Born: May 28, 1968 On the one hand, pop musically speaking, worldbeaters such as Kylie Minogue are few and far between. Singers and performers of her stature and popularity rarely maintain their power for as long as she was able to. Her streaks of number one singles in both Australia and the U.K. are nearly insurmountable. And yet, on the other hand, her inability to really crack open the American pop market over the course of her career is a story that is heard all too often from groups hailing from nations as pop powerful as Australia and the U.K. Eventually, with the hugely successful 'Can't Get You Out of My Head,' Kylie would rattle the American pop psyche, reminding the rather insular scene that the bubbly girl who had first made waves with the 1987 cover of 'The Loco Motion' had developed into a stylish, experienced, and able pop performer with a clear agenda -- both musically and visually -- and the chops to match. To focus on Minogue's American problem would only be looking at a small fraction of the larger story.Born in Melbourne, Australia on May 28, 1968, Kylie began acting in television dramas at the age of 12. Although the small roles brought her a fair bit of exposure, it was her 1986 debut on the insanely popular soap Neighbours that catapulted her to stardom. In Australia, Minogue's role as the tomboy Charlene won her a number of awards, but in Britain, the exploits of that character and her love interest -- played by the actor Jason Donovan -- attracted record numbers of television viewers, and made the Aussie drama one of the most watched shows in the U.K. Understanding Minogue's megastar potential, as well as her ability to vamp and sing, Mushroom Records signed her to a contract in 1987. Her success was immediate, as her debut single, 'The Loco Motion' (a cover of the 1962 Little Eva hit) rocketed to number one. With Australia firmly behind her move to pop music, Kylie headed to England and partnered with the production team of Stock, Aitken & Waterman. The first track that the group released with Kylie, 'I Should Be So Lucky,' would dominate the Australian charts, as well as a number of charts in Europe. Her pop status was further consolidated with her debut album, 1988's Kylie. While she was blazing a trail across the globe, her success in America at first seemed possible. MTV was showing 'The Loco Motion' with regularity, and it even hit the number three spot on the Billboard chart, while 'I Should Be So Lucky' managed to make a few waves as well. But it was not to be, as the American market seemed to balk, not releasing anything after her second album until 2001. As the '80s drew to a close, Minogue's stature worldwide only grew. Her duet with Jason Donovan, 'Especially for You,' sold over a million copies in 1989, even while being critically panned. A second full-length, Enjoy Yourself, was also released that year, along with a handful of singles that managed to further dominate charts in both hemispheres. In the midst of this pop success, Minogue also managed to appear in her first feature film, The Delinquents.Many things would change for her in the frenetic decade of the '90s. She began to shed her cutesy, bubblegum pop image fora more mature one, and in turn, a more sexual one. Her relationship with the late frontman of INXS, Michael Hutchence, and her shedding of the near-virginal fa?e that dominated her first two albums, began to have an effect, not only on how the press and her fans treated her, but in the evolution of her music. Released in 1990, Rhythm of Love, its worldwide hit single, 'Better the Devil You Know,' and its follow-up, 'Shocked,' took her out of the stifling world of teen pop and brought her into the more adult world of dance music and nightclubs. Her career was not without its ebbs, however. As she began to flex a bit more creative muscle, her relationship with Stock, Aitken & Waterman began to grow tiresome. Their sound had dominated for a number of years on both sides of the Atlantic (America seemed to take more to their other star, Rick Astley), but the scene was beginning to move on, and Kylie's fourth and final album with Mushroom and the production team, Let's Get to It, would sell disappointingly. Freed from the yoke of both a production team and a mainstream pop label, Minogue began a long trend of collaborating with up-and-coming and hot producers and songwriters, which not only allowed her to roll with cultural trends and stay current in an extremely fussy and fickle genre, butallowed her to branch out into new areas of performance unheard of by most pop singers of her style.Now signed to the dance label Deconstruction, Minogue released a much more mature and stylish dance-pop record in 1994's Kylie Minogue. The reviews were not all positive, but the desire to show growth and maturity were evident in spades. The singles 'Confide in Me' and 'Put Yourself i