FEATURE:
Groovelines
Kylie Minogue – The Loco-Motion
_________
THIS song…
takes me back to my childhood. There is a lot to celebrate about Kylie Minogue this year. She has recently performed in the U.K. and completed a residency in Las Vegas. Her latest album, TENSION, was released last year to huge critical acclaim. Her second studio album, Enjoy Yourself, turns thirty-five in October. The Kylie Minogue album turns thirty in September. Rather than mark a big anniversary, instead I want to go back to the start. Mark the approaching thirty-sixth anniversary of her debut single, The Loco-Motion. It is a cover version, though Kylie Minogue very much adds her own take on the song. A number one in many countries in the world, it reached number two in the U.K., three in the U.S. and it was a chart-topper in Minogue’s native Australia. At only twenty, this was an exciting first step for Minogue. The lead single from 1988’s Kylie, I wanted to spend some time with a hugely important release in the history of Pop music. I was four when the single came out. I dimly remember The Loco-Motion. I first heard it when I was five or six. Maybe my introduction to Kylie Minogue, I then heard other hits like Hand on Your Heart and Better the Devil You know. The Loco-Motion has a special place in my heart. Before moving on, here is some Wikipedia information about a terrific debut single from the icon:
“Background
Australian pop singer Kylie Minogue released a cover version of the song in July 1987 as her debut single, under the title "Locomotion". After an impromptu performance of the song at an Australian rules football charity event with the cast of the Australian soap opera Neighbours, Minogue signed a record deal with Mushroom Records to release the song as a single. Initially recorded in a big band style, the project was radically reoriented by producer Mike Duffy, who was on loan to Mushroom from Pete Waterman's UK company PWL. Duffy recorded a whole new backing track, inspired by the hi-NRG pop of Dead or Alive, but retained Minogue's original vocal.This version was released on July 13, 1987, in Australia, where it became one of the biggest selling Australian records of the 1980s. It was later released the same year in New Zealand, Italy, and Sweden.
The success of the song in her home country resulted in Minogue's signing a record deal with PWL Records in London and to working with the successful team Stock Aitken & Waterman (SAW). The producers decided to totally re-record Minogue's version of the song, with Pete Waterman slating her original Australian recording, which he claimed was poorly produced. Original producer Mike Duffy instead blamed the decision to re-record on Waterman's alleged wish to claim the prestige and royalties that looked set to roll in from the track's looming placement of the soundtrack of the 1988 film Arthur 2: On the Rocks, starring Dudley Moore and Liza Minnelli. On July 28, 1988, the re-recorded version produced by SAW was released worldwide with the title "The Loco-Motion". This release, also a major success, reached the top five in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This version of the track substitutes the Australian term railway for the American term railroad in the song's lyrics.
Reception
The 1987 "Locomotion" release was a huge hit in Minogue's native Australia, reaching number one on the Kent Music Report singles chart and remaining there for seven weeks. The 1988 release of the song in the United Kingdom debuted and peaked at number two on the UK Singles Chart — the highest entry on the UK charts by a female artist. It remained in the number two position for four weeks before falling to number three. With sales of 440,000 it was the eleventh best selling single of the year. The song became Minogue's third top five single in the UK and remains one of her most successful single releases to date.
During late 1988, Minogue traveled to the United States to promote "The Loco-Motion", where she did many interviews and performances on American television. The song was used in the comedy film Arthur 2: On the Rocks. "The Loco-Motion" debuted at number 80 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and later peaked at number three for two weeks. The song was Minogue's second single to chart in the U.S., but her first to reach the top ten. To this day, the song remains as her highest-charting single in the United States; however, her second overall and most recent song to reach the top ten, 2002's "Can't Get You Out of My Head", ended up outselling "The Loco-Motion". In Canada, the song also reached the top five in the pop sales chart. In 2023, Robert Moran of Australian daily tabloid newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald ranked the song as Minogue's 17th best song (out of 183), describing it "a surprisingly gritty sex track built on chugging synths and girl-group harmonies”.
There is something nostalgic and exciting about The Loco-Motion. Originally released on 13th July, 1987, it was the re-released version (with a slightly amended title) from 28th July, 1988, produced by Stock Aitken Waterman, that became a worldwide smash. There is no denying that the production is dated. It is very much part of that factory rotation sound of the 1980s. Even so, it is a really important song that launched Kylie Minogue to the world. Some may see The Loco-Motion as overly-happy or grating. If you play it enough times. It is defiant and hypnotic. A song that probably resonates harder for those who remember it first time. People approaching it new now might not be able to relate or see how important it is. As it is a landmark release and the start of the story for the brilliant Kylie Minogue, it is a shame more has not been written about it. It is a shame. Ahead of its thirty-sixth anniversary, I wanted to spend some time with it. I wonder how Kylie Minogue sees the song now. Because it turned thirty-seven (the original release) last Sunday, it is no surprise Minogue performed the song when she was in London. It means a lot to her. Still playing those early tracks. It is rare for an artist with decades of experience to keep in her those initial singles.
Credit to Minogue that she has this fondness for the earliest years. I want to end with a feature that is both affectionate and slightly tongue-in-cheek about The Loco-Motion. Whether you hyphenate the song or not, there is no denying its infectiousness! This feature was written in 2018. I was keen to highlight a few segments from it:
“Last summer was the height of this song’s popularity — for me, personally. I don’t think it has “topped the charts” for well over a decade. It was my first summer living in Los Angeles. I had moved right before the election, in October of 2016. In my mind “the election” is always this one, and there is a distinct “before” and “after” period. I do not feel equipped to summarize what Los Angeles is or is not, its character or landscape, and I want to avoid debunking any misconceptions about either, but I do know that when I moved here, it felt like a promise of better days ahead. And it was mostly due to
the palm trees. For months after moving here I laughed out loud every single time I saw a palm tree. Even better when there was a short one next to a tall one. The jokes — they write themselves.
Whether it was my natural proclivity to personify inanimate objects or a desperate need to laugh in the face of absolute bleakness, after the election I found myself seeking out symbols of pure, simple joy. I became obsessed with smiley faces. I watched endless hours of cartoons. I earnestly googled “adult mobile,” thinking it would be nice to have one circling over my bed. Now that I write it all down, I guess you could say I was regressing.
Any place can feel like a small town if you live there long enough. I lived in Northern California my entire life. When people asked me why I moved, the truthful answer is that I just didn’t want anyone to know me anymore. Here is a metaphor: the Bay Area is like a church organ. Everyone is connected, part of the same machine making the same sound. Also, they are charitable and community-oriented. After a while, though, you get sick of the low, droning, organ sounds, and you think that maybe you could pick up a new instrument. Although I did say I was not equipped to make any statements about LA, I am wildly confident in my metaphor-making. If the Bay Area is an organ, then Los Angeles is an orchestra. There is a distinction between string people and wind instruments and the percussion section, but everyone wants to be the conductor.
I have a habit that my therapist calls “letting my moods rule my behavior,” instead of the emotionally healthy alternative, which is to gesture to your behaviors and say, “oh no, after you!” What you’re supposed to do, you see, is go to the gym when you don’t feel like it, see friends when you’d rather be alone, eat a full meal instead of chewing on a piece of gum in the hopes that your headache just goes away. On the Wikipedia page for “Loco-Motion” (the original song), there is a subcategory called “The Loco-Motion Myth.” A total sucker for conspiracies and popular untruths, I scrolled down to find that the dance came after the song, and not the other way around. Whether this has anything to do with what my therapist told me or not, I decide that it definitely, absolutely does, and I decide this with such a certainty that I find it almost pre-ordained, a divine folly in the greater universe of myths. The Locomotion I am sure now, is exactly, precisely, what I have been needing. And so I listen to it, on repeat, for days. I am trying to exorcise myself. Rid myself of dread, fear, and the occasional bout of spontaneous, uncontrollable crying.
The other day I walked past an ice cream truck. That particular jingle has a morbid quality to it, too. No matter the melody, its sound always has the effect of slowly being beat down by the heat, of a record being warped, tangled tape prolapsed out of cassettes. The music shuts off, the driver leans his head onto the steering wheel, and no kids come. I think to buy one, but I never carry cash.
The Locomotion, in contrast, has the auditory quality of revival, of hope, of newness, of Kylie Minogue, hero of the gays and cancer survivor, of staying alive, even when it seems so easy to just snap”.
It is wonderful that Kylie Minogue played The Loco-Motion a couple of days ago. She is proud of the song and what it achieved. It means a lot to me too. In the U.K., nearly thirty-six years ago, we were introduced to this incredible and vivacious Pop artist. Little did we know that she would be dominating the charts and releasing music all these years later. If you have not heard the brilliant and undeniably catchy The Loco-Motion, then you really need to…
JUMP on board!