-titled as "I Still Love You (Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi)" in Australia and the United States. It also reached the top ten in Norway and New Zealand. Its music video features Minogue dancing and speaking French. It peaked at number 37 on the Billboard Hot 100, Minogue's third consecutive top forty single in the United States. A still from the music video, which shows Minogue walking through to the beach and to a pool at the Mirage Resort, was used as the front cover of the Australian single release.