Australian pop icon Kylie Minogue has scored her biggest solo success in over a decade with her latest single – thanks to the power of social media and her loyal LGBT-fanbase.

The dance anthem Padam Padam is the singer’s first solo effort to break into the UK charts since 2010’s All The Lovers.

Minogue’s hit song is popular on the video sharing platform TikTok, with fans creating remixes, dances, and memes for the song.

The song’s unfaltering popularity with the gay community has also helped to lift Minogue’s return to music to new heights, with “Padam” now adopted as an internet colloquialism, meaning “being gay and having a great time”, as one fan explained on TikTok.
In an interview with the BBC’s Radio 2 Breakfast Show, Minogue described the song’s social media success as a surprise.

Kylie Minogue’s latest single Padam Padam is her biggest hit in over a decade.
INSTAGRAM: @KYLIEMINOGUE
Kylie Minogue’s latest single Padam Padam is her biggest hit in over a decade.
“We loved it as a team, but the way that it's taken off is way beyond me,” Minogue said.

“It's become a noun, a verb, an adjective ... You know, friends leaving going: 'Padam!' Like they've turned into minions or something. It's taken on a life of its own, and I am having the time of my life seeing what people are doing.”

The song is believed to be inspired by French songstress Edith Piaf’s 1951 waltz of the same name, about a melody evoking memories of a former lover.

“It's onomatopoeic – d-dum, d-dum, like a heartbeat,” she said.

Minogue, 55, has long been celebrated as an LGBT-icon after the community adopted the pop singer during the early stages of her career.

But the impact of Kylie Minogue’s Padam Padam is having around the world is actually insane

In a 2018 interview with Billboard, Minogue says her icon status within the gay community came “without [her] knowing it” in the 1980s after she discovered popular Sydney gay bar The Albury had begun hosting Minogue-themed nights.

In early 2023, Minogue headlined Sydney’s WorldPride 2023 concert, and has performed at Sydney's Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Party three times in the past.

The single features on the star’s upcoming sixteenth studio album Tension, due for release in September.