Kylie Minogue- My favourite singer.

Music has provided my ultimate escapism since I can remember. I got my first album on vinyl when I was only five years old, and it was a copy of Kylie Minogue's debut album 'Kylie'. I had been in love with Kylie since she was Charlene on 80s Australian soup Neighbours. As I only had a cassette deck, my Mum recorded Kylie's first album onto one side of a blank cassette and 'Enjoy Yourself', Kylie's 1989 second album, onto the B side. For years, my Kylie tape was my one and only source of music. When we went on holiday, I would listen to my Kylie cassette over and over on my headphones while daydreaming in the back of the car.

It used to feel like a lifetime between albums. Waiting a year between 'Enjoy Yourself' and 'Rhythm of Love' was excruciating, but when I would unwrap the new Kylie albums, usually at Christmas, it would be the most exhilarating experience. New Kylie music. Of course, until I was around nine years old, I only knew what I was given. It was in around 1992 that I started to go rummaging in music shops for what I could find and I discovered the joy of uncovering unheard gems, like the 1993 Kylie megamix compilation 'Kylie's Non-Stop History 50+1'. I would then save and save every coin I was given until I had enough to go back and buy a copy. '50+1' became the first album I ever bought myself on CD, which was before I even owned a CD player. Like with Kylie's first two albums, my Mum recorded the CD carefully to cassette for me, which I then played over and over.

Throughout the mid to late 90s, Kylie released two albums, 'Kylie Minogue' in 1994, featuring 'Confide In Me' and 'Impossible Princess' in 1998, featuring 'Did It Again'. Being under 14 and loving Kylie Minogue at that point was not a cool thing to openly admit, but I did anyway. Throughout my teens I became more attracted to heavier, angrier music, like Alanis Morissette, Hole, Lostprophets, Incubus and Glassjaw, but I still continued to listen to my favourite Ausie pop princess. In 2001, I saw Kylie perform for the first time on her 'On a Night Like This' tour. I then attended her 'Showgirl Homecoming' tour and 'Kylie X 2008' tour, but nothing compared to her 'Aphrodite World Tour' that is happening at the moment. Of the five nights Kylie played at London's o2 Arena, I ended up going to three shows and loving every second of each one. I was closer than I have ever been to my all-time favourite performer and it was magical.

Having loved her since I was a child, she represents a graceful, flamboyant, joyful image of perfection to me, and so I don't think meeting her would improve upon that little fabrication of my mind's metal image. It's this sort of admiration that leaves me confused as to why people willingly read awful publications like 'The Enquirer'. Why anyone would want to know the apparent sordid details of their favourite performers personal lives is completely beyond me. I love watching official Kylie documentaries, but when there's an ex-lover selling their tell-all story to The News of the World, I cannot comprehend anyone wanting to read such trash. I don't want to know what Kylie is like in bed or what time she fell out of a nightclub (not that she does), I am interested in her public persona and her music- what she puts out there for us to enjoy.