In the last weeks of may,Kylie Minogue traveled on an Ansett flight from Brisbane to Melbourne. Sitting next to her was a male passenger who'd had the good fortune to be bumed up to bisiness class. The travelling companions did't converse. She was lost in her own daydreams and he didn't want to interrupt. Particularly as he believed he was seated next to a scoolie travelling alone who might misread his intentions. It was only when he disembarked that the flight attendants let on that he'd been seated next to Kylie Minogue, the 30-year-old singer. This had serious personal repercussion for him. now his young daughter will no longer talk to him, nominating him "most pathetic parent on the planet,' because being a major dad, her dad didn't just get her autograph but he can't even tell her exactly what she ate and drank. Kyle would probably understand her annoyance. When she was the same age as the disappointed young girl she also had fallen under the spell of stardom. singing songs from grease into a hairbrush in front of their bedroom mirror in there Melbourne home, both Kyle and Dannii Minogue who cracked it first, by winning a series of roles on Saturdays evening shows such as Young Talent Time. Then one day, when she was ten, Kylie accompanied her sister to audition for the sullivans and, to her surprise, was given the role of the Dutch girl. She was suddenly on TV later in 19985 , when she was 17, she got a role of the fiesty car mechanic Charlene on Neighbours. Even though her contract was a short one . because the show was between TV stations, Minogue stayed for two and half years. the soap with its notoriously wobbly scenery made her a star. Minogue's fist on-screen Ramsay Street appearance was socking Jason Donovan on the jaw and her last was flying into the sunset with him, headed for Brisbane. In real life , however she just kept on going until she got to London.

PopKylie Just at her Neighbours era was coming to a close PopKylie took off. She'd already recorded "locomotion" following a Neighbous stage show. But it was the Stock Aitken Waterman teem who picked her out, shook her up and turned her around , turned her into somthing new. It began , of course, with "I should be so Lucky" which went to number one in the U.K and picked up speed from there . As a cog in the wheel of the PWL hit factory she had 18 hit singles released five albums. It was around late 1988 that I first, interviewed her. She 'd flown in flown somewhere far away and had been installed in an expensive hotel suite. She looked small , jet-lagged, like a rabbit struck in the headlights of an oncoming car, she was doing a hard job. Each of a long list of interviews had given fifteen minutes max, to discuss live and the universe with her. Being Kylie, she'd nod and smile and was eager to please with a smart soundbite. While she spoke, her present publicist watched over. She changed slowly. the second time I met her, some two years later, she threw me a Milan Kundera quote on fame. "as Kundera says: "It's like being a tiger'," she said . "And the press is the hunter." Following from any other time we'd spoken it was surprising to her quote philosophy. Whatever, I got the point that she wasn't really enjoying what she was doing that much at all. Worse still, she had as little control over her music as she did her image. "I would turn up and they would play the backing track, print up the lyrics and Mike Stock would go through it with me , 'you come in here. You do this ,You do that," Just go in and do it, there and then. Though Kylie stuck whit the hit factory system longer than many others acts (Rick Astley, where are you now?) she wanted to be free. She wanted to be strong. She wanted to be sexy. And so she stopped dating Jason Donovan, who she sees from time to time . "He's really eccentric. He's becoming more crazy,"she says. "Nice crazy.but he's a nutter sometimes."And then she met Michael Hutchence.

SexyKylie Hutchence and Minogue got together when she was on tour in Hong Kong. She remembers that it all began badly. Hutchence was hours late and she waited and waited in her hotel room with her mother, her manager and her four dancers. "They were getting more and more protective and annoyed ," she says. Then at the restaurant the food made her feel very ill." But we then had a fantastic time. We talked and talked until we simply we had to be separated," Why would a lust rock god such as Hutchence be dating the singing budgie?" it was shocking for everyone, including me " says Minogue. "but he wasn't as bad as everyone thought and I wasn't as good. "I know for a fact he was just, er, quite amazed at watching me at the age.(21) He love it. He held my hand and took me on a trip to parts of the world I didn't know existed." so with her famous newly opened mind, Minogue decided to experiment tentatively first she became flirty with the press and the public, she wore a bum freezer and a short blonde wig to the Australian party for her fist film, The Delinquents. She remained a closet family girl, however another guest was her kid brother< Brendan . Then, following Madonna's sex book, Kylie did one to, only she withdrew it before it even hit the shelves. She toured wearing fishnet stage costumes that introduced her butt to the world. There were unsubstantiated rumours from reliable sources that she'd been taking drugs. That she'd had her stomach pumped at one special night in Sydney she denied she was trying to bee Madonna # 2 A British journalist recently wrote of Kylie Minogue , "her Boyfriends define her," Is that true or false ? "I was really annoyed about that," she says."I went to great lengths to assure them it wasn't the case. It's not that shallow a situation, is it? I'm not moulded by anyone I go out with . I have my own thoughts, actions and feelings, haven't I? anyone's in love , they obviously begin to think and act in a sympathetic way to their partner - it's give and take. that is what love is all about.

IndieKylie As Kylie has grown up so has her music. She's delighted that she's even managed to stick around because the shelf life of a pop star is a notoriously short one . So she's played around with it all and made it more her own. She's decided that this post Stock,Aitken and Waterman era is phase Two to begin it she signing to De-construction and , for the second time, released an album called Kylie Minogue, which she says was a "stepping stone." To what ? to place where she can play around with most anything that she wants. But it's been luck as much as planning that has brought her here. Kylie has always been good at seeing something coming her way and making the most of it . Fist signs of the changes were auspicious. Nick cave was spotted carrying a Kylie bag without irony, then recorded the single, "Where the Wild Roses Grow" with her Cave got to smash her head in with a rock and she still loves him for it - both on-and-off song. She describes the collaboration as an emotional turning point. Since then although still mates with Cave, she moved , enjoying herself. Although she's currently single, she has dated the trendy photographer stephane sednaoui, she lip-synched naked to a castrato for the ultra-hip artist Sam Taylor-Wood. She someone who has come to terms with her past, one that she used to refuse to discuss in interviews . " I still have some embarrassment, but far more accepting of that time ," she says. Having Been put off her acting for a while by her musical success and naff in the Delinquents and Van Damme's StreetFighter, she now announced that she'd like to have another go at move-making. This time she's set her sights on teaming up with hot Australian director Baz Luhrmann. Unlike the girl of the scared rabbit era, nowadays Kylie will wander into an interview alone perhaps in a favourite restaurant of hers, greeting the journalist whit grinning face and a way from herself offering self-depreciating stories instead. She still acts things out , does accents, giggles and tells stories about her past. Impressively she won't lie, but will she tell with a well-practised stare that she doesn't want to reveal something. While giving impression go being open , she is actually very private. When she doesn't want to answer a question - especially about something depressing - she puts herself down by telling an embarrassing story from her past, flashes you a dazling smile to you like her. And, of course,you do.

NewKylie So far so good for the NewKylie image. Yet for someone who seems to want her audience to take her seriously, to believe that she's hand's on with her music, she approves shots of her groin for publication on the one hand and says , "Let's concentrate on the music ' on the other. This raises the point - is Kylie for real this time or is she just another character being played by one-time soap star, one- time pop poppet? And how good would I know? Dunno,. Mainly because maybe she doesn't either. Kylie insists that she is not, by nature, a self-analytical person, and that the interview process has forced her to look inwards more than she really cares to. But that's been good for me. It's helped me to realise that it's what I don't yet know about that I'm attracted to. I know about the past and embrace it, but it's immediate future, the next step forward really appeals to me." So NewKylie is SexyKylie mixed with a splash of IndieKylie plus PopKylie (she's the one who says that she's been all spice girls at the one time or another). We have to acknowledge that this is now Kylie wants us to view her , that she wants us to know she's all grown up now and, among other things, the friend and muse of some rather fashionable,even heavyweight, music names. ask her about it and she'll raise her hands in bewilderment and say , "They're attracted to whatever. I find that I don't even want to try and invent rationales for why they came to me , it's just magic al enough that they did perhaps I was good in the past life . Or , more likely I'm just a very,very lucky person." She right of course . She done more than all right so far, But the question that begs to be answered is: what really is Kylie Minogue "s achievement ? she is definitely rich . Hre man ager closely controls her image . Her family-owned company,kaydeebee, owns it all Copyrights on all her photos and music and merchandising and all the rest of it . Almost every time you see a photo of Kylie Minogue , Kaydeebee is getting a slice of the fee. Every time see a picture of her it's the end result to the work of a small army . Beyond her record company PR, there's her personal PR, her magager, her assistant, her stylist, her hair man, and her make-up girl. While Kylie is far from unique in having this many people on photo shoot., it does indicate the amount of control she has now has on her world. NewKylie is probably not radical and definitely not original but fame in the 90's is an elusive thing to pin up down. And once you think about Kylie you realise that she simply lives as a celebrity in the minds of many. The majority of readers of magazines such as Woman's Day,New Idea ,Who Weekly and their ilk will not bat an eyelid at the fact that she has work with the cream of crop of new music, or that she includes the Verve, Beck, Daft Punk and Tricky in her CD collection.

Kylie2000 Kylie says that she has lost a degree or two of her commerciality and it's probably true. in the UK, where she has made most of her money, two recent singles (including the bradfield-penned "Some Kind Of Bliss), sold relatively badly and reliable sourcess say off the record that Impossible Princess has only sold between just 20,000 and 40,000 copies there. Still, the most important thing is she is in control, she says. Her manager , Terry Blamey who has with her since she began singing, insists that she is." She is fully in charge of her own ship, knowing where she's going." Certainly she is a consummately professional performer and she takes a justifiable pride in the songwriting input she has on her new record, she says emphatically that the emotions in the songs are not fake. "You'd find me very irate if people said that . That is the most part. "And although her record company may curl it's toes up at the thought, she seems prepared to accept her lower sales in her bid for musical self-expression. " Though I have no illusions that I'm anything other than pop " she says "I'm so much from that world that I don't think I'd ever be perceived as actually non-commercial. Any kind Progress requires sacrifice of some nature . A number one single again would be fantastic . But driving myself crazy in a bid to replicate my past successes would be pointless," British CD sales aside, Her recent Australian live shows sold out within hours of the tickets going on sale . Night after night, and while the audience is just a hormone filled, it's testosterone rather then teen that's filling the air, so she's doing something right . Which is just as well because you can't help but get the feeling that she's miss all of this. that she has a passion for the pop life. After all although Kylie could retire tomorrow and have to worry about where the shopping money was coming from, it's all Minogue knows. She says that she would feel very,very odd if she wasn't watched , if she wasn't photographed anymore. "I don't Know how I would react. Because it Takes so long to get used to this kind of life. "I love making videos I like performing . Whether it's a photo shoot , making videos or meeting kids in a hospital, I really love working oh, God, I sound like a beauty contestant, don't I? {fakes a bimbo voice} 'I like pets!" So has she ever thought about what she would be doing if she wasn't doing this? "I do think about it but I don't think about if for too long ," she laughs . "When I was at school I thought I might go to business school , so I sometimes wonder what I'd be like if I worked in an office. you know , kylie the office girl." And how does she picture herself ? " I reckon I wouldn't be any different, you know I'd still be me, I'd still be a performer wherever I was."...