Spinning Around by Kylie Minogue

Album: Light Years (2000)

Charted: 1

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Songfacts®:

This was co-written by Paula Abdul, who was going to record it for her comeback. She decided to give the whole thing a miss and revived her career by becoming a judge on the TV show American Idol. Kylie got the song and became the comeback queen. >>>
Suggestion credit:
Kay - Sydney, Australia
This reached #1 in the UK in 2000, making it Minogue's 5th UK #1, and her first #1 single for 10 years, the previous being "Tears On My Pillow" in 1990. >>>
Suggestion credit:
Ross - Brisbane, Australia
This was the song-writing breakthrough for another American Idol judge: Kara DioGuardi. She recalled to Billboard magazine in January 2010: "I went through years of rejection, and my first thing was Kylie. I didn't know who Kylie was, and I was heartbroken that Paula Abdul wasn't going to do it. I was thinking, 'Kylie Minogue? Who's Kylie Minogue? I've got to make some money or I'm going to have to go back to my real job.' And then I saw her ass in the video - she had these hot pants on and I was like, 'OK, I like Kylie Minogue. I'm going to make some money here.'"
Dioguardi would go onto to have a songwriting catalog of several hundred songs, including around 50 international charting singles. They include Pink's "Sober," Kelly Clarkson's "I Do Not Hook Up" and Cobra Starship's "Good Girls Go Bad."
Kylie recalled in 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh: "Jamie (her A&R man Jamie Nelson) went to New York and arrived back with this demo, waving his arms saying, 'I've got this great song here and I think it'd be perfect for you. We all listened to it and loved it straightaway, even in demo form it had something."
The song was produced by Mike Spencer, who is primarily known for his work with such commercial pop artists as Jamiroquai, Newton Faulkner and Emeli Sandé. He recalled to OfficialCharts.com:

"I'd been working with Beverly Knight at the time on music that had a very soul edge to it, and that's what Spinning Around was in its original demo form. It was a soul record. The musicians I was using on it were Rob Harris from Jamiroquai and Winston Blissett who played for Lisa Stansfield. We upped the tempo and made it into a disco record. We didn't know if it was necessarily the right thing to do, but it felt like a return to where she'd come from, back to what she does best."

Comments: 7

Dj Michaelangelo from Grand Rapids, MiSongwriter and music industry exec Kara DioGuardi wrote about this song in her book "A Helluva High Note" from 2011: "Enter the just-released-from-prison cowriter, who somehow convinced Paula that he could give her the hit song she needed. I actually knew this person before I met Paula, and had witnessed him trying to smooth-talk $60K out of my brother's best friend, for a partnership and piece of his music business that, according to my brother's friend, ended up yielding no return on his investment. As far as I could see, it got this guy a fat new loft to live/work in and to shag girls in. This cowriter was brutal. He yelled and screamed at me. I think I even cried. 'No, it's not a hit chorus!' he determined, even though he had never written one. A hit chorus was the last thing I was worried about. I was trying to stay true to Paula's story."

Although Kara does not mention this 3rd co-writer by name, it is widely assumed to be Ira Schickman, a songwriter with almost no other previous credits to his name, up until this point.
Dj Michaelangelo from Grand Rapids, MichiganIn a January 2021 appearance on the US TV show "Watch What Happens Live" Paula Abdul was asked by host Andy Cohen: "Tell us about how you wrote 'Spinning Around' for Kylie Minogue, and how rich has it made you?" She replied to the cheeky question with: "Well myself, Kara DioGuardi, and a gentleman named Ira -- we all 3 wrote 'Spinning Around' and it's done very well for me, I'm not complaining at all! I love the song, it's a fun song -- written about my divorce a long time ago."
Dj from ThornesideI would lov to do locamotIon with kylie with her in those gold shorts. l luv kylie.
Craig from Melbourne, Australia1 of the few clips were Kylie is not barefoot at least part of the time.
Pete from Nowra, Australianice shorts.......seemed to fit ok
Leon from Waterbury, CtThe video for this is...well, simply awesome. :-)
Pete from Nowra, AustraliaKylie's first hit in Australia was a cover of Little eva's The Locomotion

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