Kylie Minogue’s “Padam Padam” became a surprise summer hit in 2023. The lead single from her 16th studio album, Tension, became not only a multi-generational touchstone through social media and traditional radio but also an anthem at global pride parades.
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The Pop Dance Grammy-winning single is an online earworm and, amazingly, now one of Minogue’s defining songs as she works into the fifth decade of her brilliant career.
Heartbeats and Memories
French cabaret singer Édith Piaf released “Padam, padam…” in 1951. In Piaf’s song, she thinks of a former lover when triggered by a melody. Her waltz is catchy and kind, backed with the sound of a mid-20th century big band.
Minogue takes Piaf’s nostalgia and brings it to the club, where the man in the song turns her on. She feels “shivers and butterflies,” overcome by her heartbeat.
You look like fun to me (padam)
You look a little like somebody I know (padam)
And I can tell you how this ends (padam)
I’ll be in your head all weekend (padam)
Shivers and butterflies (padam)
I get the shivers when I look into your eyes (padam)
And I can tell that you’re all in (padam)
’Cause I can hear your heart beatin’
Padam, Padam
There’s no need to intellectualize what’s going on here. “Padam Padam” is body, feel, and action. Minogue declares there’s no need for words.
This place is crowdin’ up
I think it’s time for you to take me out this club
And we don’t need to use our words
Wanna see what’s underneath that T-shirt
Shivers and cold Champagne
I get the shivers every time you say my name
And I can tell that you’re all in (all in)
’Cause I can hear your heart beatin’ (padam)
The Writers
English producer Peter Rycroft—known as Lostboy—and Norwegian singer Ina Wroldsen wrote “Padam Padam” in London. Wroldsen told Rolling Stone her north London mother-in-law would say, “Oh my heart’s going ped-ou, ped-ou.” They finished the song in only two days but weren’t sure who would record it. Rycroft and Wroldsen thought it might go to a Eurovision artist. But instead, it reached Minogue, who was in Miami then.
She received a demo and instantly fell in love with the song. A late addition to her new album, she recorded it in a London hotel. The pulsing house beat drives an East European scale tension, creating something exotic within Minogue’s call-to-action.
TikTok Meme
“Padam Padam” became a summer smash with the help of millions of TikTok videos, showing the endurance of Minogue across four decades. She has the pop durability of Barbie, and like the famous doll, Minogue’s combination of starry flamboyance and down-to-earth kindness is rare among pop stars.
The Australian soap opera Neighbors made her a star, and that popularity led to her signing with Mushroom Records in 1987. She covered “The Loco-Motion,” and it became the biggest-selling song of the decade in Australia.
In the ’90s, she took more creative control of her music and evolved into a compelling pop culture icon. Shape-shifting like Madonna and Björk, Minogue’s career was like one giant art exhibit. But there wasn’t an attempt to explain a deeper meaning in her work; it was all on the surface, and that’s the point.
Tension-less Icon
The neon glow of “Padam Padam” is perfect “Kylie.” And its popularity on TikTok, where the culture reflects bite-sized pieces of reality, is just another destination point in Minogue’s long pop project.
Through the decades, in videos and photographs, she jumped easily from camp to sensual, then dark, then light, and retained a kind of humanity within her extraordinary popularity at each step.
Too “Old” for Radio but Not for the Young
“Padam Padam” is Minogue’s biggest hit of the steaming age and represents a comeback. Her surprise hit renewed conversations of ageism, especially with female artists that the industry often views as irrelevant by middle age.
However, Minogue bridged a generation gap by connecting her longtime fans with young people on TikTok. The irony of Minogue’s hit on TikTok was how she bypassed the music industry’s shortsightedness, outside the reach of the usual media paths.
Fans revolted when BBC Radio 1 didn’t play the song. The station relented and added “Padam Padam,” Minogue’s first song on their playlist since “Get Outta My Way” from 2010.
It also became an LGBTQ+ anthem, another sign of Minogue’s reach and lightness. The world is in chaos, and “padam” has become an avatar for joy and celebration.
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Photo by Cameron Smith/Getty Images
