Kylie and DeConstructions Records parted company and following a duet with the Pet Shop Boys on their album Nightlife, she signed with Parlophone in April 1999. Her album Light Years, released in 2000, was strongly influenced by ’70s disco artists, such as Donna Summer and Village People and included several songs written by Guy Chambers and Robbie Williams who imbued their lyrics with humour. New Musical Express worte: ‘Kylie’s capacity for reinvention is staggering’ and summarised the album as ’sheer joy’ and ‘what she does best’. It generated career-best reviews for minogue and quickly became a success throughout Asia, Australia and Europe and sold over two million copies worldwide.

The single Spinning Around became her first UK number one in ten years, and its accompanying video, which featured Minogue in revealing gold hot pants, received widespread television airplay.

In 2000 Kylie performed a cover version of ABBA’s Dancing Queen and her single On a Night like This at the 2000 Sydney Olimpics closing ceremony, an event watched by and estimated 3,7 billion people in 220 countries. Afterwards, she embarked upon a concert tour, On a Night like This Tour, which played to sell-out crowds in Australia and the United Kingdom, where she sold over 200 000 tickets and set an Australian sales record for a female artist. Her six planned Melbourne shows were increased to twenty-two, due to public demand. Kylie was inspired by the style of Broadway shows, such as 42nd Street and the films like Anchors Aweigh, South Pacific and the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals of the’30s. Kylie was praised for her new material and her reinterpretations of some of her greatest successes, turning I Should Be So lucky into a torch song and Better the Devil You Know into a ’40s big band number.