I told my team, “I’m a mean person”

Kylie Minogue loves puzzles.

While waiting for the concert to begin, she would play crossword puzzles, Sudoku puzzles, and the New York Times spelling bee to relieve her nerves.

Her friend, author Kathy Lette, once claimed that the pop star was an avid Scrabble aficionado, saying, “She knew how to score high and not mess around.” (Coincidentally, Kelly’s name is a valid Scrabble word, earning a respectable 12) points.

But when she played Wordle, a daily word-guessing game, she had an unusual strategy: getting it wrong on purpose.

“If you split it into two lines, it’s very annoying,” she said. “I wanted it to be more challenging.

“I like getting down to the tip, where everything is at stake.”

You could call it a metaphor for her career. Kelly thrives on challenges, and she has faced her fair share over the past 37 years—from vicious criticism and creative failure to a life-changing encounter with breast cancer.

Now, she is at the top of her game thanks to her global hit song ‘Padam Padam’.

Released during Pride Month 2023, the airy, meandering club anthem became an unexpected hit. Its onomatopoeic title represented a heartbeat, and it was quickly adopted as gay slang to refer to just about anything.

In the UK, Padam Padam gave Kylie her first top ten single in more than a decade. In February, she won her first Grammy Award in 20 years. In March this year, she was named a “Global Icon” by Padam at the BRIT Awards.

In a volatile market for pop stars, Carey’s stock has never been higher.

“It’s weird because I never stop working,” she said, “but then you have these spikes.

“I look at it like surfing — not that I’m a surfer, but I’ve surfed once in my life, so I understand how it works.

“We paddle, paddle, paddle, and sometimes you hit waves. So I really wanted to ride the boat and enjoy the scenery – because I know how tiring it is to paddle and miss the waves.”

That’s why Padam Padam’s master album Tension is getting a sequel – An Exnervousif you will. Thirteen new tracks delve deeper into the smooth electronic aesthetic of the original.

“I think I really stretched it!” Kelly laughed.

It’s not often that pop stars repeat themselves in this era, but in this case, success breeds success. After Tension topped the charts, writers from around the world began pitching their best new material to the Carey team.

“I couldn’t say no,” she said. “The list got longer and longer, and I said, ‘Maybe this is a…well, not the next album, because the next album will be something different, but not just a little bit.'”

The album features collaborations with Sia, The Blessed Madonna, Tove Lo, Diplo and Orville Peck. But lead single “Lights, Camera, Action” reunited Carey with Padam Padam co-writer Ina Wroldsen.

Filled with pulsating rhythms, it’s all designed to serve the most ferocious looks. The names of Karl Lagerfeld and John Paul Gaultier appear in the lyrics. In the film, Kelly wears a dress made from crime scene tape.

Does she still get excited about matching the perfect outfit?

“Well, the thought of trying it on makes me so,” she said, rolling her eyes in mock annoyance.

“But there’s a real high when you find the right clothes. And then the next high is throwing it all away—your face, your hair, your clothes, your shoes, everything, and being comfortable again.”

“I call it unmasking,” she said. “I’ll put on an old pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt that’s been popular for six months.

“Fifty Shades of Comfort—that’s what I think.”

While on tour, she would change costumes seven to eight times a night during the show, slipping into corsets, sequins and feathered headdresses as the clock ticked to the next song.

“It’s crazy, it’s really stressful,” she admits. “I probably swear a lot.

“If one thing goes wrong, you guys freak out.”

She added: “I did go through the wardrobe [department] In a show I did recently, I said, ‘I’m a mean person. I’m sorry.

“Their response is, ‘No, what happens in rapid change is still rapid change’.”

The idea of ​​the singer losing his temper is interesting.

Sure, she loses her temper sometimes—we all do—but “Angry Kelly” is so at odds with her public persona that it’s hard to imagine.

She’s one of pop’s most poised stars, careful with her words and dodging personal questions with a practiced affability. During conversations, she would reveal intimate and vulnerable moments, but usually end them with a positive affirmation, subtly steering the discussion back to her career.

The only people who knew her true feelings were her family.

“When things aren’t going well, I turn to my mom, dad, brother and sister for help,” she said.

Her brother Brendan, a photographer, even taught her a technique for getting rid of stress that she calls the “Foofer Valve.”

“When you need to let your emotions out, or when you need to cry or moan, you make sounds. Hiss hisslike a kettle releasing steam and you say, ‘Oh, I feel better’.

The bass valve was crucial at the beginning of Carey’s pop career.

Early reviews called her music “corny”, “light” and “emotionless”. The Sydney Morning Herald, after watching her first Australian tour in 1990, declared: “It’s amazing how mediocre people can achieve such success.”

“It wasn’t cool for people to get so dirty,” she says now, “and it wasn’t some invisible person behind the keyboard.

“These are adults and should know better.”

How did she cope?

“Honestly, I don’t know what keeps me going,” she responded. “But luckily I have a job and I have to go to work.

“Sometimes I do want to hide in a cave, so it would be nice if you had that responsibility [of acting]. You have to show up and then you get distracted by other things.

Critics may not take kindly to her, but the public is always on Kelly’s side.

Even during her ill-fated “indie years,” fans snapped up experimental and wayward songs like “Confide In Me” and the Nick Cave duet “Where The Wild Roses Grow.”

“I’m very proud of the times I was able to swim against the tide when I felt like things were going against me,” she said. “It’s a rewarding feeling.”

The new millennium brought a major reset.

2000’s “Spinning Around” was a classic comeback single, and she followed it up with the hypnotically cool “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” – still the most popular hit of her career. best-selling single.

Then, in 2005, during the UK leg of her hottest tour, Carey began experiencing blurred vision on stage.

She chalked it up to exhaustion and kept going, especially after health tests showed she was cured.

“When they say, ‘You don’t need to worry,’ that’s what you want to hear, so you believe it,” she recalled.

But a second test revealed Kelly had early-stage breast cancer. Her career was put on hold as she underwent chemotherapy and a tumor resection.

The crowd responded with an outpouring of love, which she described as “very touching”.

To this day, she still has all the letters, drawings and cards her fans sent her.

“Some of the envelopes said ‘Kylie Minogue, Australia’ and the post office took the trouble to [deliver] them,” she said.

“I just felt a surge of love and support. It was really important to me.”

In 2006, Kelly gave the all-clear and she was on the road again almost immediately.

Determination and perseverance have been keys to her longevity, and now, finding the next Padam Padam is what keeps her motivated.

It’s all about her love of wordplay. “Music is also kind of like a puzzle, trying to figure everything out.”

But brainteasers are bound by logic, while pop music is more like gambling. Luck and timing are just as important as creative choices. The public is grumpy and demands more of the same, but will lose interest if you don’t evolve.

Carey has been successfully walking the tightrope for fifty years, something pop icon Madonna acknowledged when she invited her to duet on stage in Los Angeles in March.

“It was kind of exciting,” Kelly recalled. “I talked to her manager and he said, ‘I really want to sing ‘I Will Survive’ with you.

“The reason was that her mother died of breast cancer, and she knew some of my story. But more importantly to her and me, we are women who have survived in this industry.

“It’s never easy,” she added. “I don’t think anyone want to It’s easy because where is the challenge? But we’re still here, doing what we love.

The singer paused to think, momentarily stunned.

“So much has happened that my eight-year-old self and even my 20-year-old self couldn’t even count it,” she said.

“One day you’re going to meet Prince. He’s going to write a song for you. You’re going to sing on stage with Madonna.

“I mean, I was surprised. I thought, ‘Is this my life?'”

It’s a puzzle and the answer is self-evident.