100 Greatest Songs of the 20’s So Far #27 Kylie Minogue – Padam Padam

Released: 2023

“Don’t call it a comeback” has long passed into common parlance for people trying to convince you that it wasn’t them who went away or halted their craft, but you, you who were were too lazy, too out of the loop or worse, deliberately excluded by them from all that tastemaking.

You can call her resurgence via Padam Padam the ultimate definition of a comeback though, mostly because comebacks are what Kylie Minogue has specialised in since what feels like the dawn of modern pop music, an obvious truth if you weigh having hits in five different decades as a benchmark for career longevity, which clearly you should.

The track’s title was, it felt symbolically, borrowed from an Edith Piaf chanson of the same name, underlining that neither party felt they had cause to regret much. There weren’t many other parrallels, but on cue the TikTokers memed it to death, making for an oh so music-in-the-20’s viral platform that re-codified the singer’s fanbase into the broadest possible of churches. Was it a comeback? Hell yes. And couldn’t call it anything else.