The Kylie fembot first went on the market in 1986 via the soap opera Neighbours, and went on to became ubiquitous in households across the world – but, with twin revolutions in media and pop music overtaking the once state-of-the-art invention, obsolescence can't be far away, writes TARA BRADY
THE EARLIEST prototypes were dinky, but there was nothing to suggest that it would one day become a ubiquitous household product. Launched with little fanfare during the 1980s, the Model T looked like just another novelty in a decade defined by Rubik’s Cubes and foam hammers.
The original – an official sister product to the already successful Danni – was a relatively unsophisticated but fortuitously timed attraction. Like early Barbie variants cut from paper and vegetables, its homely charms arrived on the market just as mummies and pre-teens were creating an entirely new demographic: the tweenie.
The Model T was not available in any shops but was distributed exclusively through the daytime drama Neighbours. At a time when Aussie soaps were the new must-have imports, and gap years in the Outback were becoming standard, this proved an astute platform for the Oz-based multinational we now know as Kylie Inc (formerly Kylie Minogue Inc).
Nowadays, the same brand enjoys enough corporate razzmatazz to make those messianic Apple rallies look like two-bit revival tents. "Fifty tonnes of equipment" valued at $25,000,000! A 4D Wet Zone utilising some 11,000 gallons of water nightly! 9,000 amps of power! Strangely, this is not an emergency rescue plan for Japanese infrastructure; this is the publicity literature for the oxymoronically titled Kylie Minogue: Aphrodite – Les Folies 2011. Try not to look surprised. Kylie Inc has always been about the technical specs. Regular customers and shareholders can and will argue that there's more to it than the hardware. But long-term market watchers know that the diminutive machine's power has always derived from the impersonal and the electronic.
From the get-go, the corporation’s forays in to the music industry have depended on cross-promotions and inhuman sounds. Run a slide rule across the back catalogue and the mechanics become apparent. The more robotic and bland the commotion, the more units are shifted.
Kylie Inc accordingly owes its greatest musical successes to early Stock Aitken and Waterman key-change software and to the veritable army of synth hacks – Steve Anderson, Rob Davis, Cathy Dennis, Pascal Gabriel, Julian Gallagher, Tom Nichols – hired in to assemble the 2001 album Fever.
All attempts to bestow humanity on pop’s most manufactured sensation have been thoroughly and repeatedly rebuffed by clients. Released in 1997, the fake indie musings of Impossible Princess failed to impress even loyal consumers.
They wanted a Fembot Kylie, not a Real Girl. And that’s precisely what they got.
Launched at the dawn of the millennium, just as lad culture and raunch culture hit fever pitch, the KylieBot was emblematic of a screwy new era in gender-machine relations. This was not a Metropolis dynamo; this was a Stepford Spinster. Female yet androgynous, the KylieBot was always happy to flash her hot pants at the boys, yet lacked the womanly attributes to fill out designer Fee Doran’s iconic white hooded dress.
A marvel of the modern age, KylieBot was preprogrammed to zigzag across all known demographics. Laddette consumers could expect a series of toe-tapping hen party anthems. Lads could enjoy the way the new model might giggle realistically and play dumb at a variety of occasions. Accepting a QIdol Award in 2007, KylieBot fluttered its eyelashes and made like Marilyn Monroe: "I would like to thank those of you who continued to support me – including my dress . . . Just don't ask me what it means."
We won’t. If the Fembot has a secret intellectual life or emotional circuitry, she keeps it well hidden. Nobody knows anything about KylieBot. Her personality specs have evidently not been updated in more than 20 years. On 2007’s X, she wanted to write a “personal” song called Cosmic. Hence, the track opens with the lyrics: “I wanted to write a song called Cosmic.” Sleuth hard and you’ll stumble on precisely the same factoids one might equally glean from ancient yellowing Neighbours annuals. KylieBot might like backgammon. KylieBot loves fashion. KylieBot hates it when people accuse her of copying somebody else’s style. KylieBot keeps either hamsters or guinea pigs.
Who could tell really? She speaks, almost exclusively, in Malibu Stacy platitudes: “I have a black girl booty”, “every girl should have a GBF”, “I never imagined what impact a 50p pair of hot pants would have” – and “Madonna is the queen; I’m happy to be the princess of pop.” KylieBot ought to avoid such comparisons. Madonna is the reigning Queen of Appropriation because she takes creative and aesthetic risks.
She’s a frontwoman, not a showgirl. Changing frocks is not the same as killing off Ziggy Stardust, particularly not when William Baker, KylieBot’s creative director for more than a decade, may have selected the frocks in the first place.
Writing in Kylie: La La La, Baker evokes "pop's schizophrenia and the multiple identities contained within the tiny body of Kylie Minogue, from her roots in a Melbourne soap opera to her tour, KylieFever 2002".
KylieBot defenders are invariably fond of concepts such as multiple identities, postmodernism and camp. Their logic is simple. If she wears fabulous feathers in her hair, she must be a po-mo genius, right? If she changes her hairstyle it’s evidence of artistic plurality. If she brings in himbos for promo videos, she’s got to be camp.
The pink pound, in fact, has long been vital to Kylie Inc. Malibu Kylie would have us believe that “there’s nothing tragic about me – only tragic outfits”, yet her public life does indeed coalesce into a Minnelli-worthy production. A cancer survivor with a string of failed romances behind her, KylieBot has stepped out with such unlikely swains as Pauly Shore, Michael Hutchence, Lenny Kravitz, James Gooding, Olivier Martinez, and (currently) Andrés Velencoso.
Several of these prospects turned out to be cads and/or bounders. None of them stayed for long. Even her beleaguered acting career – Mortal Kombatstarring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Kylie, anyone? – makes for cheerier contemplation.
And now the public may be about to follow her many exes out the door. Twin revolutions in media and conveyer-belt pop music have – perhaps fatally – dented Kylie Inc's market share. Last week in an interview with Australia's Sunday Times, KylieBot lashed out at her record company over diminishing sales. "It's confusing," she said. "I felt a little let down with my releases from Aphrodite. I was caught out like a lot of artists were, with record companies figuring out how to do single releases these days."
Aphrodite, her comeback album after braving chemotherapy and battling cancer, ought to have been a smash. Thus far, it has spawned only one top 10 hit in the UK and none in her native Australia. The US hasn't cared since Can't Get You Out of My Head.
It’s not looking good for Kylie Inc. In a marketplace that’s bustling with Lady Gagas and Pinks, the KylieBot is starting to look like the PowerBook 5300, the product that almost felled Apple. There is only so long one can get by on empty signifiers and shoddy vocoder arrangements. And she’s had a better run than most.
It’s time to modernise and find a purpose. To be something more than feathers and hot pants. If not, there’s a pint-sized spot at the Betamax and Dansette Museum beckoning.
Kylie Minogue plays Dublin’s O2 on Tuesday and Wednesday
Soapbox Good neighbours begin bad trends
JASON DONOVAN (SCOTT ROBINSON) Donovan, once Kylie's squeeze on and off screen, was a superstar for 25 minutes. Following a No 1 album, he appeared in a hit revival of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. He will soon be on these shores to play the grumpy dad in The Sound of Music. But we're still waiting for him to get back together with Kylie to the strains of Angry Anderson.
NATALIE IMBRUGLIA (BETH BRENNAN)
Almost a proper star for a time, Imbruglia had a huge hit with a cover of Tornin 1997, then vanished into the ether for a spell. As recently as 2005, her album Counting Down the Dayshit No 1 in the UK charts despite the fact nobody remembers a thing about it. Lately turned up on The X Factor.
CRAIG McLACHLAN (HENRY RAMSAY)
The curly-haired larrikin had a minor hit with Monain 1989 and, after taking the John Travolta role in a revival of Grease, also "graced the charts" with a version of You're the One That I Wantin 1993. Award yourself a Vegemite sandwich if you remembered that Debbie Gibson was his partner in that duet.
DELTA GOODREM (NINA TUCKER)
Goodrem, a recording artist before her appearance in Neighbours, is perhaps best known over here for her liaison with Brian McFadden. Her albums sell millions in Australia.
STEFAN DENNIS (PAUL ROBINSON)
The JR of Ramsay Street did surprisingly well with Don't it Make You Feel Good?in 1989. Dennis was always dismissive of his music career, and he re-emerged in Neighboursseven years ago. He is the only current cast member to have appeared in the first episode.
Don’t forget . . . Holly Valance, Natalie Bassingthwaighte, Alan Fletcher and Stephanie McIntosh. They just won’t stop.
