1. Can't Get You Out of My Head
from Fever
what else?
I did grapple with the song that would top this countdown. all four of my top four were in consideration right up until a couple of days ago. but when it came down to it, it's
Head. no other song in Kylie's discography does what
Head does — the kind of once-in-a-career song that most artists will never experience, beamed in from some other dimension where the song on the radio is engineered to lull you into a perfect trance.
Head is sexy, mysterious, ethereal, a bit meta, almost creepy, and crucially sounds like nothing that came before or since. with just a verse, a bridge and that
la la la hook it's not the most complicated of songs. but the way the melody of the
set me freeeeee... bridge falls into the abyss like a lost cosmonaut floating through space is as hypnotic as anything you'll hear in a pop song, and the chorus lyrics perfectly describing the listener's relationship with the song is a touch of genius.
it takes real brilliance to survive the massive amounts of overplay this song has had over the years, and maybe a few casually clever reinventions too (see the Blue Monday mash-up and every tour version since — KMO is a favourite). and if every truly classic pop song needs an iconic video,
Head's is the living tits. Kylie driving a yellow Mangusta (sexy) through a deserted dystopia, switching gears with her red leather glove... pity the other girls. the hooded dress, the robodancers adorned with industrial headphones... a dream of some distant future too sexy for mere mortals to access. god bless Kylie Minogue.