700 Hello Dannii Minogue - Love and Kisses

Chart  entered : 30  March  1991

Chart  peak : 8

Number  of  hits : 21

It's  hard  not  to  treat  Dannii  with  the  special  contempt  reserved  for  the  untalented  sibling; I'd  put  her  just  above  Paul  Ross  on  the  food  chain  if  only  because  the  talent  gap  isn't   quite  as  wide. Still,  21  hits  is  a  respectable  total  when  all's  said  and  done.

Like  her  older  sister , Dannii  first  made  her  mark  as  a  child  actress  on  Australian  soaps  like  Skyways  and  The  Sullivans. In  1982  when  she  was  11  she  joined  the  troupe  on  Young  Talent  Time  which  seems  to  have  been  an  Oz  version  of  Mini- Pops.  Her  karaoke  ( and  that's  being  kind )  versions  of   Material  Girl  , The  Final Countdown  and   Wang  Chung's  Let's  Go  can  be  found  on  cast  albums  released  at  the  time. In  1988, her  final  year  on  the  show, she  successfully  launched  a  line  of  clothing  based  on  the  outfits  in  which  she  performed.

In  1989  she  had  a  year  on  the  youth-oriented  soap  Home  and  Away   playing  a  punky  teenager. On  the  back  of  that,  she  signed  with  Mushroom  Records  in  Australia   and  started  releasing  records  the  following  year. As  there  was  a  time  lag  between  the  broadcasts  of  the  soap  in  Australia  and  the  UK,  the  launch  of  her  musical  career  here  was  delayed  until  her  episodes  began  screening  here  at  the  start  of  1991. The  singles  were  released  in  the  same  order  although  her  debut  LP  "Dannii"  was  tweaked  and  re-titled  "Love  and  Kisses".

The  song  was  her  debut  single  in  both  hemispheres.  It  was  written  by  New  York  dance  producer  Alvin  Moody  and  recorded  there. The  song  is  utterly  mediocre  house-by-numbers; it  would  have  struggled  to  make  the  B-side  of  Madonna's  Vogue. The  only  thing  that  stands  out  is  the  sheer  wretchedness  of  Dannii's  vocal. She  sounds  like  a  10-year  old  with  a  peg  on  her  nose   and  it's  painful to  listen  to  her  whining  her  way  through  it. I  don't  know  who  the  guy  who  joins  her  in  the  rap  section  is  but  he's   just  as  inept. She  performed  it  on  Top  of  the  Pops   in  an  outfit  that  unwisely  displayed  her  rather  round  navel  but  that  didn't  stop  it  making  the  Top  10  either.