FEATURE:
I Begin to Wonder
PHOTO CREDIT: Pedro Alvarez/The Guardian
a significant one for Dannii Minogue. One half of possibly the most famous musical sibling pairings ever, she turns fifty-five in October. Whilst Kylie Minogue continues to put out incredible albums and go on these acclaimed tours, there has not been as much music from Dannii Minogue. I am a big fan of Kylie Minogue and have been since a child, and I also listened to Dannii Minogue’s music growing up. That brings me to her first international album, Love and Kisses. This was released on 3rd June, 1991. It has its thirty-fifth anniversary, so I wonder whether Dannii Minogue will celebrate it. Love and Kisses went to number eight in the U.K. and did receive some positive reviews. On 30th July, 2025, production for Australian/U.K. co-commissioned series, Imposter, announced that Minogue had been cast to the series, in her first major television role since Home and Away. Minogue is busy with television work at the moment, though I wonder whether she will bring out new music. I would love to see the Minogue sisters take to the stage together or even combine on record. The two albums she has released this century have been terrific. That makes the albums sound ancient, but they were both released in the first decade of this century. Neon Nights came out in 2003 and won Dannii Minogue some of the best reviews of her career. Seen as a cult classic and lauded because of its seamless blend of genres and styles, Dannii Minogue then followed that with 2007’s Club Disco. Arguably her best album, it was this great duo of albums. Not to compare Dannii Minogue to her sister, but Kylie released Light Years in 2000 and Fever in 2001. A remarkable couple of albums seen as a reinvention, there was this comparison when Dannii Minogue released these two magnificent albums, Neon Nights and Club Disco. Although those albums did not get the true credit they deserve.
I do feel like that was the start of a new chapter for Dannii Minogue. Love and Kisses has that big anniversary coming later in the year. I wonder whether it will spark something in Minogue and she is thinking of another album. There would definitely be call for it. I want to bring a couple of fairly recent interviews in with Dannii Minogue. A hugely important artist who I feel has material up her sleeve. I do want to come to a 2023 interview with The Guardian. Dannii Minogue was being interviewed about the new show, I Kissed a Boy. Minogue is this L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ champion, and she won huge praise for her presenting on this show. She did mention how she has been asked about music:
“Minogue’s coronation almost certainly took place some time between the early 90s, when she was one of the first bona fide pop stars to play G-A-Y nightclub in London, and this February, when she delighted crowds at Sydney WorldPride with her surprise duet with her sister, Kylie. Maybe it was when she sang at Pride in London in 1997, or when she posed naked except for a red ribbon on World Aids Day in 2004.
“This has been a part of my life since I started working, since I was a child,” she says. Now 51, Minogue began her career on Young Talent Time, a popular Australian variety show. “I knew there were people that I worked with who were gay, and I just thought that was completely normal.”
In the 90s, the media were not so progressive. “Artists were terrified,” she says. “Outing people was a thing.” For many, performing at gay bars wasn’t an option: gay artists didn’t want to be outed and straight artists were worried they would be deemed gay by association. “I’ve heard so many stories of people who were told: ‘No, you can’t be visible … that is gonna kill your career.’ I just thought: ‘Stuff it – say what you want about me, because you do anyway!’”
This is how a glammed-up Minogue finds herself in a photography studio to promote BBC Three’s new gay dating show, I Kissed a Boy. “I can’t believe we’re in 2023 saying it’s Britain’s first gay dating show ever. When those words spill out of my mouth, I’m in shock,” says Minogue. She loves being back in the UK, but is struggling with the separation from her 12-year-old son, Ethan. Still, she says: “It’s great for his growth … And mine!” I am about a foot taller than the 5ft 2in (1.57m) Minogue, and a lot less striking (she is wearing a black, off-the-shoulder evening gown), so it’s hard not to feel like Shrek next to her on the sofa.
Her recording career bounced back, with a trio of albums showcasing a more mature, electro-dance-pop sound. But after the release of Club Disco (2007), Minogue was ready to step back. That decision was confirmed in 2010 when she had her son with her then-partner, the former rugby player Kris Smith. “It takes a toll on your body, touring. Now, I get asked a lot about music and I’m like: it’s incredibly hard for me to do that the way I want to do it and be a mum the way I want to be.” It is impossible, she says, not to think about bath time and bedtime on stage. “It’s really oil and water.”
Still, she did manage nine Top 10 UK singles. Does she feel her music career is underrated? “It’s always been and always will be compared with Kylie’s success,” she says. “But all I can do is be happy with what I’ve done. If I look at that on its own: amazing. But I also don’t compare myself with Beyoncé or Mariah Carey”.
Maybe Dannii Minogue sees music as something in the past. The legacy she has left. What is notable is how what an impression her music has made. I will end with Classic Pop and their 2025 interview. Speaking with Dannii Minogue fifteen years after Neon Nights was released – an album compared to Kylie Minogue’s Fever and Madonna’s Confessions on a Dance Floor -, Minogue reflects on a career turning point:
“Neon Nights was, in a sense, validation for Minogue, who, in contrast to her older sibling, Kylie, has had a bit of a raw deal from the media over the years. Her close friend, author Kathy Lette, has referred to the perception that Dannii was: “The B-side to Kylie’s A.” Not only is this an unfair perception, it’s also inaccurate. Dannii, after all, made it big before Kylie, rising to prominence in the early 80s in the Australian television talent show Young Talent Time.
“I was the one who invited Kylie on the show to come and sing with me. I was proud of my sister and we did a duet of Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves. I wanted to show everyone, this is my sister and she sings, too. Then she came on tour with us and I was just so happy to be up there with her. Years later, she invited me to do a duet of Kids with her in concert. Then we did the 100 Degrees Christmas song. When we bring each other into our world, it is like: ‘This is my sister and I’m proud.’ We had fun doing stuff together. Don’t forget, we were dancing around and annoying our family for many years before we were allowed to do it on stage. I think our parents were relieved that they didn’t have to sit through it anymore!”
She insists Lette’s description didn’t bother her. “I think what was harder was people saying: ‘Oh, you decided to go into singing because your sister does’. But I had sung for years and years, and there’s so much out in the public domain, that it was just unbelievable to me that people would say that. I’ve done it my whole life, and invited my sister to come and do it with me. But I’m just continuing to do what I do, to the best of my ability. I do stuff that I enjoy and I don’t want anyone to try to take that away from me.”
The tabloid press, of course, delights in creating division, and so it was with the Minogue sisters. Over the years, Dannii has found it alternately amusing and annoying, but mostly difficult.
“Exhausting is probably the best word because it went on for so long, no matter what either of us said or did, or who we were or what happened. I couldn’t face being asked about it anymore. Answering the same thing when nobody hears the answers – so, stop asking me the questions! But I guess social media changed everything, when artists could be in control of their story and translating that through to, not just their fans and friends, but to everyone. Communicating who they are and what they’re doing without things being twisted. When that happened, it got rid of that so quickly, and it never came back. Then it was like: ‘Okay, I literally exhausted myself answering that question so many times… and for what?’”
It’s clear the two enjoy a close relationship and that Dannii is full of admiration for Kylie.
“As she’s grown, I’ve seen an inner strength that I never knew… She’s always been a fighter and really fiery, working hard to get what she wants, but she does everything with a lot of kindness. Her whole thing is to make people happy. That’s all she wants to do. I’ve had some incredible moments, as her sister, to see how she is with people. I think her fans know that and can share that together. I’ll go and see her in concert and I can stand by the side of the stage and look down on the audience and see everyone’s faces – she’s doing exactly what she went on stage to do. Everyone has smiles on their faces and the love is reciprocal. She’s managed to sustain that for a long, long, long time, regardless of the challenges that she’s had to go through.”
What’s perhaps surprising is that the pair haven’t collaborated as much as either they – or we – would like them to have done. There was a live duet of Kids during Kylie’s 2006 Showgirl: The Homecoming Tour in Melbourne, and 100 Degrees on 2015’s Kylie Christmas. Surely, there are more expansive plans to work together? Well… disappointingly not.
“There’s nothing in the pipeline at the moment, but there will always be stuff. We’re just connected and we love getting together and sharing ideas, thinking about what we can do. And there’s a lot of stuff that makes us giggle, that we talk about doing but we know we’ll never do! It’s good to just explore it in our minds. It’s there and it will definitely keep popping up.”
Meanwhile, Dannii – who became a mum to Ethan in 2010 – is involved as executive producer and host on a new Australian TV reality show, Dance Boss, and suggests she may return to the studio at some stage.
“I’ve got a couple of tracks that I’ve worked on. I’ve got plans for them and if it happens, it happens. If there’s no stress involved, then I’m all for it. But I guess my life has taken a shift in balance, being a mum. It was a mch easier project to be obsessed about for much longer when I wasn’t a mum. But since it’s so much easier now to release music, why not?”
For now, she can’t wait for her own copy of the Neon Nights vinyl. “We’ve worked really hard on putting everything together, going through all the photos again. I listened to every song over and over and over and over. I’ve checked every lyric and corrected stuff that wasn’t right! I wanted this to be something I am so proud of, and I’ve got the time. I didn’t get that finicky about that sort of stuff back when I was releasing it the first time. I was on the road, doing shows and promoting. Yeah, I’m really excited about the vinyl. I’m going to frame it!”
I am going to wrap up. I do love Dannii Minogue’s music, so I’d like to think that there is more music coming from this legend. I would also urge people to look at this interview with Attitude last year. Danii Minogue was “reflecting on the empathy that has shaped her connection with the LGBTQ+ community as she's honoured with the Ally Award at the 2025 Virgin Atlantic Attitude Awards, powered by Jaguar”. Even though she has T.V. work and is a mum, many of her fans would love to see another album. Love and Kisses turns thirty-five on 3rd June. Minogue did suggest ion that interview that she has a few tracks done/written. Hope that we could get another album from this incredible artist. That really would be…
AN incredible gift.