Can’t Get You Out of My Head by Michael Cragg review – what’s the secret of Kylie’s genius?

The pop star emerges as a great unifier in this in-depth yet heartfelt portrait of an Aussie icon ‘There’s an anxiety in declaring oneself a Kylie fan,” wrote the late San Francisco poet Kevin Killian (who nonetheless once published an entire collection devoted to the singer). De

The pop star emerges as a great unifier in this in-depth yet heartfelt portrait of an Aussie icon ‘There’s an anxiety in declaring oneself a Kylie fan,” wrote the late San Francisco poet Kevin Killian (who nonetheless once published an entire collection devoted to the singer). Despite her remarkable longevity, with record-breaking chart success across five decades, Kylie’s place in the pop firmament has often felt more precarious than that of other artists, perhaps because of her past as a soap star, and the schmaltz of some of her early material with Stock Aitken Waterman. But she has always displayed a canny self-awareness, alongside a willingness to push the envelope.

It’s evident in her knowing rendition of I Should Be So Lucky as a bad poem at the Royal Albert Hall in 1996, and her many collaborations with experimental dance producers. Then there’s her instinct for giving fans what they want: inarguable bangers, like those of her 2000s imperial phase, that also possess an offbeat, idiosyncratic quality, true of Can’t Get You Out of My Head and of her 2023 viral hit, Padam Padam. Continue reading...