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Lostboy on co-writing & producing Kylie’s Padam Padam: “It straddles that line of dumb and hooky”

A telephone rings. You pick it up and answer: “Padam?” Just over a year ago, this would have baffled the most studious of new slang-adopters, but thanks to Kylie Minogue’s hypnotic hit, Padam Padam, the word has since passed into internet folklore, powering a thousand Hunsnet memes and providing Kylie with a single catchier than 2001’s Can’t Get You Out Of My Head. Padam is a gay codeword for everything and nothing. It is a compliment, a question, an answer, a greeting, an exclamation, your password to the queer community. It is simply, Padam.

A year on from the Padamification of summer 2023, British songwriter and producer Lostboy (real name Peter Rycroft), who produced and co-wrote the hit, reflects on creating the track that gave Kylie the hookiest hook since, ‘La la la…’.

“I've put my foot in it before in interviews,” Lostboy immediately warns Headliner, before promptly confessing that he is working on more material with Kylie. “Lots of stuff is coming, including new things that I don't know if I can talk about.”

Headliner enquires if he’s allowed to mention the new Kylie material? “Probably not,” he laughs. “But it's fun. I think people have worked out from Instagram stories and stuff. So it's out there,” he insists.

Accent aside – and despite the fact that he sees himself as more of a US-facing producer-writer – Lostboy’s self-deprecating sense of humour and refusal to take himself too seriously immediately gives away he’s a Brit. That, combined with uniquely UK references (WHSmith, a hypothetical Sandra from Essex), frequently asking if what he just said makes sense after providing a well articulated answer to a question, and naturally, talking about the weather.

“I don't know how to dress anymore! We were lulled into a false summer, and now I'm shivering again.”

I don't think either of us were like: This is obviously a Kylie song. It just found its way to her.

Co-written by Norwegian singer-songwriter Ina Wroldsen, Padam Padam scooped a well deserved Grammy for Best Pop Dance Recording in February 2024. Lostboy admits that despite also working with the likes of Tiesto, Rita Ora, Bebe Rexha, Ellie Goulding, Lewis Capaldi, Anne-Marie and Little Mix, he hasn’t got used to attending glitzy events just yet.

“I can't help but feel like I'm in some sort of weird, awkward British sitcom, or the awkward Brit who's bumping into all these incredible people,” he says. “I try my best to turn it on a bit and be the 'cool guy producer' for those events, but it's always a bit overwhelming. And particularly the Grammys – that's bucket list stuff. 

"We weren't expecting it to win; the nomination alone was such a huge honour. When it won, it was so surreal that I basically just blacked out and found myself on stage,” he cringes. “The walk to the stage was horrific – it felt like forever. I got there, and Kylie wasn't on stage with me, so it was just me accepting the award, which was so bizarre. I wasn't expecting to have to speak or anything, so it really was just panic stations. Luckily, some words came out that were mildly coherent.”

The relentlessly catchy hit – dubbed the song of the summer in 2023 – exploded onto the charts worldwide, reaching the top 10 in numerous European countries, was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and Pro-Música Brasil (PMB), spawned thousands of TikToks (and memes – more on those later), and introduced the Princess of Pop to a whole new generation of fans. A Padamic, if you will. One year on, and Lostboy has Padam Padam stuck in his head as much as the next person.

I love it, obviously, but I've heard it so much. The producer and the people who work on songs have heard them thousands of times before they come out. When it came out, I wasn't really sure what that song was going to do. I wasn't expecting anything and then almost off the bat I remember seeing memes and funny little things that people were making to the song. 

"This one just felt different; it had a full life behind it and people were really having fun with it, which is what you need for songs to work these days. It was a surprise to all of us.”

It's that balance of perfectly dumb and perfectly smart – somewhere in the middle of that is the sweet spot.

Although acknowledged to be a word that transcends meaning, Padam is in fact an onomatopoeia for a heartbeat. Wroldsen and Lostboy met in a tiny London studio to write a track for pitch, with no artist or song ideas in mind. During the session, Wroldsen remarked that her mother-in-law would often say, ‘My heart's going ped-ou, ped-ou,’ which was altered slightly to the more pleasing sounding, Padam. Lostboy casts his mind back to a life BP (before Padam):

“Ina is a legend,” he enthuses. “I've been a fan of hers for years. We put two days in and often there's quite a lot of pressure, not pressure from anyone else,” he clarifies – “especially because we were writing for pitch. We tried a few things and they weren't really clicking. I'm always trying to find an obvious 'thing' or a moment, or a thing that defines the song, whether that's a sound or part of the topline. 

"On that first day, I didn't feel like we'd found anything like that. The second day, she was either running late, or I came in a bit early, and I was desperately scraping around trying to find something that would strike inspiration for both of us. I started playing that weird little plucky major-minor progression thing that starts off the song – that synth part. When she came in, I played it to her and neither of us really thought anything of it. We were like, 'This is a nice place to start, let's try some melodies and throw some things down’. She's an amazing writer, she has such a brand of topline. She started doing her thing straight away.”

Lostboy can’t recall exactly how they landed on Padam Padam as the title, but remembers they were talking about the 1951 Édith Piaf record of the same name (also described as "maddeningly catchy”), and the idea of an onomatopoeia appealed to the duo.

“We were just trying to find something that represented a heartbeat, and we were in this dark, flirty, club-land world,” he recalls. “In our heads we weren't thinking, ‘We're going to write a song for Kylie,' – it was a song for who knows who. But interestingly, the day before, we'd both been talking about Kylie and Can't Get You Out Of My Head, the repetitive nature of that and the major-minor thing that is interesting in that. 

"I think it was more subconscious than anything, but that maybe influenced what I started playing that morning. I don't know,” he shrugs. “It's easy to have these thoughts in hindsight. It might have just been random, but it ended up going full circle.”

Kylie recorded it all herself in a hotel room on her laptop, which is just so iconic.

Unmistakably Eurovision-esque, upon finishing Padam Padam, they considered that it might make a good fit for Rita Ora or indeed, a Eurovision contestant.

“Even when we were finished, I don't think either of us were like, 'This is obviously a Kylie song'. it just found its way to her,” he says, before clarifying his Eurovision comment. “That feels like a bit of an insult – I didn't mean that. I just thought, ‘This is such a fun, quite camp song,’ so I was thinking, ‘Who can pull that off in a way that's cool and not cheesy, can do it in a tongue in cheek way and have fun with it?’ I couldn't really think of anyone.”

After lurking around in Lostboy’s harddrive for the best part of a year, he played the song to A&R manager Chris Woo, who knew at once where the song needed to go.

“He is a huge Kylie fan, and a fan of all things camp – I'm sure he won't mind me saying that. He said, ‘You should send it to Kylie.’ And so, I did. It sat on her desk for a while, they weren't necessarily sure about it, and then eventually she heard it, took it for a spin and did her thing.”

The song was one of the last tracks to be added to Kylie’s 16th studio album, Tension, and became the record’s lead single. Kylie recorded the vocals herself on her laptop in a London hotel.

I sent her the track with Ina's vocal parts separated out so she could hear exactly what each part was doing,” Lostboy explains. “Then she recorded it all herself in a hotel room on her laptop, which is just so iconic. She sent me her session back and I went through it and picked my favourite bits. She's so cool about trusting me with decisions, vocally. It was pretty much there after the first version I did.”

Critics singled it out as a standout from Tension, and the song proved that an artist could continue to surprise and maintain commercial relevance five decades in, while reaching a new generation of younger fans thanks to the song’s rampant use on TikTok.

“That's what Kylie is known for: being brave, pushing the envelope and trying things,” nods Lostboy. “She's always doing fun, new pop ideas, so in that sense, it wasn't surprising that she was trying something different for her. It made sense in the arc of her career.”

It just felt a bit too obvious: the ageism, sexism thing. It was clear as day.

Already a bona fide queer icon, Kylie’s Padam Padam further cemented her status and became an anthem in the LGBTQ community. Lostboy couldn’t be prouder.

“We owe a lot to the fans,” he nods. “I'm not sure if it was smart or just circumstantial, but it became a bit of a pride anthem and that was such a fun thing for that song, and so much fun to watch. It breathed even more life into this thing that already felt like a bit of a cultural bubble. I've seen it in so many different environments – it's just one of those songs that seems to work, even in places you wouldn't expect. 

"There's so much energy in the topline – it's not too specific, so anyone can feel ownership over it. It straddles that line of dumb and hooky in a way that is addictive,” he smiles.

Twenty-two years BP, Can't Get You Out of My Head was riding high at number one in 40 countries and went on to become one of the most successful singles of the 2000s. Like Padam Padam, the secret to the song’s success seems to lie somewhere in the combination of uncomplicated, repetitive lyrics, a maddeningly infectious melody and minimalist production. Both hits were also written very quickly.

“I think the average person knows better than I do what a hit is, and that's where I'm trying to be in my head when we're making these songs,” says Lostboy. “It's like, 'How is Sandra from Essex gonna feel when she hears this in WHSmith?’. It's that balance of perfectly dumb and perfectly smart – somewhere in the middle of that is the sweet spot. 

"In this case, I think part of the hypnotic element is a very circular topline that resolves back where it started. That does something subconsciously where you can't help but sing along because you know it's coming round again.”

it could have had much more of a life if Radio One joined the party a bit earlier.

Despite Padam Padam’s evident popularity and the viral nature of the song, Radio 1 and Capital, which cater to younger listeners, failed to include the track on playlists. Surely the youth of today could comprehend the idea of a woman in her *clutches pearls* 50s singing about taking off her clothes? The stations eventually caved after receiving backlash and included the song on their C-lists, which in itself verged on insulting, says Lostboy, who remarked that David Guetta (the same age as Kylie) would not get the same treatment.

It was just a bit of a wake up call,” he says. “To see it happen even when the song was doing its thing naturally was pretty disappointing. I was more upset for Kylie and for the fans, to be honest, because they were all begging radio to play it. It just felt a bit too obvious: the ageism, sexism thing. It was clear as day and no one should have a problem calling that out. It's a thing that, unfortunately, has been ingrained in society for so long. It still happens. 

"The David Guetta example was no shade, by the way, I love David and I've worked with him – he's amazing. Age has nothing to do with it for him, but if you're a woman, suddenly it does, and that's just not fair. There was a small victory in the end, and it was playlisted at Radio One, but it could have had much more of a life there if they'd joined the party a bit earlier. it just felt ridiculous.”

Perhaps anticipating this very issue, Lostboy shares that when Kylie committed to the track, alternative vocals were briefly considered, as he sensed there might be eyebrows raised about the following lines: ‘I know you wanna take me home / And take off all my clothes / Wanna see what's underneath that T-shirt’.

“There was a point where it wasn't gonna be as sexual,” he nods. “We were maybe trying to water it down. That ageism, sexism thing, I felt even then. I was like, ‘Why can't Kylie be hot? Why can't she sing those things?’ There was a bit of push and pull with that, and eventually we ended up just sticking with the original.”

Why can't Kylie be hot? Why can't she sing those things? It just felt ridiculous.

Once Lostboy had Kylie’s vocals back, the sleek, thumping earworm came together quickly, with the vocals forming the cornerstone of the track.

“I'm obsessed with vocal production,” Lostboy stresses, pulling up the session on his laptop. “That makes much more of a difference than people realise in terms of songs connecting. It's so interesting, because if you take all the vocals out, the track itself – the instruments and the drums – are so basic. The vocal fills up almost 50% of the song so that plays into why it's so easy to sing along to, because so much of it is vocal. It has almost an extended mix feel,” he says, acknowledging the fade-out style end to the track. 

“If you're making a song for a DJ, often you'll do an extended mix with eight or 16 bars at the end where it's just instrumental and drums and then it fades to just drums so that they can mix from one record into the next. It has that feel with just the bass and the drums rolling around for eight or 16 bars. Obviously, this is not some super credible underground club record, but weird little elements like that helped to add some credibility to a song that is otherwise super shiny pop.”

The song clocks in at a punchy two minutes and 46 seconds long, its hypnotic groove throbbing beneath the surface. Lostboy explains how he started with the synths:

“It all started with that main, plucky synth and we built it from there. There's a lot of dark industrial sounds in it – I was listening to a lot of random dark electronic productions at the time, so that definitely influenced the sound of it. It's pretty basic: a hard, dark bass, a hard kick – a classic, dance pop production. 

"Where all the fun stuff happens is in the vocal production more than anything; there's so much automation, so many reverb swells and throws and weird little effects on the vocal that make it interesting. There's also quite a prominent vocoder that comes in halfway through the chorus in the first chorus, and it's there in the second chorus. It adds to this weird industrial, robotic vibe that is juxtaposed to the sweetness of the vocal.”

Her lead vocal is quite heavily saturated – a bit crunchy – and it's also got a lot of widening effects on it.

On the song’s opening line, a woozy, manipulated ‘Padam’, Lostboy explains how it was achieved:

“It was pitch-shifted down an octave, so it's just Kylie’s vocal – or it actually might even be Ina's original lead vocal – pitched down and saturated again. It's got quite a lot of reverb on it and then it's pitched around throughout the track to fit each chord and becomes an instrument, in a way. The end of that phrase is chopped and used as a tonal note that shifts around on the snare and adds to the weird blending of instruments and the vocal. 

"Then I used a sidechain effect – when you route a compressor to the kick,” he explains. “So every time the kick hits, it pushes the sound down, so it dips on every beat of the bar. That's on that synth, but it's also on the vocal throughout and it glues everything together in a pulsing way.”

Lostboy elaborates on how Kylie’s vocals were manipulated: “They're pretty heavily affected – there's the sidechain thing happening throughout and a lot of trickery with super long reverbs and automating them so that they cut quite harshly, so it'll be super open and then absolutely dry,” he says, consulting the session again on his DAW. 

“The automation of the reverb send in the chorus is an eight second reverb, so super long, but it's just going on the one and the three and it fills up so much space in the track. It feels like part of the instrumental almost. Her lead vocal is quite heavily saturated – a bit crunchy – and it's also got a lot of widening effects on it.”

One of Lostboy’s go-to plugins, and one which played a crucial part in the making of Padam Padam, is Waves Audio’s Doubler (the other is Little AlterBoy by Soundtoys for pitch shifting).

“Waves’ Doubler is on the lead vocal in the chorus, which is pretty unconventional – and probably a mix engineer's nightmare – but that's doing the weird, wide, robotic vibe. It's basically acting as a chorus; it's pitching and delaying a vocal left and right from the lead vocal, so it's super tight still, but there is a little bit of subtle width there. It adds to the trippy vibe and it means you can get away with just one vocal as opposed to having Kylie do doubles. This is not what I would normally do – it's literally just shoved on before the compressor, the lead vocal, buss EQ,” he says. 

“It's doing its effect, but then it's also being slammed through a Universal Audio 1176, so the compressor’s kicking up the little delay that the doubler is making and it adds more to the width of the vocal – just at the ends of the words. It won't be as obvious when she's singing through a word, but just right at the end, you hear it. It's weird to put it there before the compressor EQ and stuff,” he shrugs. “There aren't any rules though really. I think: just muck around until it sounds cool.”

On the Padamification of the internet, Lostboy has seen every meme going: “There was a petition to add it to the Oxford English Dictionary as well at one point, and people will say, 'That's so padam,’ which is so much fun. I love the meme where someone is picking up the phone and they say, ‘Padam?’ It's not the most creative meme, I understand that, but it's such a basic interaction that everyone does, and if that catches on, it's game over. I thought that was hilarious. I love all my memes equally,” he says diplomatically.

With another Kylie track in the works, is he feeling the pressure to produce another Padam Padam? “Not until you said that,” he laughs. “I try not to think about music like that because that's enough to drive anyone crazy. Padam was its own thing and it's lived its own life. The new stuff is so much fun as well, in its own way. We can't try and do Padam again, it just won't work. I'm just excited to watch Kylie continue to be an icon.”

Will Lostboy be watching Miss Minogue Padaming in person at BST Hyde Park in London this summer?

“If I'm not in L.A., I'll definitely be there. I'd love to see her on home soil. We'll have to get on the Rose in Kylie's honour!”

Kylie image credits:

Main image: Erik Melvin / Second image: Ed Cooke / Third image: Erik Melvin / Fourth image: Edward Cooke / Fifth image: Erik Melvin