Kylie is the debut studio album by Australian recording artist Kylie Minogue, released on 4 July 1988 by Mushroom Records. Minogue had established herself as a child actress before signing to the record label in early 1987. The success of her debut single, "Locomotion", resulted in her working with Stock Aitken Waterman, who produced the album and wrote nine of its ten tracks. Their recording sessions, commencing in October 1987 in London and Melbourne, coincided with Minogue's filming schedule for the soap opera Neighbours.

Musically, Kylie is a bubblegum pop and dance-pop album. It received mixed reviews from music critics who praised individual tracks but criticised Minogue's vocals and the album's formulaic production. The album has been received more positively in retrospect, with praise being towards Minogue's charm and the album's nostalgic sentimentality. It was a commercial success, peaking at number one in the United Kingdom for six weeks and becoming the fifth highest-selling album of the decade. It peaked at number two in her native Australia, while reaching the top ten in Germany, Norway, and Switzerland. Kylie was re-issued in 1988 as The Kylie Collection, in 2015 and 2023 when it returned to the UK Albums Chart. The album has sold over five million copies worldwide.

Six singles were released from Kylie. "I Should Be So Lucky" reached number one in Australia and the United Kingdom, the first for any artist. The subsequent singles—"Got to Be Certain", the re-recorded "The Loco-Motion", and "Je ne sais pas pourquoi" all peaked in the top two on the UK Singles Chart. "It's No Secret" was her third top-forty single on the Billboard Hot 100, while "Turn It into Love" was released exclusively in Japan. The album's commercial success helped Minogue establish herself as an international teen idol and launch her recording career.

Kylie Minogue was born in Melbourne in 1968, the eldest of three children. Kylie learned to play violin and piano at a very young age while taking singing and dancing lessons with her sister Dannii. Kylie was a child actress from the age of eleven, appearing in cameo roles in The Sullivans (1979) and Skyways (1980). In 1985, Kylie used her earnings from The Henderson Kids to record three songs with producer Greg Petherick at Young Talent Time, a weekly Australian music programme which already featured Dannii as a regular performer. In April 1986, Kylie played Charlene Mitchell, a schoolgirl turned garage mechanic, in the soap opera Neighbours. Jason Donovan, whom Kylie began dating at the time, played her onscreen love interest as Scott Robinson. Their romantic relationship culminated with a wedding in an episode that attracted an audience of 20 million British viewers in 1987.

During her time in Neighbours, Minogue joined a band along with cast members Guy Pearce, Peter O'Brien and Alan Dale, which Petherick arranged. He later suggested Minogue cover the song "The Loco-Motion" with the band during a Fitzroy Football Club benefit concert at the Festival Hall in 1986, where she also sang a duet of "I Got You Babe". Impressed by the performance, Petherick arranged for Minogue to record the former song, re-titled as "Locomotion", with producer Kaj Dahlstrom, who invested $10,000 to record it. Petherick submitted the demo track to many record labels before reaching out to Michael Gudinski, head of Mushroom Records. Gudinski was reluctant at first, calling the demo "a bit of a one-hit wonder". During a trip to London several months after receiving the demo track, Gudinski decided to sign Minogue because of her popularity from Neighbours. She signed with the label in early 1987. Critics and employees of Mushroom Records gave polarised opinions; many thought it would be the end of the company and dubbed Minogue as "The Singing Budgie."

In June 1987, Mushroom Records had Mike Duffy, an audio engineer for Stock Aitken Waterman producers, over for a three-month residency at Platinum Studios in South Yarra. He was asked to remix the "Locomotion" demo track with the help of a synthesizer to make it sound more like Bananarama's cover of "Venus" (1986). Instead of remixing the track, which was originally in a big band style, Duffy opted to record a completely new backing track, inspired by the hi-NRG pop of UK band Dead or Alive. It was the first time he had produced a record himself. The song was released as Minogue's debut single on 27 July 1987, three weeks after Neighbours wedding episode premiered. A week after its release, the single topped the Australian charts, remaining there for seven weeks and becoming the best-selling single of the decade. Around that time, Minogue was set up with Terry Blamey, who would be her manager for 25 years.

The success of "Locomotion" resulted in Minogue and Blamey travelling to London to work with Stock, Aitken and Waterman in September 1987. Pete Waterman, the only member of the trio aware of Minogue's trip, was unavailable; he was busy making The Hitman and Her and had not told Mike Stock she was in London. Minogue and Blamey waited for ten days in their hotel without hearing from the producers. A worried Blamey resorted to lying about Minogue's UK departure date, in order to force SAW to schedule a session with her. The duo were then given the studio time, purportedly at the last minute, after PWL's director David Howells intervened and arranged it for Minogue.

The producers wrote "I Should Be So Lucky" in 40 minutes and Minogue recorded it quickly before she returned to Australia that afternoon to work on Neighbours. Stock recalled the abrupt session: "Her ear is very tuned in so I sang her the tune and she sang it back at me and at that point I put the tapes aside and went on to other things ... We treated [Minogue] rather shabbily." He wrote the lyrics in response to what he had learned about Minogue: although she was an attractive successful soap star, he thought there had to be something wrong with her and figured she must be unlucky in love. Minogue left the studio angry, complaining she had no idea what the song sounded like, after being fed the lyrics to sing line by line. At the time, the producers did not take Minogue's career seriously because of time constraints and her obligations to Neighbours. They did not even listen to the song until Waterman heard it played by a DJ at a Christmas party that year and thought that it was remarkable.