Could We Please Stop Reviewing Kylie Minogue’s Age?
The critics are reviewing Kylie’s album, but all they're focused on is her age.
How old is Kylie Minogue?
If you don’t know the answer to this question, then don’t worry. All you need to do is read a review of her new album Kiss Me Once and you’ll find out pretty fast. The writer will usually find a way to reference Kylie’s age by the end of the first paragraph, and probably even the first sentence. Why is this? It’s because Kylie Minogue has only gone and done the worst thing a pop princess can possibly do: she’s allowed herself to get old.
Collectively, the reviews of Kiss Me Once make for a depressing read, in that almost every single one is framed around the question of age. The common theme is a sense of surprise at the notion that a woman could possibly sustain a pop career of more than two decades in length. Kylie is a Katy-and-a-half years old, and more than two Mileys – how is she still alive, let along making records? Why hasn’t she bowed out of the pop game yet? More importantly, what if she goes and breaks a hip when wiggling her bum on stage?
If a woman’s worth is measured by her age, then the critics are not-so-subtly letting Kylie know that her time is just about up. Alexis Petridis of The Guardian spends the first paragraph of his review mulling over the seemingly absurd fact that a woman as old as Kylie should still be releasing pop records. He promises no meanness and snark and then, in the same breath, expresses amazement at the fact that her albums and tours are still popular after so many years in the business.
Then of course, there’s the part where likens her to a wise old tortoise sunning itself on a tropical island somewhere.
The Telegraph’s Neil McCormick opens his review (titled ‘Seasoned Showgirl‘) with the question of whether age matters in pop, and concludes by asking, “How much longer can a seasoned showgirl play the ingénue?” Nick Messitte of Forbes assessed the commercial prospects of Kiss Me Once under the headline ‘All The Rage At Twice The Age’, while Robert Copsey of Digital Spy praised the album for its ‘maturity’, drawing a parallel between that and the singer’s own age. News Limited also gave the album a positive write-up, but lamented the fact that because Kylie is no longer 24, she’s not likely to get much commercial airplay.
The funny thing about the above reviews is that they are all fairly favourable, yet the men who wrote them still felt the need to frame their critiques around age. The more you think about this, the more absurd it seems. Kylie has a large and devoted fan base, and consistently sells out shows around the world. Why, now, should the date on her driver’s license suddenly dominate the discussion, at the expense of the music itself? Are the critics talking about Kylie’s age because it’s relevant, or is Kylie’s age relevant because none of the critics will shut up about it?
Madonna faced a tremendous backlash when she released her last album, MDNA. Many critics complained that she was too old to still be making dance tracks – the subject of her age, and whether this was a positive or negative, drove Helen Brown of The Telegraph and Emily Mackay of The Quietus to distraction. Alexis Petridis also weighed in, complaining that the song ‘Girl Gone Wild’ was not ‘dignified’ enough for a woman her age.
What happened next? In spite of everyone’s protestations that Madonna was too old, she went on to put on the highest-grossing tour of 2012.
It goes without saying that there’s a double standard at work. Take Bruce Springsteen for instance, who has a decade on Madonna and two on Kylie. He released a new album, High Hopes, this January. Critical discussion of the record cantered around its style, its musicality, its themes, its place in the Springsteen canon. His age barely rated a mention, and nobody asked if it was still dignified or appropriate for a man as old as Springsteen to try and make a go of it in the musical marketplace. Wouldn’t it be nice if an artist like Kylie was given the same basic level of respect?
The unfortunate irony here is that, in criticising others for turning Kylie’s age into a talking point, I myself have turned it into one. So how old is Kylie Minogue, then? If you skim back over the article, you’ll notice that I haven’t said, because at the end of the day, it doesn’t bloody well matter. Let’s all give it a rest.
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Alasdair Duncan is an author, freelance writer and video game-lover who has had work published in Crikey, The Drum, The Brag, Beat, Rip It Up, The Music Network, Rave Magazine, AXN Cult and Star Observer
