Simply Abu Dhabi VIII

The story that follows is one of a phenomenal rise to stardom. Kylie’s brilliant and eponymously titled debut album, released in July 1988, contained the hit singles I Should Be So Lucky, Got To Be Certain, a re-recorded version of The Loco-motion and Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi. Unsurprisingly, it was massively successful, selling over five million copies worldwide. And from then on, Kylie’s sublime talent enabled her to thrive more and more. Many number one albums and hit singles later, Kylie has proven herself to be a star of the very highest level: her status is undisputed. It is fitting then, that this year Kylie is celebrating her silver jubilee, after 25 years in the music business. Ever self-deprecating, the effervescent star recently told reporters how she thought it was ‘hilarious’ that the Queen of Britain celebrated her diamond jubilee for 2 weeks, while she herself was celebrating her silver jubilee for an entire year. She admitted that it felt ‘quite weird’ to think that she had been in the music business for 25 years, and confessed that there had been some low times along the way. “I remember in 1999, I actually bought a house in LA because I thought ‘things are not really happening for me at the moment,” Kylie said. “I thought, ‘I don’t know where to go so I’m just gonna go to LA, cause LA is a bit like a grown-up playground’. Then I release Spinning Around and, literally, since then it’s been a rollercoaster again. So, yes, I’m surprised.” Kylie has also reflected that her wonderful ability to combine singing with dance might have made her even better suited to earlier eras: “Yeah, I think I missed my era. I would have loved to be around in the 30s, 40s, 50s or even 60s, where they made a lot of musicals, where you had to be dramatic, you had to do slapstick, different types of dance, singing. That’s when I think all that I am would have really come into play.” Kylie has recently released The Abbey Road Sessions, an album of re-recordings of some of her greatest hits. The singer has commented that it was especially gratifying for her to be able to re-record the song Where Wild Roses Grow with her fellow Australian, Nick Cave. “Literally, I think my heart skipped a beat because the call’s put out there and there is no Wild Roses without Nick. I felt this album was such a special project and that was the icing on the cake for me.” There is also one new song on this brilliant album. It’s called Flower and Kylie displayed yet another string to her bow inmaking her directorial debut for the video. “I’ve never really directed a video myself before so that was a first,” she says. “I was very sure of the images I wanted and thankfully I found the right DP [Director of Photography] who could achieve that for me. The whole story of that song has been so organic and I keep using descriptions that really are very – pardon the pun – related to flowers like ‘organic’, and ‘it’s just been growing itself’ and ‘it’s blooming’. I don’t mean to relate it to the word ‘flower’.” Kylie has explained the lyrics to Flower by saying that they came from reflecting on her experience of battling cancer and whether the illness might have prevented her from having children. She says: “It’s like a love letter to a child that may or may not ever be. It’s just something that’s a feeling inside me. So yeah, it was really kind of heavy stuff but I think the song is hopeful, like overall it’s hopeful and accepting.” 6 4 S I M P LY A B U DH A B I