27 February 1988
In two-channel provincial Ireland in 1988 we didn’t have Neighbours; instead we made do with Home And Away. Like any kid made to feel uncool, I slightly resented having to experience Neighbours-mania vicariously by peeking in the windows of Smash Hits and, more cruelly, Dublin-based Irish kids TV. So, while I was aware she was in Neighbours, I first really knew of Kylie Minogue as a pop star singing ‘I Should Be So Lucky’, which means I wasn’t seeing her through the filter of ‘soap star’. However, there still remained the filter of ‘Stock, Aitken and Waterman star’.
In the summer of 1987 the Stock, Aitken and Waterman brand, though never hip, wasn’t as reviled as we remember it now. Mel and Kim’s ‘Respectable’, Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’, and Bananarama’s ‘I Heard A Rumour’ were genuinely bright and enjoyable. By early 1988, however, any previous SAW quality control has all but vanished. In that regard, ‘I Should Be So Lucky’ has become their signature hit: cheap synths, cut-and-paste lyrics, nagging repetition, drab melodies, style-wise bad hi-NRG disco sellotaped to bad soul-pop, and a palpable cynicism that the kids will buy any old rubbish if they like the singer, hence using young Neighbours actors who already had teen market foothold. This track rehashes the incessant ‘-ation’ rhymes of ‘Respectable’. In lieu of invention and variety, there’s an eye-wateringly high key change in every verse, which does Kylie no favours; by the choruses she sounds like a carbon monoxide alarm. They surely knew straight away that they had found themselves a real-deal pop star, perhaps even a muse. However, ‘I Should Be So Lucky’ turned into a narrow furrow that SAW had her ploughing repeatedly for the next two years. (Compare SAW’s flimsy ’88-89 hits for Kylie and company with the thrilling and inventive ’00s material Xenomania made for their muses, Girls Aloud.)
We know now that Kylie, still only a teenager at this point, outgrows SAW and ‘I Should Be So Lucky’ to such an extent that her signature hit is now a smart electro-pop masterpiece from 2001. Ironically, before that she eventually gets to sing the best Stock, Aitken and Waterman single of all, 1990’s fantastic Italo-house throwback ‘Better The Devil You Know’, just as the tide was going out on SAW forever. ‘I Should Be So Lucky’ now only exists for us in the context of ’80s nostalgia, but its brain-rotting ubiquity in 1988 turned out to be the unlikely launchpad for a fascinating, tumultuous, ultimately triumphant pop career. Not bad for a teen next door.
