During a
Fitzroy Football Club benefit concert with other Neighbours cast members, Minogue performed "
The Loco-Motion" and was signed to a recording contract with
Mushroom Records in 1987.
[13] Released as a single, and retitled "
Locomotion", the Australian recording spent seven weeks at number one on the Australian music charts,
[14] and was the highest-selling single in Australia for the 1980s.
[15] Its success resulted in Minogue traveling to London with Mushroom Records executive Gary Ashley to work with
Stock, Aitken & Waterman. They knew little of Minogue and had forgotten that she was arriving; as a result, they wrote "
I Should Be So Lucky" while she waited outside the studio.
[16] The song reached number one in the UK and Australia and was a hit in many parts of the world.
[14] Her
debut album Kylie, a collection of
dance-oriented pop tunes, entered at number two on the British album charts,
[14] and then went to number one and stayed in the British charts for more than a year.
[17] It sold over seven million copies worldwide, with most sales occurring in Europe and
Asia, and it contained six successful singles. In the
United States and
Canada, the album did not sell strongly, however the re-recorded version of "The Loco-Motion" reached number three on the U.S.
Billboard Hot 100 chart,
[18] and number one on the
Canadian Singles Chart. "
It's No Secret", released only in the U.S., peaked at number thirty-seven in early 1989.
[19] In late 1988 Minogue left Neighbours to concentrate fully on her music career.
Jason Donovan commented "When viewers watched her on screen they no longer saw Charlene the local mechanic, they saw Kylie the pop star."
[5]
