Arc of a diva
After two decades of Eurostardom, Kylie Minogue's brand of glossy retro-disco may finally conquer America. Good -- she's just what we need right now.
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By Charles Taylor

March 7, 2002 | I was in England during the Christmas season of 1987 when Kylie Minogue's first hit, a cutesy-poo version of Little Eva's "The Loco-Motion," became inescapable. I grumbled so predictably whenever it came over the radio or on "Top of the Pops" that the first few notes were enough to get my British then-girlfriend laughing at how much it irritated me.
So how, 15 years later, did I wind up standing in line at the Times Square Virgin Megastore, possibly the only straight man in the crowd, waiting for Minogue to autograph "Fever," her new CD? Although Kylie fizzled out in the U.S. after "The Loco-Motion" became a hit here, she went on to a huge career in Europe (30 million-plus records sold), first under the tutelage of Brit-pop schlockmeisters Stock, Aitken, Waterman and then, briefly, in a commercially disappointing fling with alternative rock. But apart from the occasional gossip column appearance, or a photo layout in some Euro lad-mag, in which she didn't look much like the perky teenager in cutoff sweats I remembered grinning her way through "The Loco-Motion," I had barely thought about her.

That is, until early last year, when a Welsh friend returned to New York from a Christmas visit home. My buddy, whose musical tastes overlap with mine, told me that several U.K. critics had listed the Minogue album "Light Years" on their year-end best-of lists. Since British music critics tend to be less embarrassed about the transitory pleasures of pop than their American counterparts (who seem more concerned about writing for the ages), I considered the possibility they might be onto something. But I didn't actually pick up "Light Years" until a couple of months later, after seeing Kylie as the Absinthe Fairy in "Moulin Rouge," a saucier version of that earlier movie sex fantasy, Walt Disney's Playboy Bunny-esque Tinker Bell. . . .

Amen to that. Kylie is God-sent.