FEATURE:
Step Back in Time
The Huge Success of Kylie Minogue’s Padam Padam, and Why TikTok and Social Media Proved Pivotal
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EARLIER this week…
PHOTO CREDIT: Erik Melvin
there was something published in the press that made me think. Even though some have called Padam Padam, a comeback single from Kylie Minogue, it really isn’t! She released the album, DISCO, in 2020. Tension (which will be stylised in uppercase) is out on 22nd September. Padam Padam is the opening track from the eleven-track album. It has done sterling business on the charts, and it was a remarkable feat. Kylie Minogue is one of the greatest artists ever but, this far into her career, the fact she is still scoring big chart hits is testament to her talent, appeal, the way she can adapt ands adopt any sound, in addition to the fact new people are discovering her music! It goes to show that you can never keep an icon down. Minogue posted videos thanking her fans for Padam Padam’s success. As she gears up to releasing her sixteenth studio album, there must be a lot of excitement in her camp. I am sure we will get at least one more single before the album release. The explosion around Padam Padam is really pleasing. One of Minogue’s best songs in years, it must rank high in terms of her all-time best. The juggernaut success of the song is both surprising and not at all. Before I go on, The Guardian reported on the news and acclaim around Padam Padam. They also noted how social media, and platforms like TikTok, have helped the song gain extra success and listens:
“It’s been hailed as Kylie Minogue’s “comeback” single and has generated countless memes and dance videos on social media.
Yet when it was first released earlier this month, Padam Padam was not played on youth stations such as BBC Radio 1 and Capital FM because it was originally targeted at older audiences.
Now, thanks in part to the song’s popularity on platforms including TikTok and Twitter, Minogue has found a new generation of fans.
The track has topped the UK Big Top 40 and reached No 26 on the official singles chart – becoming the biggest-selling single of the week and Minogue’s highest-charting single since 2014’s Into the Blue.
The song has also earned Minogue her first Top 40 hit in Australia in more than a decade, and she is set to enter the US pop charts for the first time in more than 20 years.
“My heart is bursting with joy,” the singer said in an Instagram post on her 55th birthday last weekend. “I just wanted to say thank you, thank you so, so much for all the birthday messages and the Padam reaction and the love.
“It has been an incredible week topped off by being my birthday today and I can’t thank you enough.”
Inspired by Edith Piaf’s 1951 song of the same name, Padam Padam is a reference to the sound of the human heartbeat, and has spread like wildfire thanks to its infectious nature and brevity (it clocks in at 2 mins, 46 seconds).
In another video with her new Big Top 40 award, which is based on Apple Music data and plays on Global Radio stations including Capital and Heart, Minogue said: “I can’t believe I am holding this … Another wild turn in my life and career.”
Minogue performed Padam Padam last week during the final of the American Idol TV talent contest. It is the first single from her new album, Tension, which is due for release in September. Minogue will embark on her biggest tour in five years in 2024, with arena concerts across the UK.
The former Neighbours actor, who has amassed 2.5 million followers on Instagram, said she was grateful for the impact the web has had in revitalising her music career – which has had seven UK No 1s, including I Should Be So Lucky, Spinning Around and Can’t Get You Out of My Head.
“It’s been a little tricky trying to navigate and to understand it,” she said. “Now I think it’s amazing and I do wonder what it would have been like if it had started with my career.
“I feel like I have one foot in the old world and one foot in the new. I do marvel at people who are really good at it. I do my best, but I have guarded my private life so you don’t see me on Instagram posting whatever.”
The chart analyst and historian James Masterton said: “What makes the success of Padam Padam significant is that it is genuinely Kylie’s first hit single of the streaming era, her first since paid purchases ceased to be a mass market product seven or eight years ago. She has bridged a generation gap with a hit record that is reaching out both to her loyal (and ageing) acolytes but also a new generation of music fans.”
According to Masterton, a career revival at Minogue’s age isn’t unheard of – with Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin and Dusty Springfield having career revivals in the 1980s and 90s. Most of the tributes to Tina Turner last week focused on her “second” career – she was in her mid-40s when she recorded What’s Love Got to Do With It, while Cher was 52 when she recorded Believe.
“What helped the Kylie single blow up was indeed TikTok,” Masterton said. “Over the past three years it has become one of the most vitally important platforms for breaking and discovering hit singles. And that’s bypassing all the traditional media routes.
“You cannot rely on radio to make a hit any more; it has to have online appeal. That’s not something that is easy to engineer either, but producers do their best by making it possible for hooks or even fragments of songs to be broken down for 20-second soundbites.”
He pointed to the “fascinating shift” in the way pop music is being embraced by a new generation. “Nobody styles themselves a TikTok ‘consumer’. Everyone is a ‘creator’ and can use pop songs as part of that self-expression. We are now judging the success of pop songs by the number of people who actively engage with them rather than just passively sit back and listen,” he said”.
There are a few things around the song’s success I wanted to bring up. Minogue is still posting about how thankful she is to her fans. Padam Padam is high in the charts, and it has made it clear that quality is quality! An artist like Kylie Minogue is as relevant now as ever. She is always evolving, so you can never define or write her off. It is a bit depressing that a station like BBC Radio 1 did not feature the song. Maybe a couple of years ago, Capital or Magic would not play Minogue (they have this time), through a sense that her age (she is fifty-five now) is seen as past their demographic. Stations that mainly features much younger artists have included Minogue on their playlists – and, in the process, opened up questions around radio playlists. I think that it is good that these stations featured Padam Padam. I hope that this continues and they put Minogue’s future music on their playlists! I am not sure why BBC Radio 1 did not playlist Kylie Minogue, though there is this thing with ageism. Affecting female artists more, are they afraid that an artist in her fifties is too old for their audience?! It seems amazing that age should even be an issue, but I think that the reason some female artists have missed out on a playlist inclusion comes down to their age. At the moment, they have artists like Beyoncé and Shania Twain on their playlist (though the latter is there as a featured artist). There are so many incredible women who are over forty that would be perfect for the BBC Radio 1 playlists. They just get ignored. Even artists like Rita Ora, who is in her thirties, might struggle to get airplay there soon. The station can say it is down to relevance and the quality of the music. It hard to argue that anymore. There is ageism there. The fact that Padam Padam seems like a song designed to be played on BBC Radio 1 shows that the station are not listening to songs like Padam Padam. Instead, they know Kylie Minogue is in her fifties, and they instantly push her aside – seeing as she gets played on BBC Radio 2, that is where her music belongs now! That said, the station did make her Record of the Week - and, in turn, Minogue offered her thanks.
In spite of that snub, Padam Padam has put the spotlight back on one of the world’s great artists and loveliest humans. I cannot wait for the album. It makes me think that artists who are seen as too old for some radio stations are actually succeeding because of social media. The quality of Padam Padam speaks for itself, yet there was this incredible promotion and backing from social media that meant people were discovering the song that way. How relevant are radio playlists compared with social media today?! It is tragic that incredible legends like Minogue don’t have support from stations who should be playing her music. The fact that so many young listeners were talking about the song on TikTok and Twitter shows that age is irrelevant. Minogue is at the peak of her powers right now, and she is clearly speaking to all ages! Maybe TikTok has been criticised for breeding a type of artist that sounds very samey and uninspired. That is another debate. Though I think that the platform is brilliant when it comes to getting music out there people might otherwise miss. Prior to the release of Padam Padam, I was seeing so much buzz generated on Twitter. The song preview and news around it was blowing up! TikTok videos and reactions have compelled people to stream the song. As I type this (1st June), Padam Padam has nearly seven million streams! The video has been seen well over three millions times. In such a short space of time (the song came out a couple of weeks ago), this instantly catchy and fresh song has given an icon new acclaim. One of the queens of music, Padam Padam reached twenty-six in the U.K. It reached two on the Australian Artist Chart (ARIA), and it got some wicked reaction from the press! Here is just a small selection of the wonderful reception to one of the song of 2023:
“Writing for Stereogum, Tom Breihan described "Padam Padam" as "a sleek, thumping, catchy-as-hell dance-pop jam", adding that "Kylie knows exactly how to deliver a song like that". Describing it as "infectious", Retropop Magazine also called the song "a punchy electronic extravaganza that promises to be 'in your head all weekend'", citing a lyric from the song. Hollie Geraghty from NME called out its "thumping earworm refrain". Similarly, writing for Stereoboard, Jon Stickler said "the catchy pop banger" has a "an infectious chorus". Mary Varvaris of The Music highlighted the song's "fresh and vibrant dance sound". She wrote that the song "sounds completely 2023 while still remaining unmistakably Kylie".
Kylie Minogue had this sort of revival and renaissance in 2000 when she released Light Years. Prior to that, some had written her off. That album – and 2001’s Fever – was seen as a comeback. Her reinventing herself and hitting a peak. Those albums are among her very best, as they sound so contemporary and cool. Minogue is completely in control of every song, and her phenomenal performances make them albums that will be remembered years from now! Padam Padam and Tension will have a similar legacy. You can never predict what she is going to do next! Always changing and keeping her music fresh and different, it is exciting to think where she will head on the album after Tension. I think it is magnificent that we have platforms like TikTok, as Padam Padam might have struggled a little to get traction because of some radio stations (BBC Radio 6 Music included) who should have featured her song but did not. The debate around ageism against female artists comes back to the fore, but I shall expand on it another day. Social media is crucial when it comes to ensuring terrific artists like Kylie Minogue get the credit and commercial success that they deserve. Radio, when it becomes selective around age and perceived relevance, risks making some songs and artists marginalised and obsolete. Padam Padam was always going to strike people hard, but its chart success is largely down to the buzz from social media. Such a busy and successful last couple of weeks or so for Kylie Minogue, she will be looking ahead to the second single (will it be Tension, Green Light, or another track?) and the release of Tension in September. An inspiration and role model for so many people around the world, Padam Padam has confirmed her place in the history books! The success and positive reviews for the track just goes to show how much love…
IS out there for her.