LAUSR

Kylie: A Celebration is part of a series of ‘collection stories’ the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) has put together to showcase its pieces. Using thematic narratives and interactive elements, each entry in the ‘collection stories’ featurettes come together to form online exhibitions where there tends to be much more to see and hear than read. This, of course, makes sense for a National Film and Sound Archive. In addition to Minogue’s piece, popular music fans can also see/hear and sing along to features about John Farnham, Jimmy Barnes and Archie Roach. The audio-visual materials in Kylie: A Celebration are lovely, however a bit more context would be great. This is particularly true for pieces of footage that might otherwise appear odd or out of place, such as awards ceremonies and clip show footage. For example, early on in the online exhibition users are shown the ARIA Hall of Fame induction video from 2011 where Molly Meldrum inducts Minogue. The piece includes a ‘highlights package’ of her career, as well as Meldrum proclaiming his admiration for ‘[Minogue’s] faith in her own ability, where she has not become bitter about certain factors in the Australian music industry who [only] claimed her as a “two hit wonder” or who called her a “singing budgie”’. From here the camera pans to Minogue who gestures towards the slur with her arms under her arms doing a ‘birdie dance’ in defiance. On its own this piece seems to be a triumph, but with a little more context it shows there was still more to do. That year there were two Hall of Fame Inductees – Minogue and The Wiggles. What does that say about the industry – that ‘kids stuff’ or ‘pop stuff’ needs to be combined if it’s going to be included? Was Minogue not good enough on her own (or The Wiggles, for that matter?). A similar acknowledgment of cultural cringe happens in the section on duets, where the sharp contrast between Minogue and others appears. Most notably, the section ‘Where the Wild Roses Grow’ – Kylie and Nick Cave, exploring the duet she performed as a guest on Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds’ Murder Ballads album (1996). The clip featured is a retrospective of the song and its influence as part of the Great Australian Albums series (Mushroom, 2008), and really, Minogue is a bit player. In the clip Cave talks dismissively about being dragged into the pop world with the piece, ‘having to go