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Kylie Minogue Slam-Dunks Ageist Music Industry
Minogue’s brush with casual ageism highlights the prejudice against successful older females. But she proves it can be beaten.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that every pop radio station worth their salt had Kylie Minogue’s banger Padam Padam on repeat the last few months. But that didn’t happen. Some radio stations took issue with Kylie’s age.
Certain UK pop radio stations refused to put the song on their radio lists because she was too old for their listeners.
In retrospect, it didn’t matter too much. Padam Padam went viral thanks to ‘younger generation users’ on Tik Tok and other social media platforms and became a mega-smash-hit despite the lack of airplay.
But it raises questions about society’s views on people, particularly women, and specifically successful women, as they get older.
In Minogue’s case, Australia and Europe grew up with Kylie. But the States suddenly saw a youthful and sexy disco queen back in the early 2000s when ‘I can’t get you out of my head’ belted out of every radio station in the developed world. The song’s catchy chorus and fleshy futuristic video resonated with an entire generation.
