1993 – 1998

Minogue's subsequent signing with Deconstruction Records was highly touted in the music media as the beginning of a new phase in her career, but the eponymous Kylie Minogue (1994) received mixed reviews. It sold 2,500,000 copies worldwide, and the single Confide in Me spent five weeks at number one in Australia. Subsequent singles, Put Yourself in My Place and Where Is the Feeling? were top twenty hits in the UK.


The music video for Where the Wild Roses Grow (1995) (left) was inspired by John Everett Millais' Ophelia (1851/52) (right).
Australian artist Nick Cave had been interested in working with Minogue since hearing Better the Devil You Know, saying it contained one of pop music's most violent and distressing lyrics and when Kylie Minogue sings these words, there is an innocence to her that makes the horror of this chilling lyric all the more compelling. Where the Wild Roses Grow (1995), was a brooding ballad whose lyrics narrated a murder from the points of view of both the murderer (Cave), and his victim (Minogue), and its success demonstrated that Minogue could be accepted outside of her established genre as a pop artist. It received widespread attention in Europe, where it reached the top 10 in several countries, and acclaim in Australia where it reached number two, and won ARIA Awards for Song of the Year and Best Pop Release. She performed it with Cave at the Australian summer rock festival, The Big Day Out before a crowd of alternative music fans, and was well received. She also appeared with Cave during several of his concerts in small venues throughout Europe, as well as the T in the Park festival in Scotland which gave her more experience performing outside of the dance/pop genre and before audiences that were not necessarily her fans. She recited the lyrics to I Should Be So Lucky as poetry in London's Royal Albert Hall Poetry Jam, at the suggestion of Cave, and later credited him with giving her the confidence to express herself artistically, saying: He taught me to never veer too far from who I am, but to go further, try different things, and never lose sight of myself at the core. For me, the hard part was unleashing the core of myself and being totally truthful in my music.

Audio samples:
Confide in Me (1994)

A slow tempo dance track with Minogue's vocals over layers of strings and drumbeats.
Where the Wild Roses Grow (1995)

With Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, a ballad about murder which brought Minogue credibility and a more alternative audience.
Did It Again (1997)

Contains an aggressive vocal style, with alternative and Eastern musical influences.

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By 1997 Minogue was in a relationship with the French photographer Stephane Sednaoui, who described her as a combination geisha and manga superheroine. He began taking photographs of her that downplayed her glamour, with the aim of attracting a more 'rocky' and discerning audience, and she drew inspiration from artists such as Shirley Manson and Garbage, Bj?rk, Tricky and U2, and Japanese pop musicians such as Pizzicato Five and Towa Tei (with whom she would later collaborate on the singles GBI: German Bold Italic and Sometime Samurai).

Impossible Princess (named after a poetry collection by artist Billy Childish) featured collaborations with musicians such as James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore of the Manic Street Preachers, and Minogue contributed the majority of the lyrics. Largely a dance album, its style was not represented by its first single Some Kind of Bliss, and Minogue countered questions that she was trying to become an indie artist. She told Music Week, I have to keep telling people that this isn't an indie-guitar album. I'm not about to pick up a guitar and rock. Billboard magazine described the album as stunning and concluded that it's a golden commercial opportunity for a major [record company] with vision and energy [to release it in the United States]. A sharp ear will detect a kinship between Impossible Princess and Madonna's hugely successful album, Ray of Light. In the UK, Music Week gave a negative assessment, Kylie's vocals take on a stroppy edge ... but not strong enough to do much.

It became the lowest-selling album of her career in the UK, but was her highest-selling album in Australia since her debut album, with sales boosted by a highly successful live tour. In reviewing her show, The Times wrote of her ability to mask her thin, often nondescript voice with musical diversity and brittle charisma and genuinely great pop songs by any standard, and a live album recorded during her tour, titled Intimate and Live, was successful in Australia.

She maintained her high profile in Australia with live performances, including the 1998 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, the opening of Fox Studios in Sydney in 1999, where she performed Marilyn Monroe's Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend, and a Christmas concert in Dili, East Timor in association with the United Nations Peace-Keeping Forces.