kylie minogue
Dua Lipa has wrapped up the Melbourne leg of her Australian tour by bringing out a pair of acclaimed names for her ongoing cover portion.
Lipa launched her live appearances for 2025 earlier this month when she touched down in Australia as part of her ongoing Radical Optimism Tour. With five nights scheduled for Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena and three at Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena, the excitement for the tour spilled over ahead of time when it was noted that all eight dates on her Australian trek had sold out – resulting in over 120,000 ticket sales.
So far, each of the Australian dates have seen Lipa dedicate the eighth song of her set to a special cover of an Australian artist. On March 17, AC/DC were given the honor when she performed “Highway to Hell,” with Natalie Imbruglia’s version of “Torn” making the cut, and Kylie Minogue’s ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head” appearing in the set on March 20.
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The final two Melbourne shows were taken up another notch, however, with Lipa welcoming the original artists for a special duet. On Saturday (March 22), Troye Sivan served as the guest of honor, joining Lipa to perform a version of his Grammy-nominated 2023 single “Rush.”
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“This next song in the set is different every night,” Lipa explained, noting she had allocated the slot to feature a song “by a local artist” each night. “So tonight, I thought it would be a big mistake if I didn’t play one of my favorite, favorite artists ever who’s also a friend of mine.”
“This is a song I’ve been listening to for a really long time — I mean, 2023 until now, and forever more I’ll be listening to this song,” she added. “But this is a Saturday night banger, so I think it’s going to be a fun one.” Sivan then joined in unannounced to the sound of rapturous applause from the crowd.
The following night (Sunday, March 23), Lipa wrapped up the Melbourne leg of her tour, with the eighth song again being allocated to a song by an Australian artist. This time, she was again joined by the artist in question, with Vance Joy appearing to share a rendition of his 2013 single “Riptide.”
Joy’s “Riptide” topped the Rock Airplay chart upon its release, and was also nominated for both song of the year and best video at the 2013 ARIA Awards. It hasn’t, however, ever topped the Australian charts, though ARIA’s 2024 end-of-year report included the song as one of only five local songs in the chart, with its No. 24 placing being the highest for an Australian song that year.
Notably, Lipa’s point of sharing a song by a “local artist” each night seems only to extend to the nationality of each artist. While both Joy and Minogue are from Melbourne, Sivan hails from Perth (by way of South Africa), and Imbruglia and AC/DC are noted Sydney names. It’s currently unclear which Australian acts Lipa will add to her set in Sydney, though she will launch those dates on Wednesday (March 26).
Australian musician Nick Cave has always been full of surprises, from his incendiary live performances as the singer of The Birthday Party in the early ‘80s, to collaborating with Kylie Minogue as leader of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. However, few may have seen Staffordshire-style ceramic sculptures as the post-punk icon’s latest passion.
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While it’s not the first topic to come to mind when Cave’s name is mentioned, the 67-year-old has been hard at work as a ceramic sculptor for a number of years now, having first adopted the craft during the global pandemic. Later in 2022, he held his first exhibition, with a series of 17 figures depicting the life story of the devil going on display at Finland’s Sara Hildén Art Museum.
In a recent interview with The Art Newspaper, Cave discussed his fondness for the figures, and his ‘The Devil — A Life’ series, which is currently on display at Museum Voorlinden in Wassenaar, Netherlands.
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“I’ve collected Staffordshire-style sculptures for years. I just love these things,” he explained. “They’re not expensive works of art; you find them in second-hand shops. I just had them in front of me as I was just sitting at my desk. We sort of grew idle through Covid [and] were allowed to do things that we normally wouldn’t have done. I sat there looking at one of these Staffordshires just thinking, ‘I can do this.’”
According to Cave, his mother had loved the clay figurines he made as a teenager, and her passing at 92 during Covid left him with a “sentimental tug” that soon evolved into his newfound passion. “Mostly it was just that I thought, ‘F–k, you know, it can’t be that hard to make one of these things,’” he explained.
Admitting there is “no irony” to his love of the art form, Cave added that his 17-piece ‘The Devil — A Life’ series also served as a way for him to come to terms with some of the internal feelings that still resonated following the accidental death of his 15-year-old son Arthur in 2015.
“The whole thing started to have a more mysterious, mystical pull,” he explained. “Then they started to be in order, one after the other. They were trying to make sense of my predicament in a way that I couldn’t make sense of it in my songs, for some reason.
“Ultimately, this ended up being something about culpability and forgiveness around the death of my son,” he added. “That was something that I could never quite get to in my songwriting. To me, these became acutely personal.”
Cave’s most recent body of work, Wild God, arrived in August as his 18th studio album with the Bad Seeds. The record reached No. 2 on the charts in his native Australia, while peaking at No. 66 on the Billboard 200. The album received two Grammy nominations and was also nominated for the Australian Music Prize, ultimately losing out to Kankawa Nagarra’s Wirlmarni.
After close to four decades as Australia’s own Princess of Pop, Kylie Minogue’s performing legacy has been commemorated with a star at the Melbourne Park sporting complex.
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Minogue – who launched her global Tension Tour in Perth on Feb. 15 – received the honor on Saturday (Feb. 22) ahead of a performance in her hometown of Melbourne in the Australian state of Victoria.
Coinciding with the third of three consecutive performances at the city’s 14,820-capacity Rod Laver Arena, it also coincided with Minogue’s first performance at the venue back in Feb. 1990 when it was then known as the National Tennis Centre.
Since her debut at Rod Laver Arena 35 years ago, Minogue has gone on to play 30 shows at Melbourne Park, amassing sales of more than 350,000 tickets in the process. Her three recent dates brought that total to 33 performances with an additional 36,000 ticket sales, making her one of the most successful artists to ever perform at the Melbourne destination.
The star was unveiled to Minogue on the afternoon of Feb. 22 by Melbourne Park CEO John Harnden AM. Fittingly, it is located in the forecourt of Rod Laver Arena, adjacent to a statue of late promoter Michael Gudinski. Gudinski first signed Minogue to his Mushroom Records label in 1987, while his Frontier Touring company has promoted every one of her Australian concerts to date. In 2021, Minogue also performed at Gudinski’s state funeral at the same venue.
“It’s hard to believe it’s been 35 years since I first stepped on stage at this venue, and I’m honoured to be acknowledged in this way in my hometown of Melbourne,” Minogue said of the honor. “It seems appropriate that MG will be watching over my star each day. I’m incredibly thankful to all the fans that have attended my shows over the years.”
“Kylie has a longstanding and record-breaking association with Melbourne Park and it’s only fitting we celebrate her amazing legacy with this star, cementing her name in the history of this great destination for live events,” added Harnden.
The installation of the star also coincides with a campaign to reinstate a statue of Minogue in Melbourne following its removal in 2016. At the time, a bronze likeness of Minogue – along with similar figures of Australian entertainers John Farnham, Dame Nellie Melba, Dame Edna Everage and Graham Kennedy – were removed to make way for a $140 million AUD apartment block.
Since its removal, the statue – which had been first sculpted by Peter Corlett in 2006 – has reportedly been in storage in an undisclosed location.
“I, for one, would love to see her statue reinstated in Melbourne,” Melbourne Mayor Nicholas Reece told The Age. “First, I think she’s a brilliant performer and entertainer who has brought so much joy to so many Melburnians, and secondly because we have a real deficit of statues of great women of Melbourne.
“If we could get a statue of Kylie back up again, it will remind all the boys and girls of Melbourne that great Melburnians come in all shapes, sizes and genders.”
Minogue’s most recent album, II, became her fourth consecutive record to top the Australian ARIA charts upon its October release, and her eighth overall to achieve the feat. It reached No. 98 on the Billboard 200, hit No. 2 on the Top Dance/Electronic Albums, and followed on from 2023’s Tension which saw lead single “Padam Padam” win the Grammy for best pop dance recording.
32 years after virtuosic rocker Prince and Australian pop princess Kylie Minogue teamed up for a collaboration, their-previously unheard efforts have now reportedly been leaked online.
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The track, titled “Baby Doll”, has been discussed at length by fans of the Purple One, with its origins tracing back to the Australian leg of Prince’s Diamonds and Pearls tour in April and May of 1992. Recorded at Sydney’s Studios 301 during his visit to the country, Prince and Minogue reportedly connected during the former’s performance at London’s Earl’s Court in June of the same year.
“We just kind of hung out,” Minogue told Zane Lowe in 2020. “I don’t even know what that means, but we hung out and he kind of put me on the spot a bit. He was like, ‘So where are your lyrics?’”
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The pair reportedly continued their discussions before Prince sent his driver to Minogue’s apartment with a tape of his efforts. “There’s a cassette in my hand with Prince singing, a song called ‘Baby Doll,’ that I kind of was involved with, but he who slept four hours a night or something and just created stuff the rest of the other 20 hours,” she remembered. “That was my almost, we didn’t record it.”
Ultimately, the track didn’t receive the full studio treatment due to Minogue’s label nixing the idea.
The newly-leaked version of the track arrived on Friday (Dec. 16) via the New Paisley Generation YouTube account and features the same lyrics that Minogue confirmed in 2018 to have written for the collaboration.
Per the upload’s description, “Baby Doll” was one of the tracks from Prince’s Vault that were planned to be included on an intended project called Diamonds and Love in 2022. This release would have included unreleased material recorded during the sessions for 1991’s Diamonds and Pearls album and 1992’s Love Symbol record.
A deluxe reissue of the late artist’s Diamonds and Pearls album emerged in 2023, but was limited solely to the material recorded prior to the record’s original release in October 1991 – ultimately excluding the track.
According to U.K. publication The Sun, a source explained that “Kylie is just as baffled as everyone else as to where the track has come from.
“It was initially delivered to her on a cassette back in the Nineties and since Prince’s death in 2016, belonged to his estate,” they said. “Any leak is annoying but it’s nice for fans to finally know what the mystery song sounds like, God knows they have waited long enough.
“As for what will happen now if anything, fans will have to wait and see.”
Pop superstar Kylie Minogue says she made a “conscious decision to go for it” in terms of promoting her new album Tension – and indeed she has. Since mid-May, she’s been hard at work across the globe to tell the tale of Tension.
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“The entire team’s been working really hard,” she tells the Billboard Pop Shop Podcast (listen to her full interview, below). “I feel so grateful for this moment and so excited for the music and what is unfolding — people’s experience with the music and how they’re making it their own and really welcoming it into their lives, that how could I not give extra? I mean it’s kind of my default anyways.”
All that hard work paid off too. Tension debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart, scored her biggest sales week in the U.S. in early 20 years, and opened at No. 1 in the U.K. and in Australia.
Now that she’s broken the Tension, next up for Minogue is the launch of her residency at the Voltaire Belle de Nuit at the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas, which begins on Nov. 3. The intimate club, which will hold only 1,000 guests at each show, promises to offer a unique experience with Minogue, which the Voltaire advertises as “more than just a residency.”
Minogue says her performance within the club will feature a “selection of songs from throughout the years” and that the show, and its setlist, could evolve over time, since she has 20 shows currently scheduled “over a number of months,” on through next May.
Guests attending an evening at the Voltaire during Minogue’s residency will see their evening start around 9:30 p.m., while Minogue will take the stage a little after 11. “It’s late night,” she says. Will her Voltaire performance differ from a traditional touring show from Minogue? “It will be different to a normal concert,” she says. “My show’s normally two [hours], two [hours] and 15 [minutes long] … so it’s gonna be more snug [than a regular show]. I think it’s gonna feel, because we’re so close [she and the audience] … to be revealed. I mean, I haven’t done this kind of show before. But I think being that close and that intimate in that environment, I think it’s gonna feel kind of more than what it might appear on paper.”
Will her Voltaire residency preclude Minogue from going out on the road with her own tour? No! Does she have a desire to head back out for her own traveling show? Yes!
“I see [the Voltaire engagement] as a very specific show and experience, enhanced by and limited by its surrounds. It is a performance within the Voltaire club. And, to be this involved at the inception of this club — which will hopefully be there for many, many years with lots of different artists performing there — I do feel especially attached to it because I’ve known about it since its inception and I’m part of the opening. But, my tour? That would be different again. And a very different sensation for me and for the audience. So yeah, I would love to go on tour again, absolutely.”
Also in our chat with Minogue, the pop princess reveals how she “would love to be back in the studio” working on new music after the inspiring time she had making the Tension album. “I feel like we’ve just kind of tapped into something that I’d love to explore more.”
Also on the new edition of the Pop Shop Podcast, we’ve got chart news how *NSYNC returns to the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time in 20 years and makes a splashy entrance on Billboard’s airplay charts with “Better Place,” Pop Shop hosts Katie and Keith discuss their recent concert trips to see P!nk and Jessie Ware, respectively, and a chart stat of the week about Madonna’s debut on the Hot 100, 40 years ago this month.
The Billboard Pop Shop Podcast is your one-stop shop for all things pop on Billboard‘s weekly charts. You can always count on a lively discussion about the latest pop news, fun chart stats and stories, new music, and guest interviews with music stars and folks from the world of pop. Casual pop fans and chart junkies can hear Billboard‘s executive digital director, West Coast, Katie Atkinson and Billboard’s managing director, charts and data operations, Keith Caulfield every week on the podcast, which can be streamed on Billboard.com or downloaded in Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast provider. (Click here to listen to the previous edition of the show on Billboard.com.)
Kylie Minogue collects her second No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart as her new studio release Tension opens atop the tally (dated Oct. 7). She previously led the 22-year-old list with 2020’s Disco.
The new album’s chart-topping debut comes after its lead single, “Padam Padam,” became a viral hit over the summer, and went on to become her first top 10 hit on the 10-year-old Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart in June.
Tension, released Sept. 22 via Darenote/BMG, earned 24,500 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Sept. 28, according to Luminate. That marks Minogue’s best week, by units, since the industry began measuring by that metric in December 2014. On the all-genre Billboard 200 chart, Tension debuts at No. 21, her highest-charting album in over a decade, since Aphrodite hit No. 19 (July 24, 2010-dated chart).
Further, of Tension’s first-week units, album sales comprise 19,500 – the pop star’s biggest sales week for an album in nearly 20 years. She last sold more in a single week with an album when Body Language debuted with 43,500 (Feb. 28, 2004-dated chart). Of Tension’s 19,500 sold, physical sales comprise nearly 14,000 (7,000 on vinyl – her biggest week on vinyl since Luminate began tracking music sales in 1991; 6,000 on CD and 1,000 on cassette) and digital album sales comprise about 5,500.
Tension was issued as a standard 11-song album, a 14-track deluxe edition (on CD, digital download and streamers) and in a 16-song edition (sold as a digital download exclusively through Minogue’s webstore). Sales of the album were bolstered by more than 15 physical formats, including seven vinyl variants (all with the same standard 11-song tracklist, with many in different colors with alternative covers – including some retailer-exclusive offerings), five cassettes (four with the album’s standard tracklist, and one with the 14-song tracklist – all in different colors) and five CDs (including a signed edition sold through Newbury Comics, and versions in alternative collectible packaging).
Tension was ushered in by the No. 7-peaking “Padam Padam” on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs in June. (The chart ranks the week’s most popular songs of the genre in the U.S., by blending streams, sales and airplay.) The track also became her first entry on the Dance/Electronic Streaming Songs chart (peaking at No. 14) and spent three weeks at No. 1 on the Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales chart and two weeks atop the Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart.
The viral hit went on to earn 34.19 million on-demand official audio and video streams in the U.S. – making it Minogue’s third-biggest streaming song ever in America. “Can’t Get You Out of My Head,” released in 2001, is her most-streamed hit in the U.S. (176.66 million) and her seasonal cover of “Santa Baby,” released in 2000, is in second place (44.62 million). (Minogue made her Billboard chart debut in May of 1988, bowing on the Billboard Hot 100 with “I Should Be So Lucky.”)
Following “Padam,” the new album has spun off a second dance hit with the title track, which hit No. 18 on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs in September, No. 1 on Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales and debuts at No. 7 on Dance/Mix Show Airplay on the Oct. 7-dated chart. Plus, concurrent with the album’s debut on the charts, the set’s “Hold On to Now” bows at No. 32 on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs and No. 10 on Dance/Electronic Song Sales.
Outside of the dance world, “Padam Padam” gave Minogue her first entry on the Pop Airplay chart since 2004’s “Slow,” and her first hit on the Adult Pop Airplay chart since 2002’s “Can’t Get You Out of My Head.”
The Billboard 200 and Top Dance/Electronic Albums charts rank, respectively, the week’s most popular overall albums, and dance/electronic albums, in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. Top Album Sales ranks the week’s top-selling albums by traditional album sales (CD, vinyl, cassette, digital download album, etc.).
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