Connect with us

Published

on

At London’s Hammersmith Apollo in the spring of 2001, Kylie Minogue previewed a previously unheard song.

While new material doesn’t always receive quite the same enthusiasm in a live setting as fan favourites – particularly when you have a back catalogue of bangers such as Kylie‘s – this was Can’t Get You Out Of My Head, an instant earworm like nothing she had recorded before, a song that was soon to take on a life of its own.

Rob Davis, former Mud glam-rocker turned acclaimed pop and dance songwriter, was in the crowd to see it performed on stage, before Minogue had even recorded it. “It was really exciting,” he says. “It went down amazingly. It’s quite sing-along, isn’t it, so I think people got the gist quickly. And it’s Kylie, people love her, don’t they?”

The previous year, with three-and-a-half minutes of shiny disco pop helped by a pair of teeny gold hotpants, Minogue had firmly reinstated herself as one of our most beloved music stars, following her mid-90s period experimenting with the still brilliant (Confide In Me remains one of her best) but less commercially friendly Indie Kylie. Spinning Around was glitzy and fun and instantly propelled the singer back to the top of the charts – but if this was Minogue’s “comeback”, we hadn’t seen anything yet.

La la la, la la la la la: 20 years ago, in September 2001, Can’t Get You Out Of My Head was suddenly everywhere. Released first in Australia and the following week in the UK, it spent four weeks at number one over here (one of just two tracks that year to stay for so long, matched only by Atomic Kitten’s Whole Again) and 30 weeks in the Top 40 in total, according to Official Charts.

Another charts fact? It took just over four months to sell a million – compare that with 25 years for her second biggest-selling UK hit, 1989’s loved-up duo with Jason Donovan, Especially For You. Around the world, it is estimated to have sold more than five million copies.

It was a moment in music where the stars aligned: a song we aptly couldn’t get out of our heads; a slick, futuristic video with simple, almost robotic choreography (the start of Kylie’s jerky, face-up-close-to-the-camera moves she became known for around the period of Fever, her eighth album); and another unforgettable outfit in the form of her hooded, slashed-to-the-navel white jumpsuit.

More on Kylie Minogue

Plus of course, the magic of Kylie.

It started in a garage-turned-studio at Davis’s then home in Epsom, Surrey. Davis – who includes Spiller’s huge summer 2000 hit Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love), featuring Sophie Ellis-Bextor, and dance classic Toca’s Miracle, also released in 2000, on his CV – co-wrote the track with Cathy Dennis, another former pop star turned acclaimed songwriter. It was the first time they had ever worked together.

Kylie Minoque in concert at the Hammersmith Apollo in 2001. Pic: Ilpo Musto/Shutterstock
Image:
Minoque performed the song live for the first time at the Hammersmith Apollo in 2001, before it had been released. Pic: Ilpo Musto/Shutterstock


Kylie Minogue performing in Munich, Germany, in 2002
Image:
The star performing in Munich, Germany, in 2002

“It was just one of those days where everything worked,” he says. “It was all written as we went, no preconceived ideas or anything. All I started with was a 125 drum loop… and I played a bit of guitar and [Dennis] came in with the ‘I Just Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’ thing straight away. Gradually, we wrote it in sections on the keyboard. With a lot of dance music, you have a whole backing track first. But we didn’t, we gradually wrote it from top to bottom as we went along.”

Eschewing the traditional verse-chorus-verse pattern, Can’t Get You Out Of My Head has an unusual structure. “It’s funny because at the time one of my publishers said to me, ‘where’s the chorus?’ because it comes in with different hooks… this was almost chorus-bridge-chorus. But there’s no rules, really. It’s a good example, Can’t Get You Out Of My Head, that you can go anywhere.”

Kylie Minogue with two awards - best pop and best dance artist - at the MTV Europe Music Awards in Barcelona in November 2002
Image:
The star went on to win numerous awards, including best pop and best dance artist at the MTV Europe Music Awards in 2002, following the release of Can’t Get You Out Of My Head and the Fever album

Davis says he and Dennis had a good feeling about the song, knew that in the right hands it could do very well. “But there’s other songs I’ve been excited about that haven’t done as well,” he says. So he didn’t let himself get too excited.

The song was originally sent to Ellis-Bextor’s team, who reportedly passed, and S Club 7 were said to have been in the running at one point, too. Ellis-Bextor, says Davis, is a friend and “always has a grin” when it comes up; the song that got away.

“I don’t think it could have been as big with anybody else,” he says. “It just worked for her brilliantly.” Minogue’s A&R representative wanted it immediately and, according to a 2012 interview with The Quietus, it took just 20 seconds of hearing the demo for the star herself to be hooked. She went to Davis’s garage studio to record it.

“It was a sweet moment, she was really nice,” says Davis. “She brought her own food – smoked salmon and stuff like that, from a deli – and brought enough for everybody. It was all done in the garage, just me and Cathy producing it. It was done in bits but she’d already learnt it – she’s very pro, Kylie. She’d done it live before, routined it for the [Hammersmith] live gig, which was really cool. So she already knew the song really well.”

Five months after the song’s release, Minogue performed it at the Brits, a mash-up with New Order’s Blue Monday, arriving on stage on a giant Kylie CD. She won the awards for best international female and album, for Fever. At the MTV Europe Music Awards later in 2002, she was named best pop act and best dance act.

“The whole buzz around it was incredible,” says Davis. “It was an amazing time. I think now, it’s considered an iconic song for her.” Davis and Dennis also wrote Come Into My World, another track on Fever, which won a Grammy in 2004.

Can’t Get You Out Of My Head even broke through to the NME Awards and was nominated for best single that year. As Minogue has put it herself, the song “kick-started a whole different phase in my career”. The music has never stopped, with the star releasing her 15th album, Disco, in 2020 – and becoming the first woman to top the UK album chart across five decades.

“Wow. I mean, WOW!!! What a moment in my lifetime,” she said, sharing a clip from the Can’t Get You Out Of My Head video on social media to mark the Australia release earlier this month. “I’ve been singing it ever since!!!”

Haven’t we all?

Continue Reading

Entertainment

With Love, Meghan: What we learnt from Duchess of Sussex’s new Netflix series

Published

on

By

With Love, Meghan: What we learnt from Duchess of Sussex's new Netflix series

The Duchess of Sussex’s lifestyle series premiered this morning – in which she talks about her life in California, her time spent living in Argentina and her love of food.

With Love, Meghan – an eight-part series on Netflix – had been delayed from a January release due to the Los Angeles wildfires.

The episodes, which last about 30 minutes each, feature a host of celebrity friends along with a few cameos from her husband, Prince Harry.

From her first jobs growing up to what she was like on the Suits set, here are some things we learnt about the duchess.

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and  Mindy Kaling.
Pic: Netflix
Image:
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Mindy Kaling.
Pic: Netflix

‘I’m Sussex now’

One of Meghan’s guests is The Office star Mindy Kaling, who she bonds with over their lives as toddlers’ mums while putting together a tea party in the garden.

As they put sandwiches together for the tea, Meghan talks about her love of Jack In The Box – a classic US fast-food chain, to which Kaling responds: “I don’t think anyone in the world knows that Meghan Markle has eaten Jack In The Box and loves it.”

The duchess laughs and says: “It’s funny, you keep saying Meghan Markle, you know, I’m Sussex now.

“You have kids, and you go, ‘now I share my name with my children’… I didn’t know how meaningful it would be to me, but it just means so much to go ‘this is our family name, our little family name’.”

Similarities with Archie

During episode four, the duchess goes on a hike with her friend Delfina Blaquier, who is married to Argentinian polo star Nacho Figueras, and together they have a picnic with homemade focaccia bread.

The duchess reveals how she passed time during her childhood – and the similar traits her son, Archie, has: “As a kid, I was taking a bag of tea from the drawer in my house, putting it in a mason jar or probably an empty jar that once held spaghetti sauce and putting it in the sun, and sitting there… waiting for it to change colour.

“Funny enough, which Archie does now.”

Days before the show aired, in an interview with People magazine, the duchess said Archie had told her: “Mama, don’t work too hard” during filming.

She added the five-year-old helped with the clapperboard while visiting the set with his sister Lilibet and Harry.

Delfina Figueras and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.
Pic: Netflix
Image:
Delfina Figueras and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.
Pic: Netflix

Life in Argentina

The two friends met through their husbands – “The moment we met, we bonded over our love of the outdoors and being in nature. We always hike together whenever she’s in town. And sometimes we let our husbands join us,” Meghan says.

Reflecting on when they first met, Meghan says: “What’s so funny is, I remember when we first met, and you were like: ‘Wait a minute, you speak Argentinian Spanish?’ But it’s such a pretty language because it sounds so musical.”

Her friend says: “When you started speaking Spanish and I recognised the Argentinian, I was blown away, because I didn’t know that…”

“That I’d lived there,” Meghan responds.

She adds: “When I lived in Argentina, I think the reason I loved it so much is because it reminded me of California in a lot of ways. Where you have the mountains and you have this joy of life and the joy of being outside.

“I was only there for a few months interning at the US Embassy, but I loved it.”

First jobs in doughnut and yoghurt shops – and some more childhood memories

In episode five, as Meghan hosts long-time friends, former Suits co-star Abigail Spencer and Kelly McKee Zajfen, she says that her first job was at Humphrey Yogart, a frozen yoghurt shop in Los Angeles playfully named after actor Humphrey Bogart.

That came after she told chef Roy Choi in episode three, as she presented him with doughnuts she prepared for him, that she once had a job at a doughnut shop.

“Doughnuts in general just remind me of my childhood,” she said.

“I once had a job at a little donut shop called Little Orbit Donuts. They made tiny, tiny, little mini donuts.”

She said she often helped them sell at craft venues, adding that doughnuts generally were a big part of her childhood.

“Growing up, driving down Highland to get to school, there was always a Yum Yum Donuts right there.”

“Highland and Melrose,” Choi clarifies.

“Exactly… is it still there?”

When Choi says it is, she responds: “Oh my god. I should go back in.”

In another episode, Kaling asks whether Meghan began cooking at home or picked it up later. Meghan replies: “I was a latch-key kid so I grew up with a lot of fast food and also a lot of TV tray dinners.

“It feels like such a different time but that was so normal with the microwavable kids meals.”

Life in Montecito house

Branden Aroyan and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.
Pic: Netflix
Image:
Branden Aroyan and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.
Pic: Netflix

The lifestyle show, which was filmed in a California farmhouse rather than in her Montecito house, features her describing her every day life – including how it is a “daily” task to pick fruit when it’s in season at her home.

Episode one Hello Honey! features Meghan’s friend Daniel Martin as she prepares a “thoughtful guest basket”.

It begins with her harvesting honey from bees, saying: “The biggest thing is keeping a low tone – talk in our bee voice.”

With the help of a beekeeper, she talks about “trying to stay in the calm of it because it’s beautiful to be this connected”.

Harry is the king of eggs

When asked by Kaling about how best to season eggs, the duchess says: “I have a family, a husband, who no matter what meal is put in front of him before he tastes it puts salt on, so I try to under salt.”

Harry himself, it is later revealed, is something of an egg connoisseur.

Speaking to two close friends in a later episode, she says “H” is a “great cook” and makes “the best scrambled eggs”.

She further praises him by saying he generally makes “a really good breakfast”.

Bacon was the subject of discussions on more than one occasion during the series, with Meghan saying that whenever she cooks it the kitchen “becomes full of husband and three dogs”.

“It’s not my perfume that’s bringing them all in,” she jokes.

What the duchess was like during Suits

Meghan’s days of playing paralegal Rachel Zane in popular drama Suits came to an end in 2018, the year she married Harry.

But she has clearly remained close with co-star Abigail Spencer, who played Dana Scott.

In episode five, as the pair sat in Meghan’s garden alongside Kelly McKee Zajfen, Spencer reflected on what Meghan was like during the Suits days.

She said Meghan was “the head of morale on the show,” to which Meghan thanked her and added: “I liked to plan fun for everyone.”

Heart-warming moments of Meghan with beloved beagle

The whole series ends with a tribute to Meghan’s late dog, Guy, who featured prominently in several episodes.

One morning, the duchess is seen making bone-shaped peanut butter biscuits for the rescue beagle, who died shortly after filming wrapped, saying you can make them with leftover bacon from breakfast.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex with Guy. Pic: Meghan, Duchess of Sussex
Image:
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex with Guy. Pic: Meghan, Duchess of Sussex

She admitted there was “never” any leftovers in her house because “we eat a lot of it” – another reference to the Sussexes love of bacon.

“I would do anything for Guy, and he knows it,” she then says. “He can have whatever he wants ’cause he is whatever kind of guy you need him to be depending on the day. My sweet guy, my silly guy, my saucy little guy. Always my spoiled guy.”

Later, as she hands him a peanut butter cookie, she adds: “They provide us with unconditional love, so they get unconditional peanut butter dog biscuits. Why not?”

The Sussexes also have two other dogs – another rescue beagle named Mia and a black Labrador called Pula, who is seen trying to steal some of Meghan and her guests’ food at various points during the series.

Meghan’s ‘next chapter’

In the eighth and final episode, called Feels Like Home, Meghan prepares for Prince Harry to make an appearance.

She is putting together a brunch for family and friends to celebrate the “next chapter” in her life.

Sharing details of how she envisages the so-called “next chapter”, Meghan, wearing a blue maxi dress and putting the finishing touches to a spread of food outdoors, says: “Of course, my husband will be here, my mum will be here, my best friend since college, my community having a brunch in the sunshine with the people that I love, celebrating this next chapter of my life.”

Continue Reading

Entertainment

Dolly Parton’s husband of nearly 60 years dies

Published

on

By

Dolly Parton's husband of nearly 60 years dies

Dolly Parton’s husband – who she married in a secret ceremony aged just 20 – has died.

The country music star’s website said Carl Dean died on Monday in Nashville.

Parton said in a statement: “Carl and I spent many wonderful years together. Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years. Thank you for your prayers and sympathy.”

Dean was the inspiration behind Jolene, one of her biggest hits.

She said she wrote the song after a flirty bank clerk seemed to take an interest in him.

“She got this terrible crush on my husband,” Parton told NPR in 2008.

“And he just loved going to the bank because she paid him so much attention.

More on Dolly Parton

“It was kinda like a running joke between us… So it’s really an innocent song all around, but sounds like a dreadful one.”

Parton pictured performing in August 2023. Pic: AP
Image:
Parton, 78, said ‘words can’t do justice to the love we shared’. Pic: AP

The pair met outside the Wishy Washy launderette, where Parton was doing her washing, the day she moved to Nashville at age 18.

“I was surprised and delighted that while he talked to me, he looked at my face (a rare thing for me),” Parton said in 2016.

“He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about.”

Read more from Sky News:
The Oscars moments everyone’s talking about

Morgan Freeman makes emotional tribute to Hackman

Parton pictured performing at a Dallas Cowboys game in November 2023. Pic: Reuters
Image:
Parton pictured performing at a Dallas Cowboys game in November 2023. Pic: Reuters

Parton said her record company had asked her to wait to get married but the couple tied the knot two years later, in May 1966.

Only her mother, the preacher and his wife were in attendance at the ceremony – held out of state so local papers wouldn’t report it.

Dean owned a paving business and famously shunned the limelight, so was very rarely seen in public with the star.

“A lot of people say there’s no Carl Dean, that he’s just somebody I made up to keep other people off me,” Parton joked in a 1984 interview with AP.

The couple never had any children, but he is survived by his brother and sister.

Continue Reading

Entertainment

Oscars 2025: Anora sweeps the Academy Awards with five awards including best picture

Published

on

By

Oscars 2025: Anora sweeps the Academy Awards with five awards including best picture

Anora has dominated the Academy Awards, winning five gongs including best picture.

The film’s star, Mikey Madison, who plays a sex worker who marries the son of a Russian oligarch, took home the best actress award – a win that was not a total upset, but many had expected Demi Moore to scoop the prize for her performance in The Substance.

Anora filmmaker Sean Baker was named best director, and used his acceptance speech to make a plea for audiences to support cinemas, which he said were “a vital part of our culture” and at risk of being lost.

Both also thanked sex workers who consulted on the film, saying they could never have made it without them.

Read more on the Oscars:
Oscars live: All the latest reaction to the awards
Oscars red carpet 2025: All the best looks
Full list of all the Oscar winning films and stars

Anora also won the Oscars for best original screenplay and best editing. Winning all four awards he was up for, Baker tied with Walt Disney’s record for the most Oscar wins by a single person in a single night – although Disney won his awards for multiple works, rather than a single film as Baker has done.

Adrien Brody won the best actor Oscar for playing Hungarian architect Lazlo Toth in architectural epic The Brutalist.

It was his second Academy Award win in the category some 22 years after his first, for The Pianist back in 2003.

Adrien Brody wouldn't be moved from the stage, despite music urging him to move on. Pic: Reuters
Image:
Adrien Brody won the best actor award – his second Oscar – for his performance in The Brutalist. Pic: Reuters

Accepting his award in a lengthy speech, he paid tribute to his partner Georgina Chapman, who he said had “re-invigorated” his “self-worth” and “sense of value”.

Best cinematography also went to The Brutalist directror Brady Corbet’s three-and-a-half-hour epic, which also took home the prize for best original score.

Papal thriller Conclave, starring Ralph Fiennes, took just one award, for best adapted screenplay.

Kieran Culkin won best supporting actor. Pic: Reuters
Image:
Kieran Culkin won best supporting actor. Pic: Reuters

Kieran Culkin took the first award of the night, best supporting actor, for his role in comedy drama A Real Pain, while the best supporting actress prize was won by Emilia Perez star Zoe Saldana, her first Oscar win and nomination.

One of the highest-grossing actresses ever, she cried out “Mommy, mommy”, on stage, explaining her entire family was there with her. She became tearful at the end of her speech as she spoke of being “a proud child of immigrant parents”.

Zoe Saldana became emotional as she accepted her award. Pic: Reuters
Image:
Zoe Saldana was named best actress. Pic: Reuters

Announced by Mick Jagger, best song went to Emilia Perez’s El Mal (which translates as “Evil”), while the prize for costume design went to Wicked’s Paul Tazewell – who became the first black man to receive the award. The Wizard Of Oz prequel also won best production design.

Brazilian director Walter Salles won best international feature for Portuguese-language film I’m Still Here, set in the 1970s in the midst of the Brazil’s brutal military dictatorship.

A word-of-mouth hit, the film’s Brazilian star Fernanda Torres has gone from a relative unknown to a much-talked-about actress in the US in the last few months.

Fernanda Torres poses on the red carpet during the Oscars arrivals at the 97th Academy Awards in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S., March 2, 2025. REUTERS/Aude Guerrucci
Image:
Star of I’m Still Here, Fernanda Torres. Pic: Reuters

Make-up and hairstyling was awarded to body horror The Substance, a film which showcased extreme prosthetics, make-up and gore throughout. It was the film’s only win of the night.

The documentary categories went to The Only Girl In The Orchestra and No Other Land – made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective – for short film and feature film respectively.

Accepting the prize, it’s makers Basel Dra and Yuval Abraham made a political plea to the US: “The foreign policy in this country is helping to block [the path of peace]. Why? Can’t you see that we are intertwined? There is another way. It’s not too late for life, for the living.”

Best sound and best visual effects went to Dune: Part Two, directed by Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve.

A night where independent and unusual filmmaking was rewarded, best animated feature went to Latvian computer-generated film Flow, while best animated short film was won by Iranian entry The Shadow Of The Cypress. Both international productions are dialogue-free.

Live action short film went to I’m Not A Robot, a study in an AI-fueled identity crisis.

Morgan Freeman pays tribute to Gene Hackman at the Oscars. Pic: AP/Chris Pizzello
Image:
Tributes were paid to a host of late industry greats, starting with Gene Hackman. Pic: AP/Chris Pizzello

During the ceremony’s in memoriam section, Morgan Freeman paid tribute to two-time Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman, who was found dead in his home along with his wife and dog earlier this week.

A video montage honoured Academy members who have passed away over the last year, including British stars Dame Maggie Smith and Dame Joan Plowwright and Donald Sutherland, and US performers James Earl Jones, Kris Kristofferson and David Lynch.

There was also a moving segment honouring late music producer Quincy Jones, led by Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg and featuring rapper Queen Latifah.

Sky News is livestreaming the Vanity Fair and Sir Elton John after-party red carpets following the ceremony. Catching the Oscar-winners as they party the night away, join us there from 6am.

Continue Reading

Trending