Christmas has always been complicated for queer people. Too loud or too lonely, too scripted or too silent. Which is maybe why pop music matters so much at this time of year. It gives us something steady to hold on to. This year, that anchor has a familiar name: Kylie Minogue.
With XMAS, Kylie has claimed her first-ever UK Christmas No 1 — and in doing so, became the first woman to top the UK singles chart across four different decades. It’s a statistic, yes. But it’s also a story about endurance, affection, and the kind of loyalty that only exists between a queer audience and its icons.
“It’s hard to put into words how special this feels,” Kylie said. And that emotion feels shared. For many of us, Kylie has never just been a pop star. She’s been there through coming-outs and breakups, Pride nights and lonely bedrooms, cheap discos and late-night radio shows. From I Should Be So Lucky to All the Lovers, her music has soundtracked queer lives quietly and consistently.
That XMAS beat Wham!’s Last Christmas — a song itself soaked in queer nostalgia and collective memory — feels symbolic rather than competitive. One queer Christmas staple gently making space for another. Tradition, but with room to breathe.
There’s also something deeply Kylie about the way she did it. No drama, no irony, no need to reinvent herself. Just warmth, charm, and a song that understands Christmas not as spectacle, but as connection. While XMAS was released as an Amazon Music exclusive, its success wasn’t just about strategy. It was about trust. People showed up because they wanted to.
At a time when queer communities are stretched, politicised, and too often pushed into survival mode, moments like this matter. They remind us of continuity. Of joy that doesn’t need to be justified. Of pop culture as a place where queer people are not just visible, but cherished.
This Christmas, Kylie didn’t just win a chart. She gave us a shared moment — one more memory to add to the playlist we carry with us. And that feels like a gift.
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