Kylie Minogue, "I Should Be So Lucky" (1988)

The lighting in that apartment is so nice, it transports me to a different era immediately.

Song is super catchy, but so repetitive. And her vocal is over-processed, even for the time.

Love this.

Definitive

No this is.

Most SAW songs sound the same but they had clever catchy songwriting. They were like the UK Motown of the 80s.

Forget everything else. This is the best.

Minogue PR troll, quit trying to make this dull broad happen here.

Anyone who loves this should listen to the A Journey Through Stock Aitken Waterman podcast which covered this in depth.

It is an amazing pop song by any standards, even more brilliant when you consider the speed at which it was written.

The lyric is desperate and sad but Kylie performs it perfectly. It isn't a great technical vocal, not surprising considering her age and amount of recording experience.

On one of Kylie's tours she performed a sped up version which sounded great. It's a similar song to Sonia's You'll Never Stop Me Loving You. Both appear to be cheery and bouncy but they're sung from the point of view of someone experiencing a severe mental health crisis. Sonia went much further than Kylie though, literally stalking and trying to exercise coercive control over the man who rejected her.

SAW knew almost nothing about Kylie when they recorded this, but totally aced it with this record. It hit wonderfully with her then young (and very young) TV fanbase. That's a combination of great writing talent and sheer luck.

It was a good time. I think she was still in Neighbours when it was released in the UK and almost everyone loved Kylie.

So she was in the spotlight and then released a very catchy pop song.

Yes she was still very much on Neighbours at the time and this coincided with her most popular arc in the UK and Australia, the romance and teen wedding with Scott.

R8 Sonia got away with it because she was seen as a zany ginger scouse teenage girl, who you assumed was a virgin and inexperienced at life. If a man sang that lyric it would be seen as sinister.

There's a perception that Rick Astley was a star long before Kylie, but there were only 6 number ones between Never Gonna Give You Up and I Should Be So Lucky (MARRS, Bee Gees, T'Pau, Pet Shop Boys, Belinda Carhire and Tiffany Renee Dawlish)

I Should Be So Lucky stopped Together Forever from reaching #1 - it spent 2 weeks at #2.

Just like Taylor swift, she had the face of a mouse.

There was a rumour that Kylie was Rick sped up or vice versa. Spitting Image did a parody about it too.

I just don't get the gays that love her. No talent at all.

I get that not everyone is going to like Kylie and that's fine. But to say she has no talent is just absurd.

She has a decent voice. It's not strong or impressive but she carries a note and sounds on-key most of the time. I would put her above Madonna in live vocals though many people are better singers than Madonna. Many gays love camp and glitter and feelgood pop which doesn't translate to operatic or Shakespearean talent.

She's a notch above Madonna, Britney and Janet to me in live singing. So she's not purely a studio singer.

Madonna's live vocals are uniformly poor to dreadful.

Britney doesn't sing live.

Kylie is a very capable live vocalist and also puts on a very crowd pleasing show, which Madonna certainly doesn't.

Britney's show is a drag style lip synch so not comparable.

Britney had a decent tone (not great but the potential was there) and sang live for her first album era. But by the second album, the babydoll porn star voice was considered her trademark and she ruined her vocal chords trying to maintain. So the lip-syncing commenced and the choreography was utilized to justify it.

Kylie, Madonna, Britney, Janet... All garbage.

She was HORRIBLE.

Ugh.

We had Madonna.

Way better than Kylie.

I’ve heard her name before but… I don’t know her.

Madonna has made a complete fool of herself in her twilight years. Kylie just gets cooler.

Here's a nice version

I think Kylie was a little ashamed of the song for many years, until this...then she embraced her past.

It's such a fun song. Her whole debut is fun, sugary pop. She definitely outgrew SAW.

And Kylie is a fantastic live performer. I am a fan of both Madonna and Kylie. But I think Kylie's shows have gotten better and more fun over the years, while Madonna's are colder and more self-indulgent.

That’s exactly right. Madonna’s shows are no longer about pleasing the audience.

On the last few go-arounds of the chorus, I love her “YEAH!!!” Backing vocal.

My favorite part of the song!

Cringey SAW song

Acoustic cover

[quote] Minogue PR troll, quit trying to make this dull broad happen here.

I agree. OP, you're overposting about her.

33 post and only 11 references to Madonna in an effort to pitch 2 women against each other in which one HAS to be worse than the other.

TRY HARDER

In 1988 Kylie had the best selling album in the UK and 5 of the top 21 selling singles.

#3 I Should Be So Lucky #4 Especially For You (released in December) #11 The Locomotion #20 Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi #21 Got To Be Certain

She spent 5 weeks at #1 and 15 weeks at #2 and 28 weeks in the top 10.

And then in 1989 Jason Donovan had the best selling album, spent 8 weeks at #1, (11 if you include Band Aid II) and 6 weeks at #2 with 23 weeks in the top 10.

And then the 90s came.

R15 thanks for reminding me, here's the Spitting Image pisstake of Kylie/Rick

R36 that is hilarious (and I’m a Kylie stan)

"I'm the girl from Neighbours / I'm a bit part in a soap"

R32 That's the most heterosexual thing I've ever seen.

It's weird that Kylie and Rick are both still so prominent in 2022, but Kylie has been working, successfully, non stop the whole time and Rick took 30+ years off and came back just as strong. Not bad for two acts that were mocked as insubstantial puppets in 1988.

Rick was an internet meme throughout the 2000s. RickRolled. The Family Guy reference and Thanksgiving Day float performance certainly helped. Rick capitalized on the meme and made jokes about it and it helped grow a millennial audience in The US. When he released his 50 album, he promoted it well enough that it performed well in the UK.

People do actually love Rick. He's not seen as a joke.

Rick Astley has made deliberate decisions about his fame and sense of celebrity.

He stuck to recording and performing and avoided celebrity reality tv shows like the plague*. He had varied levels of success but gained a huge amount of respect - being the opening act for Take That was a huge deal. Gary Barlow picked Never Gonna Give You Up as one of his desert island discs.

A stripped back acoustic version of Together Forever was used for a tea advert to great effect.

*Rick did sign up for celebrity duet show Just The Two Of Us but pulled out almost immediately. He was paired with actress Sian Reeves who was then paired with Russell Watson and they went on to win the show. The reason now documented was that Astley's wife was nominated for an Oscar and he wanted to attend the ceremony with her which was the same weekend as the final show. But there was a tiny amount of footage of Astley at the beginning of the show looking really comfortable and saying "I just can't do this".

A rare piece of bad publicity for Rick. He has form doing walk out, he did that at the height of his career. He got off a plane to America at the last minute and then it was over.

The enduring appeal of Kylie and Rick is they are likable. They don't take themselves too seriously. They are fun pop stars and they have sing-along classics that go off in concert. Plus, Kylie and Rick still look and sound great and put on fun shows. They have loyal fan bases but their liability and enduring songs attract new fans.

I guarantee Madonna would have retained her stron touring numbers if she poked fun at herself, didn't ruin her face, showed up on time and played the hits. She ruined her legacy. Kylie and Rick continue to preserve and bolster their legacies.

*likability

Kylie seems at peace with herself in her 50s but Madonna seems tormented. I'm not saying that gleefully. I used to adore Madonna in the 80s and 90s. I would prefer she wasn't in her present mess.

[quote]33 post and only 11 references to Madonna in an effort to pitch 2 women against each other in which one HAS to be worse than the other. TRY HARDER

Now 47 posts in and 16 references to Madonna.

Can we get to 60 posts with 20 criticisms of Madonna in a thread that isn't about her?

Madonna's butt surgery is more embarrassing than Kylie's Let's Get To It tour.

Kylie is terrific live and really engages with her audience, I've seen and enjoyed her a lot. She might not be the best vocalist but she more than carries a tune and is electric on stage.

Plus she's got one of the best celeb reputations, according to those cabin crew threads.

This is the only time Kylie has lost her cool. She's polite to a fault and even when she's angry she carries on smiling but in an assertive way.

Jonathan Ross asked Kylie about how she keeps her composure in stressful situations and replied to Kylie with "not like your sister then".

Surely people know that Minogue KA and Minogue DJ are not going to turn their fire on each other. Dannii is far more relaxed venting about other artists, but then she's the Prince Harry of the family.

Dannii was on Young Talent Time and that taught her to take no prisoners.

Something negative about Madomnna.

Dannii once sampled Madonna's Into the Groove for one of her songs.

Kylie has become a better performer than Madonna. Madonna is just so sour on stage. She thinks that her previous success as a touring artist will mean gays will spend another $800 to wait for her fake fat ass to show up on stage at midnight and lip-synch half the set list of shitty Madame X songs.

Kylie shows up on time, is in good voice and she has such charisma, ande exudes joy that it is infectious. She also plays her hits and interacts with her audience and shows them affection, instead of mocking them and calling them "motherfuckers" (yawn).

This was the moment when I was finally on the Kylie bandwagon. The arrival of "sexy Kylie". Though I did like "Hand On Your heart" quite a bit.

It still amuses be that Better The Devil You Know was written for Kylie after she declared her loved of D Mob & Cathy Dennis's C'Mon And Get My Love (you can hear the copied whoah!s) and then 11 years later, Kylie had her most iconic hit with Cathy's Can't Get You Out Of My Head.

Love the Jason Donovan lookalike in this clip.

The fact Kylie always loads her shows with so many crowd pleasing hits is why her tours are consistently so successful. Madonna is too stuck up to do that.

I will never attend another Madonna show. I'd see Kylie in a heartbeat.

I love Kylie but I still haven’t gotten into her entire catalog. I became a fan during Fever and have had every album since. I’ve seen her live too.

But whenever her older songs pop up, they sound like crap.

Like this song does absolutely nothing for me. I don’t hear the catchiness. This doesn’t come close to the Rick Astley songs.

"Don't Wanna Lose This Groove" by Dannii Minogue (which heavily samples "Into The Groove" by MADONNA) is on the Gap June 2003 In-Store Playlist!

Neon Nights was a great album, better than some of Kylie's weaker ones.

Shame Dannii didn't get to continue in that vein.

Agreed, Neon Nights still holds up wonderfully too. I recently bought the double vinyl reissue

Isnt she the biggest Australian act outside of AC/DC? Bee Gees and Olivia Newton-John probably don't count as they are more British.

I felt fortunate to see Kylie live in the states (Boston) in 2010 at a 4,000 college hockey arena at Boston University. Although the arena was probably a little more than half full, the energy in that room was absolutely amazing and she put on a hell of a show and seemed to be genuinely enjoying herself.

Last time I saw Madonna, conversely, was in a sold out 20,000 seat arena in 2016, and the energy in the room was about a quarter of that during Kylie’s show - thanks to everybody being exhausted waiting and waiting and waiting for her to show up, the lackluster setlist, and Madonna going through the motions.

Janbot at r64.

R65 - Nope, can’t stand Janet. I’ve seen Madonna on every tour since 2001 and the last time I saw her she was diminished and the crowd was low energy. Still love her though.

You don't need to be Janbot to call out Madonna's unprofessionalism and lack of respect for her fans.

Bee Gees and Olivia are considered Australian. Olivia certainly regards herself as Australian first and foremost and is still very Aussie after living in the US for decades.

Kylie keeps getting asked if she'd work with Madonna. It won't happen. Madonna will only work with young acts who she can attempt to suck the life and the currency out of. She wouldn't want to be associated with another middle aged artist no matter how good they are. I'm grateful for that. Kylie doesn't need that leech.

R69 exactly. It’s Kylie who doesn’t need Madonna, not the other way around. I honestly don’t know how Madonna will work her way out of the self inflicted mess she’s made of herself. Kylie is doing just fine.

Kylie’s had a Number One Album in the last three years?

Kylie has over 50 Number One Dance singles?

Madonna, of course, has the far more successful recent career.

This is not a Madonna fan thread. Create your own.

R71 Madame X went to number one in America, and plummeted after that. The tour was a fucking mess, what with showing up late, cancelling dates, and a general shitty attitude from the woman herself. I’m not sure I’d call that a big success.

I had tickets to see her in Boston and she cancelled the dates here. That said, whenever she comes back to Boston I will be the first person to buy a ticket. That’s just the kind of fan I am, willing to deal with her bullshit just to be able to see her.

But Kylie’s last album went to number one twice in England, and has had number one albums there in each of the the past 5 decades. I know it doesn’t mean anything to Americans but Kylie is obviously doing something right. She doesn’t make people wait and she gives them what they want while having a great time herself doing it. One can love both Kylie and Madonna while acknowledging the faults of either of them.

After the late appearances on the last Madonna tour I'll never see another Madonna show. Even though the clock is clearly ticking for her and chances to see her are running out. This from someone who went out of the way to see the last George Michael tour because I knew he was on borrowed time.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

The the lyrics and dark and obsessive. The video plays on this in an innocent way, but the girl in the song is an obsessive loon.

Kylie got 14 Dance hits in The US. She's almost up there with Katy, Janet, Beyonce and Gaga. Madonna has the most hits at 50 and Rihanna has 33. Gay icon Britney only has 11 dance hits lol even Kylie has more and she's not local to The US. E***in probably will edit Wikipedia after I mentioned that.

US radio was never on Kylie's side.

There's a whole episode on this song from the Journey Through Stock Aitken Waterman podcast. One of the interviewees, an engineer/mixer, mentions how Kylie's nasality got to him so much that he slashed certain frequencies to make it bearable.

I remember being a kid when this was released, everyone in the UK was really into soap opera Neighbours, which shot Kylie to fame. The song is, however, and remains, absolutely awful. Just horrible.

It sold something like one million copies in the UK alone.

A slight detour, but, except for "Neon Nights" (which was great), I never had much time for her sister Dannii and found her generally annoying, in stark contrast to Kylie who is extremely likeable. I guess my aversion stems from the early 90s, when there was so much hype about her, in spite of her being a pretty middling and unremarkable pop "star". I think during 1990-1992 or so, she was in every fucking issue of "Smash Hits": "Dannii goes to to the bathroom!!", "Dannii does dishes!!", "Danii Discovers a Trash Bag During Her NYC Trip!!". Her PR team was working overtime. to the point where I think there were more articles on her than on her sister and Madonna combined.

After Julian McMahon left her broke, Dannii made a living for a number of years by selling stories about herself (always credited to friends) and set up pap of herself to the tabloids.

The "Dannii has AIDS" story was frankly bizarre. Was she fucking a newspaperman and it ended badly?

I'd forgotten about that.

I grew up in the UK and was 14 when this song was a hit. I loved it then and still love it now. I remember this clip from British tv back then.

R79 Yes and Mike Stock allegedly compared her to a budgie!

R86 I love the random scrubbers waving at the camera.