Kylie Minogue tops chart in five decades with Disco
LONDON – Australian singer Kylie Minogue made what she called a “crazy” slice of pop music history last Friday, becoming the first female artist to have No. 1 albums in Britain across five decades as Disco topped the charts.
Mostly recorded at home during lockdown, her 15th studio album also notched up the best opening week for any UK release so far in 2020 with 55,000 chart sales, the Official Charts Company said.
“That sounds crazy to me. I’m 52 years old. So, you know, across five decades... I just find it mind-blowing,” Minogue said of the five-decade record – an accolade she now shares with Bruce Springsteen – before it was announced.
Disco, in which she revisits her dance music roots, also marks Minogue’s eighth UK No. 1 album, taking her one ahead of Cliff Richard, Elton John and George Michael with seven apiece.
Speaking about the power of pop, Minogue said it can be a marker for people’s lives.
“A lot of the best pop songs that seem so simple are the trickiest ones to do. There’s no distraction. There’s no tricks. It’s just an amazing song,” she said.
Minogue, who has sold 80 million albums worldwide, says she started listening to disco music as a child.
“I would have been eight, nine, 10, you know, just getting into music, just able to play my parents’ records myself... and a lot of those were disco records.”
Disco “has always been in the system”, she said.
“In 2018, after my previous album Golden, which had a country influence, I knew I’d be heading back to the dance floor. I didn’t quite know I’d be as kind of blatant as disco. But I knew I was heading that way.”
Minogue co-wrote all the tracks on Disco, which was mostly recorded during lockdown in a studio she had to set up in her home. She said she hopes the album connects with people, and while her lead single was not written in response to the pandemic, it resonates.
“The opening lines for Say Something are ‘we’re a million miles apart in a thousand ways’. Which, of course in 2020 took on a whole new meaning,” she said. - REUTERS
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