Helpmann award winner Michael Griffiths is heading to FRINGE WORLD this week, but not as you know him. Michael Griffiths: Songs by Kylie is set to explore the songs, stories and locomotion of our favourite Aussie pop princess Kylie Minogue, running from Tuesday, January 29 until Monday, February 4 at the De Parel Spiegeltent at The Woodside Pleasure Garden (get more info and tickets here). As someone who has been charged with the task of emulating the pop star, he knows better than most what songs capture the essence of Kylie. From “guilty pleasures”, to the “emotional and revealing”, there are more sides to Kylie than you might have thought, albeit delivered in the succinct and glamorous way that only a pop star can. He shared his top five tracks with us:
It’s Kylie’s signature tune when “Hit Factory” Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman (aka Stock Aitken Waterman) were at the height of their powers. Suddenly Kylie went from being the “girl next door” to dating Michael Hutchence and rocking a pixie wig.
Pure, unadulterated joy. How can anyone NOT sing along to this?
A guilty pleasure. Kylie must cringe at this one but going up the key change in to the fake brass instrumental with Kylie giving a massive long “woh-oh-oh” is heaven.
I love singing this one. I do a stripped back acoustic arrangement in the show and her lyrics are personal and revealing. And the album Impossible Princess takes me back to living in Mount Lawley and working Thursday nights at Trade Nightclub on James Street.
Kylie left Stock, Aitken and Waterman, took a few years experimenting and finding her own voice and then this song came out in the new millennium at a time when she could do no wrong. Absolute pop perfection.
