There are at least two Kylie songs which everyone knows. One is Can't Get You Out of My Head, that nagging new-school electro bodypopper which reminds you just why pop music can still provide the greatest thrills of all. The other song, unfortunately, is I Should Be So Lucky.
Both featured in the live show which wowed Dublin the other week. The promise of Kylie the showgirl playing her greatest hits wearing a big head-dress of bright blue feathers ensured five sellout shows. As she turned The Locomotion into a smouldering, swinging jazz number and Confide in Me became a moment of sheer high drama that should have been choreographed by Baz Luhrmann, you realised that the music industry just doesn't make pop stars like Kylie anymore.
I saw Kylie on the last night of her residency at The Point. That day, members of the Irish record industry had been huffing and puffing on every media outlet that would have them about the 17 pesky file-sharers they're going to run out of town (once, of course, they find out who they are and where they live). Expect more huff in a few months when they release the names of the offenders, and even more puff when the cases eventually go to court.
That's all the record industry can do these days: huff and puff and then completely fail to blow your house down. That's what happens when the bean counters and lawyers take over.
At The Point, the last of the 40,000 people who had paid good money to see Kylie were having the time of their lives. They may have occasionally resembled the biggest hen party in the world or a group meeting of Hairdressers Anonymous, but these are people who love music. They love the visceral thrills of hearing a tune like Spinning Around. They whoop and holler as Kylie turns from vamp to '80s girl in the blink of a costume change.
They may have downloaded Kylie tracks and played them to their friends. They may even have caught some of the coverage of the Irma story during the day and concluded from the confusing, one-sided TV news reports that all downloading is wrong. Don't forget: these are the music industry's customers. Can you tell me of any other industry that views potential customers as possible criminals?
Don't get me wrong. Irma is completely right to be taking action against those who have persistently and illegally uploaded copyrighted music. But there's a huge difference between this and downloading free MP3s of bands from artist or label websites or a site like epitonic.com. It doesn't help the labels' case to distinguish between the two, so they have been deliberately vague in their definitions.
There's nothing vague about a survey on teenage music downloaders that UK magazine Media Week published, by a fantastic coincidence, on the same day that Irma were having their media orgasm. The survey showed that teenage music downloaders are 45 per cent more likely to buy in excess of 20 CD albums annually than non-downloaders. Yes, I thought the same thing as you.
The downloading debate is smoke-and-mirrors time for the record industry. Instead of concentrating on producing fantastic new acts, the labels have circled the wagons. Instead of finding the stars of tomorrow, they want to maintain the status quo (and Status Quo, probably). Instead of doing what the industry was once very good at doing, they have called in the lawyers.
The record industry has lost the ability to produce pop stars who can survive three decades of fickle fads and changing trends. There is no patience or willingness to nurture an artist who wants to try out different sounds for size before finding the perfect fit.
There is certainly no room for someone who wants to sing both The Locomotion and Slow. As Kylie blows kisses to the audience and leaves the stage, the thought occurs that we might never see her likes again.
