The “Kylie Connection” on Later… With Jools Holland

Last Thursday, a 2010 episode of Later… With Jools Holland ran on the music channel, Palladia. It featured The Scissor Sisters, as well as Grinderman, fronted by Nick Cave (of The Bad Seeds). Watching Holland, The Scissor Sisters and Nick Cave, I couldn’t help but see the “Kylie connection,” Minogue of course, throughout the round.

She has rung in a few New Years with Jools. One in particular featured Kylie on a piano, singing Come On Strong.



Shears and The Sisters collaborated with her on some of her releases and live performances; her with The Sisters at the Glastonbury Festival in 2010. They performed the never-gets-old, Any Which Way. Just listen to the massive crowd roar when they see Kylie hit the stage. Plus, the bass line performed by BabyDaddy really stands out. He’s just so damn cool and suave in his shades. He stands there and just does his thing. “Is that right, BabyDaddy.”



In 1995, Nick Cave wrote a song for Kylie: the remarkable and highly disturbing duet ballad, Where The Wild Roses Grow. This story of innocence lost, obsession and murder features Kylie as “The Wild Rose” but her “…name was Elisa Day/Why they call me that, I do not know/for my name was Elisa Day.” In the video, Cave is seen picking up a rock, which is the rock that we later find out is used to kill his obsession. “And the last thing I heard was a muttered word as he knelt above me with a rock in his fist.” She lays dead in a river, slightly reminiscent of Hamlet’s Ophelia. Yet unlike suicidal Ophelia, Elisa has been placed there along the riverbank. Cave then places a rose "'tween her teeth," thus the moniker that becomes attached to her legend. Where The Wild Roses Grow, both song and video, is an important transition in Kylie’s career. It’s a project that took place during her “Indie Kylie” period, when she began experimenting and collaborating outside the Dance-Pop landscape.



Check out these Kylie collabos on a repeat of Later… With Jools Holland on Palladia, Tuesday night (1/15) and Wednesday afternoon (1/16). (Also, the episode features the handsome and tailored lead singer of The Killers, Brandon Flowers, performing some of his solo material from Flamingo.) BSo