Spinning around*
Your feel-good recommendation for this week
I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about Kylie Minogue in the 40-odd years I’ve been aware of her existence - well, I didn’t think I had, until I started watching the Netflix documentary on her life and times.
Then, it turns out that I had been having thoughts and opinions about everything Kylie - not passionately held, but thoughts nevertheless.
I remember shrugging about her early Stock Aitkin Waterman music; being intrigued by her transformation from girl next door to It Girl after she hooked up with Michael Hutchence; dancing to her post SAW music in gay clubs (see above - though I have no idea what we were dancing to there); being creeped out by the song she did with Nick Cave; adoring her rendition of Dancing Queen at the Sydney Olympics; dancing to the Ultimate Kylie CD with my daughter; the shock at Kylie’s breast cancer diagnosis; the relief that she recovered and returned to the tour she’d had to put off.
Now, watching the doco, I am reminded of how we all, if we are so lucky as to live long enough, reinvent and reimagine ourselves, look back with rue and nostalgia in equal measure, and see that most of the hard parts soften with distance.
Anyway, this is my recommendation to you, especially if you are of a Certain Age.
*I also recommend the Fremantle Press book Spinning Around: the Kylie Playlist.