While some artists have to work hard to appeal to the LGBTQ community, others can’t explain how they reach gay icon status. With a massive global LGBTQ following, Kylie Minogue doesn’t know how it all started. She realized the phenomenon in the 1990s at a popular gay bar in Sydney. It was Kylie night.
“I’d never heard of a Kylie Night, but I said ‘We should go! We should go!’” she told Billboard. That was the first time she had heard about drag queens impersonating her. After that, she embraced her LGBTQ following.
She fought for same-sex marriage in Australia for years and vowed never to get married until everybody could do the same. When the country voted overwhelmingly in favor of equality in 2017, she bombarded Twitter and Instagram with enthusiastic victory posts.
This year, Kylie is helping queer Americans celebrate Pride, as the headliner of New York City’s official Pride celebration. Here’s our favorite queer-aligning Kylie tracks to get you in the mood for the festivities.
“All the Lovers”
The lead single for Kylie’s 11th studio album Aphrodite is a deliciously catchy feel-good dance track about love. “All the Lovers” was the third most played song on American dance floors in 2010, according to Billboard’s year-end Dance Club Songs chart. With the video, Kylie wanted to pay “homage” to her gay audience, which has given her a lot of support throughout the years. It starts with men and women walking in downtown Los Angeles, as they strip down to their underwear, start making out and form a pyramid to start dancing. Seven years later, the director for “All the Lovers,” Joseph Kahn, said that Kylie was asked to cut the gay kissing from the video. “She said no. No press release. She’s amazing,” he wrote.
“Can’t Get You Out of My Head”
With an incredibly addictive hook, this song became a massive global success, peaking at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2002. The track is about Kylie’s obsession with a man who broke her heart. “I just can’t get you out of my head/ Boy your lovin’ is all I think about,” she pleads. “Every night, every day, just to be there in your arms.”
“Timebomb”
This song was released as a stand-alone single to celebrate Kylie’s glorious 25-year career. The video starts with Kylie wrapping up the dance scenes she’ll use in that very video, then walking through the gay streets of Soho, London, and arriving at a nightclub. It’s all very meta. The moral of the story is: When Kylie is not dancing for work, she’s dancing for fun.
“Get Outta My Way”
All four singles released from Kylie’s 2010 album Aphrodite reached the top of the Dance Club Songs chart. With its simple melody and catchy vocals, “Get Outta My Way” proves again why she’s still on top. The song is “pure pop dance and that’s what I’m all about,” she said on an interview. Singer Rufus Wainwright once called Kylie “the gay shorthand for joy.” This song makes it easy to see why.
“Butterfly”
In the insanely hot live performance of “Butterfly” during her 2001 On a Night Like This tour, Kylie has a nice surprise for a very specific segment of her audience: the gay leather fetish fans. After a couple of minutes offstage, Kylie comes back and joins her male dancers in the fun. There’s groping, there’s sweating, there’s touching and… there’s Kylie! Who needs the Black Party?
“Love at First Sight”
This 2002 feel-good track is one of Kylie’s most recognizable songs. The original version is a perfect example of a bubbly pop house track, while Scumfrog’s “Beauty and the Beast” remixes dominated the gay clubs at the time: dark, sexy, intense New York progressive house.
“Sexercise”
It’s become a cliché to picture horny men having some adult fun in the gym’s steam room after a long and sweaty workout session. Instead, Kylie wanted to imagine how that would play out with hot girls instead. In one of two videos she released for the dubstep track, Kylie did just that. And the results are hot!
“Your Disco Needs You”
Even though this could be an impossible and highly polarizing call to make, “Your Disco Needs You” might be, in fact, Kylie Minogue’s gayest song ever. Or, perhaps, the gayest song ever! In her 2000 homage to the campy fabulousness of the discothèque era, Kylie manages to sound like ABBA, The Village Voice and the Pet Shop Boys. Camp never felt so good.
“Other Boys”
Kylie joins Scissor Sisters’ Jake Shears and Chic’s Nile Rodgers as the featured artists on “The Other Boys,” a track by Australian twin sisters and DJ superstars Nervo. The end result is pure disco gold: an infectious dance track that makes you want to run to the nearest empty warehouse, get all of your coolest friends together, and then dance until tomorrow.