Kylie
Minogue's latest album, The Abbey Road Sessions, features some of her biggest
hits reinvented as torch songs and orchestral pieces. Source:
Supplied
Cameron Adams, The Daily Telegraph, reports
After 25 years on the job, Kylie Minogue rarely gets flustered during interviews.
Minogue's communal 12-month celebration of her 25th anniversary in music (christened K25) has seen the singer request fans to tweet 'blast from the past' photos to share with her followers.
Last month, mid-interview, Minogue was handed one such vintage photo - circa 1985. That's even pre-Charlene.
"It was a black and white picture from ('80s TV show) The Henderson Kids," Minogue, 44, laughs.
"I genuinely thought 'Who is that? That's me. Oh my God'. There's been some crackers."
Minogue's been poring through more upmarket visuals for Kylie/Fashion, a book due next month.
It's a more high-end blast from the past.
"Imagine if I put out a glossy, chic, iconic fashion book. And then Kylie: Blast From the Past, with every dodgy moment I've ever had. It might be bigger than the other book ..."
Trawling through her past has been a consistent theme for K25. Minogue's Anti-Tour was something no pop star at her level has ever done - ditch the hits and perform only B-sides, forgotten album tracks and rarities. With no costume changes, water fountains or dancers in sight, it also showcased her vocals.
Some critics were surprised Minogue can actually do what she's made a living from for the last 25 years - sing.
K25 now spawns Minogue's most vocally driven release to date - The Abbey Road Sessions.
It features her biggest hits, reinvented as everything from orchestral pieces to the early Stock Aitken Waterman single Never Too Late reborn as a jazzy torch song.
"(Producer) Steve Anderson and myself have been hatching this plan, or at least this fantasy, for years and years," Minogue says.
"Unless you're a fan and you follow everything I do you wouldn't be aware I sang (jazz singer Blossom Dearie's) Try Your Wings on (UK TV show) Jools Holland or little things dotted throughout the past.
"This album feels like it has come at the right time. I couldn't have recorded it ten years ago, I wouldn't have been as secure in myself to do it."
Minogue says a decade of constant touring has improved her singing. A handful of performances with an orchestra have seen her receive comments on her vocals.
"It's ironic that it's completely the opposite to what people think. I've had people being so impressed and saying 'I didn't know you could sing like that' and they think it's so much more difficult doing an album like this than singing a pop song on stage with everything and the kitchen sink.
"I can guarantee you it's not. It's the opposite. You can focus on a song, tell the story, use everything that I've learnt and not try to be anything other than myself. That's the way it was for this album. And that's the way it is now in general. I just do what I do."
It's a different, more relaxed Kylie Minogue in 2012. She's re-written the rules with K25 by releasing one-off singles (Time Bomb) and enjoyed a tour where the more obscure a song was, the better.
"Something has changed," Minogue admits. "With Anti Tour I was on cloud nine, it felt so liberating. I love big tours I can't wait to do the next one, but they're so full-on.
"God forbid you get sick or get a throat infection. The pressure on my shoulders on tour is immense. To come up with the concept and do Anti Tour, I absolutely loved it. Vocally I wasn't stressed about anything. Perhaps that's had a lasting impact, I'd like to think it has.
"But then again I didn't have to worry about dashing off stage and wearing a costume I can't breathe in and heels I can't walk in and flying on an angel. All the things that make the other show fantastic, but it was great to just sing."
One guest at Abbey Road was Nick Cave - the pair re-invent their unlikely 1995 duet Where the Wild Roses Grow as a gentle country lament.
"I made a slight fool of myself because I just wanted to keep going to give him hugs, I adore him so much. It struck me how our delivery is so different."
The day Minogue recorded the original was when she met Cave. "I remember him directing me to sing it less, to talk it and be very, very fragile. That was the first time I delivered a song like that."
The song was a turning point for Minogue - she spent the '90s shaking off her shiny pop image. Recording a track where Cave kills her, for an album called Murder Ballads, was something few saw coming. She even wound up at the Big Day Out performing the song with Cave.
"In that period there was a lot of people being post-modern and ironic," Minogue says. "Had someone else asked me to do something like that I would have been suspicious and hesitant. But (ex-boyfriend) Michael (Hutchence) had mentioned to me his friend Nick wanted to work with me, so I knew he was genuine."
The album also includes Flower, a song Minogue wrote while recovering from cancer treatment. It was recorded for her X album, but ditched by her record label. "Steve (Anderson) and I say it's the little song that could," Minogue says.
It's also her most personal lyric. "It's like a love letter to the child I may or may not ever have," she admits. "I was coming out of treatment where you're told 'We can't determine what your future's going to be, this is what you're up against.' I knew I had to be realistic but hopeful as well.
"Without sounding too cosmic or out there I just felt like there's a spirit there. I don't know whether it will become anything else or not. It was something I had to get out of my system.
"It's a weird one to talk about. I'm consistently asked 'When are you going to have children?' and I hate the question. But now I've got a song that is pretty much about that. The song is still a question. It's a question I don't know the answer to."
This year has seen Minogue score glowing reviews for her film work - something that can't be said for some of her previous celluloid efforts Streetfighter and Biodome.
Her role in Holy Motors has her plotting a return to acting.
"I had no idea Holy Motors would do this for me," she says. "It's made me a little bit hungry for more ..."
Until then there's still the business end of K25.
She's made three trips to the studio for "tentative steps" towards her next album, and will end 2012 in Sydney as the creative ambassador for the New Year's Eve celebrations with boyfriend Andres Velencoso in tow.
"There won't be a performance, sadly I'm not going to be propelled off the top of the Sydney Harbour bridge with a head-dress with sparklers attached. But I'll be there and the spirit will be amazing.
"It's a poetic wrap up of this year. If we're still standing at the end of K25 it'll be a miracle. I don't know what will happen next year. Maybe we'll have a communal meltdown or a depression. I might just leg it to Thailand for a month and wear a sarong: K25's done me in."
Read Kylie/Fashion (Thames & Hudson) out November 12
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