Kylie Minogue

just checked. They're pretty inexpensive. But let's get all that gear together because my guest to this episode is Kylie Minogue, whose new album Disco is a quarantine dance party in pretty much every sense, by which I mean it's not just an album guaranteed to get you up off the couch and onto whatever passes for a dance floor in the COVID bubble of your choice, but also that this album was recorded in part during lockdown. Some songs were

written over zoom calls. Kylie had to set up microphones at home teach herself to use some recording software like Logic and pro Tools so she could capture her vocals on her own when she could not get to a studio to finish her fifteen studio album, And that fifteen studio album is also the first Kylie album on which she gets a credit for additional vocal production. Disco is

update on some vintage seventies dance floor romance. Songs like I Love It and Missing Things celebrate the kind of fun that starts well after sundown and ends shortly before or after sunrise. And though the hasn't exactly been a good year, it's been a surprisingly good year for albums that chase that sort of after sundown, just before sunrise kind of fun. There's dualas future and nostalgia. With arrived at the end of March, so that's a dance party that we got just as the world was grinding to

a halt. Lady Gaga's Chromatica got that at the end of May, Jesse Waars What's Your Pleasure came a month after that at the end of June, and now November

has brought us Kylie's Disco. Maybe it's a little strange that a year in which dance floors have been off limits has also been a good year for albums celebrating the joys of dancing, But it's certainly worth remembering all these albums had their roots in pre pandemic times, and those pre pandemic times in only seem untroubled in comparison to the universality of our troubles these days, so it's also worth remembering that disco has always been a music

of liberation, the same way that rock and roll was back in the nineteen fifties, when Elvis the Pelvis shook his ups and Little Richard first let loose the power of two D fruity. In all these cases, dancing was a way of putting liberation into motion, and Kylie actually

talked about just this. I've found all these correlations between disco music and this year that disco was born out of darkness, it was born out of struggle and adversity and people trying to find a place to belong and be accepted and expressed themselves and all of that kind of stuff. People clearly have been creating just the sort

of escapism and liberation that Kylie's disco album offers. I mean, it entered the charts at number one, making Kylie one of six artists who have topped the UK album charts in five consecutive decades. And those other artists are Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Paul Weller, Bruce Springsteen, David Gilmore and now

Kylie Minogue. And I think it's fair to say that Kylie looks a lot better in sequence than any of those dudes, just like I also think it's fair to say that, like a lot of women making great pop music, she never quite gets the credit she deserves. And she started out in the late eighties pop factory of stock Akin and Waterman. Those are the guys who gave the world Rick Astley is never going to give you up, and early Kylie hits like Hand on Your Heart or

her cover of Locomotion are in eternal sugar high. So Kylie's ability to turn that kind of start into a long lasting career that puts her in the company of Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen is pretty astounding. And it's a combination of determination, experimentation, and some glamour kissed reinvention.

I mean, she spent the nineties being all sorts of different Kylie's Got Kylie duetting with Nick Cave, trip Hop, Kylie getting Loozy on put Yourself in My Place, all rock Higlie working with two of the Manic Street Preachers on some kind of Bliss, which I just played for the first time in a long time and it sounds like the theme song to a lost James Bond movie.

And she did all of this before settling into playing old iconic Kylie by the two thousand and one album Fever, which gave us the immortal hit Can't Get You out of My Head. How immortal you can actually hear? Jesse Ware paid tribute to Can't Get You out of My Head on the title track to her disco album What's Your Pleasure, in much the same way to Can't Get You out of My Head picked up the robo disco

sound of Georgio Moroder's Midnight It's Breast soundtrack. In other words, Kylie herself is now the kind of classic sound that she paid tribute to in two thousand and one, then she's paying tribute to all over disco. Kylie talked with me about how the roots of this new album go back to a pretty elaborate concept that accompanied the tour for her previous albums Golden, which she had recorded in Nashville and which she described at the time as Dolly

Parton standing on a dance floor. And she also talked about what it was like to go from playing a concert in Brazil and really hitting her stride in March recording this album to having the pandemic shut everything down, and the challenges of making this kind of dance music with collaborators. She's never had the opportunity to meet her celebrate now their success with face to face. Here's what else she had to say. Kylie, welcome to inside the

studio and congratulations on the success of Disco. We're talking just a couple of days after the album has gone into the UK charts at number one. So this makes it your eighth number one album and it sets a record of its own. You are now the first female artist to have a number one album in the UK in five separate decades. It's crazy, right, How does it? What does that feel like? I know I have to explain that I'm fifty two and it's been five decades,

so it's it's um. It does sound like you started making records when you were two years. Someone on Twitter the other day said, wow, you know, five number ones in in five centuries? Wow? Five centuries an accomplishment you would you would mean making records in prehistoric times. Yeah. Yeah, there are some days where it feels, you know, I may feel like it's been that long, but no, it's

an incredible feat. I had no idea of this impending stat when I was making the album, which was just as well, because I've really kind of felt the pressure leading up to the release. But yeah, so late eighties, the first year of the ties um that's how they have managed to kind of shoehorn that statistic in there.

But nevertheless, I'm really proud of it. Yeah, No, I mean, I love the fact that there's a there's another stat The Beatles, Elvis Presley, the Stones, Bob Dylan, they've all had number ones in five decades, but not consecutively, not five consecutive decades the way you had, right, So they really Beatles should really work on their consistency a little more. I think, yeah, oh yeah, well, gosh, amazing company. And to be the first UM female, the first solo female

to do it's it's it's nuts. Yeah. Well, let's talk about disco and how it came to be, how how this party got started. So you you finished the tour for for your last album, Golden, I think in March of and then you were back recording just about six months after that, back in the studio, and the Golden

tour did have a studio fifty four section. When you got to Locomotion, that song started with a little Donna summer shout shout out a little bad girls, Beep Beep two, two and and And is that where this disco idea started or was it something else for you? Well, I think it's been a lifelong love affair of disco anyway, but certainly leading up to this album, You're right, the Golden Tour in we had this loose narrative for the show, which no one in the audience needed to totally get,

but just have the sense of. And so I'm gonna have to I've got to rewind a bit just to get to how we got to disco. Um. When we started rehearsals for the Golden Tour, just in conversation, we're trying to come up with this narrative, and we came up with this idea that what if Donna Summer had she was in Los Angeles and she had a gig that night in New York. I had to get to

New York on the next night. I don't understand time difference in this moment, but you know, she's got to get to New York to appear at Studio fifty four. But the planes canceled, there's a storm, there's whatever. The flights canceled, and so our narrative was this kind of cross country journey and arriving at Studio fifty four. Thus, the penultimate part of the concert is our version of Studio fifty four. And every time I would get to that part of the show, not least because it was

a home stretch. So it's like, Okay, I think we've made it through another show and everyone's kind of peaking it by this stage. But it just felt like such a it felt like home to me. I mean, I've never been to Studio fifty four. It's it's a fantasy for me. But I think it's so it's it's um imagery that the music that it's presence is still was strong that you can kind of, you know, insert yourself

in a fantasy landscape to Studio fifty four. So yeah, that's what I thought, Okay, next album, this is where I want to be. So after the Greatest Hits Tour in twenty nine thing, that's when I went into the studio and yeah, disco became a thing for me. Yeah, no, quite evidently, So so that was the idea even you started in in about September of last year, and I think one of the first songs we heard the very first single, say Anything, I think came from the first session. Yeah,

it's exactly for the first session for the album. Did you have the idea in mind then? Did you think, yeah, we're making a disco album right from the start? Um. When I went in for that session, it was it was more it was more for fun and just to kind of settle myself. And I wanted to put um Biffs at it, Biff Standard and John Green together because I've worked with for a long time John just for a short time. Well, I was quite sure that something good would come of putting the three of this in

a room together. Um. So yeah, I hadn't although disco is our dance floors on my mind. Um, I think with this particular session, I didn't want to label it as anything. Just let's get together and see what happens. And that's when Say Something was written. And then earlier this year, once we decided, okay, the album it's going to be called disco. This is the lane that we're

going down. And for a while I was I was thinking, how how say Something going to fit into this because we didn't write that disco in mind, but we've felt like it had a bit of state of independence kind of feeling. I mean, we wish but you know, kind of could latch onto that in a kind of seventies vibe, and it turned out had enough to be in the disco theme. But I didn't go into that session saying

fellas it's disco, right. But it's also so striking because it is the first single we heard from this record, and it comes from last September, so it's from the before times before we you know, before COVID. But thematically, when when you first heard it, you know that that opening line, we're a million miles apart in a thousand, a thousand ways, it felt so of the moment. It felt almost like it was created in reaction to to

where we were. Yeah, I mean, I've heard a number of artists say similar things with songs that they wrote just before drama of I guess it's just a reminder of the power of music that making it is one thing, but how it translates and what it becomes in the real world is is something you can't predict. You can't you can't even really manifest. You just have to let it go and see what happens. First thing, I didn't know if that song would even make it on the album.

It was so beautifully odd that I was I was kind of preparing to resign myself to potentially the fact that they would. They the label would say, yeah, we pould like it, but we just don't think it's going to hit the mark. So then when it was on the album and then selected as the first unanimously as the first single, I just I thought I kicked a

goal through the posts. There we go. And then this year through Lockdown, when I finished was finishing the album at home and listened to that song in its in its stages because we added to it and developed it through this year, And there was one day I listened to it just outside, and I mean it just it was like we didn't we hadn't written it. It was like it fell from the sky and it was saying something that we needed to hear. It was amazing, I

mean sad and wonderful and amazing. You know you you just mentioned the all the drama of do I have this right? Did I read that? Right before Lockdown started? You had a concert in Brazil? Yeah, I had in San Paula, like about just about a week before I

did so, sixth of March. I'm not great with dates, but I definitely remember the sixth of March because we knew that there was uncertainty in the air, and I would say for the two weeks leading up to that gig, I was just waiting for the phone call saying canceled, We're not going, which would have been absolutely fine, of course, but yeah, we went, and it was just it was that last It was my last big show, and thankfully we all got there and back and everyone was safe.

And that's great to hear how big those Brazilian crowds can be, cuge, how big a crowd was. It wasn't one of those mega, enormous, endless brazil million crowds. It wasn't like a rock and Rio or something like that, but it was a sizeable crowd whose passion. I mean, I don't think I heard anything four songs. I literally was looking at my band, looking at my sound monitor guy, just like I'm singing. I could I don't know if I'm singing remotely and key in time. It was just

like this this wave of emotion. And I know they're famous for it, but we still hadn't quite prepared ourselves for it. So yeah, my last big show that I did is you know still ringing in my ears? Actually sorry, the last show full stop and just under the Wire too, because if that's March six, I guess that's about ten days before the stay at Home orders come down. And how much of the album was was done by that because you you were you at that point had the

concept in mind and some songs finished. Yeah, So I would have been in the studio before going to sub polo and then for sure when I got back, and I would say even in those last a few days between arriving back from Spollo and the lockdown in London, I was we were I say we were. We were at a strong cantor not galloping, but a strong canter as far as the album goes like We've got you know, you work so hard every day and then I mean I get consumed by it. So I was in and

out of studios until the day before Lockdown. Actually, I think maybe the day before Lockdown we wrote I Love It. But we were aware in various sessions and different writers that Lockdown was blooming. It hadn't been um, it wasn't the date wasn't determined, but we were aware of it. So it was definitely creeping into the writing process at that time. So two questions, what's that like, you're you're you're in a cantor you're you're making this record and

it's a dance party record and then everything stops? And what were you feeling at that moment when things ground to a halt. Was there any sense of, oh, maybe maybe it's time for a sad singer songwriter record or are we really going to the disco still? I mean, what, how how soon were you back at work and what were your feevors? You know what. I'd have to even I'd have to look at emails and messages because it's

a bit of a blur that time. As soon as lockdown happened and there wasn't There were no no planes, hard any cars. It was just that eerie silence, the uncertainty. We didn't know if this was this two weeks, three weeks, are we going to kind of go back to normal

or so we all thought. We all thought a month would be a long time, like it'll be over a month, come on, Yes, So I think it was I want to say, maybe three weeks or so before I really started thinking about I could be wrong at the time that even now, time is very strange, you know, was was it this morning or was it six months ago? Which Thursday is this? Is this the Thursday that was yesterday?

Or the Thursday that the same, right exactly? So anyway, I think when it became evident that we weren't going back, you know, I'm not going to see you in the studio, then I must have, you know, I wanted to carry on. I don't even know how this was decided, or whether I spoke to one of my producers and said, well, let's try and do remote. I actually can't remember it was. It's all a bit of a haze around there. But I did remember that I had a basic microphone and

an interface somewhere. Thankfully it was in my home and I found it in a cupboard, which to me it was the first miracle. I had never used them before. So I was thinking, right, okay, it looks like it looks like that cable goes with that, and I think I could. I mean, I've never plugged I've never plugged it in. So I was sending pictures to one of my producers says, yeah, that looks all right, Yeah, you just do that that and that, and start on garage but garage band, and you know, we can at least

get some demos done. We weren't thinking about remote recording like proper session recording, just carrying on the writing process. And so we did it like that for a little bit, and then it wasn't too long before one of my other producers, Timmy Brunilla, who's I mean, they're all a bit. They're all a bit often like anyway with their equipment and the gear and how you technically do this. But Timu was amazing. He arranged the mic for me, he was talking with the people in um where were they

in nodding him? I think was a company that collated all the pieces together, sorted out the laptop with pro tools, with logic, with just the stuff I needed, and did test sessions with them. So he was like my my fairy team, my fairy princess. And he's a finish writer producer who worked on the first three tracks I know, Magic, miss a Thing, Real Groove, he worked on all of those. And do I have this right? You've never actually met

him face to face? Correct. I was due to fly to l A for a two week writing session with him. In March, so obviously that didn't happen, so we did everything remotely. Yeah, I only know him from the waist up in two dimensional form. I cannot wait to meet. How did you first connect? Then you were going to go for a writing session in l A. How did how did the two of you come together to get even that on the calendar? That was from the song Magic, which my I and r Jamie Nelson got hold of

and we all fell in love with that track. We thought, this is this is really good and also the real group and missed thing. So the Trifector, the first three songs um had seem Me on them, so that felt like I finished those with with the writers and producers.

But yeah, we he was like we felt like he could be a conduit for us to access disco, but have it cool and have a kind of for one of a better way to say itause, I'm sure this has been used to thousand times and put my stamp on it and a modern stamp on it as opposed to it being a pastiche and cover. Because any disco songs you're going to reference, you can't. There's no point to do them again. They're just perfect and that became

a bit of a you know, like something to contend with. Actually, you'd think, on paper, Kylie disco, Sure, we'll do this in no time, but actually it was it really required a bit of um, you know, chipping away, looking from different angles and how close can we go to it, you know, referencing Abba Begs, Donna, Summer Shake, etcetera, etcetera. Because what you wanted to make wasn't just a disco in a sense of, oh, we're gonna make a dance pop record which maybe has some thumb popping bass on

a tracker. To you, you know you you were referencing and taking inspiration from a lot of classic grooves. I know you brought up Lionel Richie. You just mentioned Abba and I definitely hear that on a couple of different tracks. Donna Summer Studio fifty four is mentioned. You know, like the touchstones are all there, and if you've got to set those as your touchdones, you you you better get

the group better be right. But you also wanted to be something more than we We would start some things and go, okay, let's get a baseline that's similar to blah blah, I kind of remember what but just didn't hit you know. So anyway, thanks to amazing producers and tenacity and as I say, chipping away and looking at

it from different angles, we got there. And it transpires that the roots of disco are seventies my you know, I fell in love with disco back then, but then it morphed through the years and there's a bit of eighties electronica, um you know, some some parts of that then even some self referencing in early two thousand's when I had a bit of disc like a bit of

electro disco then. So yeah, it's turned out to be a thankfully not just rooted in this, not just a tracing And it's so interesting to me be you were just talking about recording your vocals at home. You started out with the idea that you were going to work on demos, and you ended up with a vocal engineering and production credit on the record. Like you you had to learn a little bit of uh studio craft as

it were. And I love the idea that your your studio seems to have been in a cupboard but then grew into a more sophisticated Yeah, it was in boxes in the cupboard. Yeah, I ended up I took delivery of one microphone that timod source for me from Finland that was broken in transit. You wouldn't know what to look at it. But yeah, we tried recording on that and it was just you know, like in Lockdown, everything took so much longer. Delivery vans were, you know, just

to get a delivery of anything. So I completely understood that it took longer to get these bits and pieces and then for that part to a write, well a very important part to arrive and be broken. So we got a long story shot again, we got another one by the time. It's funny when you have these experiences and your home alone, so there's no one to share it with and to kind of share that memory with.

I'm just thinking back to receiving all the other parts, your stand, your pop shielders, surround the interface, that top that like just all of it with you know, wrestling the boxes and up and down the stairs and where do they go, and it must all looked pretty hilarious. But when the microphone arrived in this box like a like a flight case, just like a little yeah flight case, and I swear to God when I opened it up, there might have been angels going. I was like, ah,

there it is, like this is this is it? Unpack it and I just remember that you don't drop the microphone. Don't drop it. Tim's team is explained to me to make sure it's always off when you move. Just basics you get stuff. But I've never had to do it before. So yeah, I got it set up in my lounge room. But that's not that's not until I had already set it up elsewhere and had my first connection with Timy to test it, and he said, m that sounds terrible,

like that's I just think small room. But I had to take everything out of the room to get the stuff into the room. It wasn't a size of a couvert, but small enough. So then I thought, okay, I'm going to move. I moved it again to the lounge room and then I had to kind of try and sound proof it enough. So I got boardrobe racks and had Dubet's I don't know if you call them dubets over there, dooners,

Dubet's rug just kind of whatever I could. So you had to build a little a little pillow for it is it were to kind of dampen the sound of it. Thankfully it didn't have to be, because I've seen some great pictures through a lockdown of actors doing a d R where they literally kind of under two chairs with a dot on top of it. I didn't have to go to that extreme, but just just try and dull the room a bit for that for that additional dialogue recording that they have to create their own whisper room,

which basically means you have to put a blanket over you. Yeah, so I wasn't. I wasn't kind of hunched under or anything. I have my space, but yeah, what a what a crazy time. So again I didn't, you know, I didn't really know when we would finish. There was no date that we said it has to be finished by this time. And I've asked myself if I hadn't started recording before Lockdown,

would i've what would I have written? If anything? I think it was easy for me to continue because, as I said before, we had our momentum and got the d n A. We've kind of broken the back of what's the soundscape of this album? This is it? We just need we just need to keep writing and writing until we think we've got all the songs. So I think that was the that helped me be that tenacious through lockdown and throw myself into it. Those are some of the rewards, are the pleasure of having a purpose

of direction, something to do during this time. But but what were some of the challenges, Because you've talked a little bit, talked a little bit about working remotely miss the thing and having a bit of a meltdown working with him. Yeah, I will say, to me, write some amazing melodies, and I think the picture of his and

he's got amazing voice, very unique equality to it. And so when I was finishing those songs with him, and we're going through singing it through and through before we got to recording, even then I said, do you think what about taking it down a half a tone or maybe even a full tone? Is okay, Sure, let's try that. We'll try it. And and then I've just got to call a spade a spade. And he's right, and I know it because I can hear it myself. It's like

it's just not not hitting the same. But even though I was thinking this is a this is going to be just a more challenging song to sing parts of it. So when we got to recording it. We I would record with Timo, then he would work with his his co producer, Nico Study in l A. So this just this kind of triangle on that on those records, and a lot of that was really getting used to the remote set up, getting used to my mic, which he loved and sky adam so everyone loved that. You know,

the setup worked. But for those from Mrs Mr Think particularly, I would like, I've never been closer to a mike, some kind of you say you right on, like I could not and literally could not be closer to them, like okay, okay, good go. And I was just one of those ones that was a bit of a challenge for me, and we, ah, now it's coming back to me. We did the vocals for that, they went to Nico, they came back to Team, they produced them, and then he said, now we've now we know what to do

with this mike. Could we do it again? Could we re record those bits? And I was thinking, yeah, sure sure, because then he realized to get that sound on that song, you needed me really close on the mic. So we did it again. And when you're that close in the mic, there's nowhere to run or hide. It's like every every teeny thing you do, you just I don't know, it's like it's like being enough so you mean, it picks up every noise you're making, your mouth everything, so you're

so close. And it was a day that I was exhausted. I think we got back to rerecording it kind of near the end or having done. You know, I'm trying to remember four or five weeks in a row of really going for it and me kind of almost executive producing the album, myself setting updates and juggling people and kids and deliveries and foods and not my kids, them and their kids, and acknowledging the stress of lockdown, simultaneously knowing I'm one of the lucky ones I can work

and and be creative. But still it um it did get to me at a point. And I think it just when we were doing the re record for Miss the Thing, because I was I felt a bit challenged by anyway. I didn't go the full cry, but Timu could. You know, by this time, I've spent many, many, many hours with Timu. And it's like that in the studio, whether you're in an actual studio or a remote studio, you can't. You can't hide what's happening in your real life.

And I think it could have been any of my producers that you know, it's if you're working with good, understanding people and you're having a day where you just can't quite do it. So like timor I just I think what it did was just awful. Can we I might have to call it a day, And he's like, no problem, no problem. The irony is he used the vocals from that day, So it was more my mind

that was messing with me than actually what I was singing. Um, So yeah, definitely with everyone I worked with remotely, we were all riding out a little roller coasters of emotions each time. Let me ask you about that about working remotely, because, as you say, when you're in a studio, it can be, you know, a long pressured situation. Some songs, some days, some nights can go on forever. But there are people around, and when you're working on a track, you can sense

in the room whether it's working or not. But when you're working remotely, particularly on dance music, and there's no dance floor around or maybe nobody to dance, how do you know when it's working? Did you did you like test drive or test dance some of these songs or how did you know when they were right? Good question. No, there wasn't really a dance test, just the same way as usual, I guess, but it was. It was very weird not to be able to be in the room together.

And even towards the end of like finishing up the album, we're still saying, well, maybe maybe when it's released we can have a listening party just the people who worked on it. No, we can't, so we still haven't had that moment, and I as and when we can, I would dearly love to have everyone who know all my producers who worked on this and co writers, just like to have our own really daggy disco, like the worst disco over but well, it would be the best thing

ever for us. It's certainly know all the words. You deserve it if anyone deserves a dance party, celebration. I mean you guys who've made this record do. But you mentioned Sky Adams before, and I want to ask you about Sky. You worked with him on Golden and he contributed a lot to this record, and he worked on two my favorite tracks, U super No and Celebrate. You tell me about him. Tell me about working with him. How did you guys first connect and what is working

with him? Like, we're first connected. I didn't connect with him, but he came into my life when the always great Jamie Nelson my A and R sent him the working tape of Dancing, written with Steve McEwen and Nathan Chapman in Nashville. So, yeah, Dancing originally in its in its work tape form was slower. It was part of my introduction to working in Nashville. They write the song. It's not always produced, it doesn't have what it's going to be. It's just here's the bones of this song, and then

you can build on and produce it. Produce it. However, so Jamie sent that to Sky Adams, and I remember hearing that. I was with my girlfriend in South France and an email come through with Sky's rework of Dancing. It was one of those moments I just I knew it. I was so excited. I would not have ever imagined it like that. And the extra he puts some different instrumentation, and I mean he basically had he produced it. So that's the first time I had heard of Sky Adams.

And then I went into the studio with him for Golden and he is so fast paced. He is, he's amazing. There's no there is no stop in that train, and I tell you, so, you've got to kind of get into Skyland. It's really fast. And a big difference working with him remotely in Lockdown is I got to see his face because there's a something I would never have

thought of. But when we're in the studio, it's the back of his head with his amazing green and blue afro just and he's there and he has the music really loud, and sometimes me and the co writer will be like, Okay, it's so loud, but you know, you go with it. And so working remotely, I got to see his face on the screen a lot. That's so so the distance, the social distancing was more of a face to face experience in this case. Yeah, very Actually

it really was. Um I mean, I wish it was other, but just something I would never have even had in my mind before. So with Sky before Lockdown, we were working in the studio a couple of collaborators. He works with a lot um and then I had a session with him and Megan Katone. So that was the first time I've met Megan and she's an awesome writer as well. So our remote sessions was sky Megan and myself, and even that we had to figure out how does this work?

A two way zoom is okay, three way when you're listening to music is you're just not hearing the same thing. So we we ended up finding out way in our rhythm for the remote sessions where we'd all get together for the initial what are we doing today, figure out our melody, our concept, and then Scott'd say, right, I'm

out and be back in half an hour. So Megan and I would carry on doing the lyrics and then we'd all, you know, we'd he'd come back into the session and we'd say, okay, this is what we got, what do you think? And then you know, just just like a normal writing session, and then uh yeah. Normally, Megan had a very easy set up at her place. She's a that's a trait, she's a songwriter, so she

would be able to put down the demos. So at least we had ah by the end of the day, I kind of a sketch of what we were doing, and then later once we decided which songs that we're going to go on the album, then I'd record them. Miss guy, the disco sound is happen. I mean, we're having a moment in right, We're back to this and and I know you've talked about this. I know people have asked you about this, but that that desire to return to fund to do something fun. It's not like

we just need it now in Quarantine. It's not like was the banner year that I want to remember either, if you know what I mean, Like it is a necessary sense of escape and relief, but it's also really poigned to hear these songs about connecting on a dance floor and finding love. And you know, at this moment when we can't connect on a dance floor anywhere else, how how how's it felt to you to have this kind of music in Yeah, I think that how can

I explain this? A lot of the music could be hearing, maybe not so much now, but certainly in the previous months. Was of course it was done last year. So disco is having a big moment this year. I think that's the Zeke guys. That's like I didn't know that duo was making a disco album. She didn't know that someone else is going to make a disco album. Jessie Ware didn't know. Like, it's just it's surround, and I just think it's big because of this year. It's um, I

don't know, I found it. Maybe you've heard me talk about this before, but I've found all these correlations between disco music and this year that disco was born out of darkness, that was born out of struggle and adversity and people trying to find a place to belong and be accepted and express themselves and all of that kind

of stuff. And even I'm just looking at what we've got, like you know, starfields and all of that is trying to find the light in the darkness and either dance your way through it or so yeah, it's finding the light in the darkness and then going to And I don't know if this is too poetic, but it makes sense in my mind, and sometimes you have to latch onto poetic things anyway that you're that disco ball. It just needs that one light on it and then it

refracts light everywhere. And and I think whether you are aware of that when you listen to disco music, well, if you're aware of it, you get it. But even if you're not. Perhaps it's just it's just part of it's it's being disco. I don't know that they're not all happy songs, but you can find happiness within them, or at least an understanding, you know, a lost sense of belonging. I'm not the only one feeling like this.

You understand me. You have troubles. I mean, I've got this songs on this like Supernova, which is it's it's almost mumbo jumbo. That is total escapeism. Um. But yeah, something like to celebrate you is you're swaying and you feel kind of happy, but there's a there's a sadness to it, but you're you're going with it. I mean, I have to tell you, I was listening this morning and the lyric last Chance for First Dance popped out at me, and I got I got a little emotional,

I got a little children that's in last Chance. Yeah. Yeah, And I'm not gonna I don't think I'm ever going to make I can't make a Woe is Me album. That's not my life. I'm very grateful for everything I have, but you know, we're all human and we have emotions and we have to go through life. What the hand it deals as as some is. It's good and sometimes it's a little more challenging. But for everyone this year,

of course, it's been a challenge. So yeah, I think we started talking about the escapism and dance music and the disco music and the joy that that's brought a feelth going off topic a bit, no, I mean this is this is exactly right. These are great things to talk about, and I think we're grateful to have from you a music that gives us a chance. Is the old saying goes to dance our way out of our restrictions.

You know, it's the liberation of of movement and rock and roll and dance music and disco the way it liberates the body. That's that's where it all started. Yeah, totally. And when I look back at songs that were done in Lockdown or just prior to Lockdown, like I'm trying to paint the picture of moveing my home studio, just being so focused and working on things after the calls were finished or prepping for them. But it was it was one of my my coping mechanisms as well, to

really throw myself into it. I mean, whenever it's writing for an album or fight trying to find the songs for an album. I'm pretty obsessive about it anyway. Just it's like, oh, I'm not in it's not stage moment, it's not a public moment. This is just focus focus, and I love it. I really really enjoy the challenge. So yeah, in Lockdown, I mean maybe I went even further with that or had nowhere to you know, it wasn't going out to go to the studio and come back.

It was just there was always there. But I think of some of the lyrics that that we wrote, um, like like Supernova, it feels like we just want to get out of here. We just want to go being out in space where anything is possible and leave this this world behind. You know, everything's kind of magic and amazing out there in our minds anyway, and it's all it's all about possibilities, nothing stopping us out there. But

I don't think that's what we were. I think it was I think it was coming from our subconscious at the time. We're just like, what are we doing? How can we make this song? Well, we're grateful to you for getting it out of your subconscious and and getting it to the rest of us, because we did need a chance to move around a little bit, get up off the cap a lot of it, even if we can't get all the way out there b pm on this album is it really gets going. It starts slow,

it eases you in, then before you know, it's super over. Um. Then we'll just give you a little bit of a brightness, say something and then it pretty much gallops to the end and we wind you down with celebrate you unless it's the deluxe edition and then we have to get back out on the dance floor again. Yeah, well more, yeah, well, Kylie, thank you so much for being with us this is This has been terrific, and congratulations again and thanks for sharing the disco machic. Thank you so much. M hmmm.

Inside the Studio is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, check out the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. M HM