Born Kim Smith, the daughter of the Vernons Girls’ Reginald Smith or Marty Wilde, Kim Wilde completed a foundation course at St Albans College of Art & Design before signing with RAK Records in 1980. The singer’s debut single “Kids in America” arrived a year later in 1981 and earned Wilde instant success. “Kids in America” debuted at No. Two on the UK’s Singles Chart and reached the Top Five in a host of other countries including France, Germany and Australia. The single paved the way for Wilde’s eponymous debut album, which peaked in the Top Three of the UK Albums Chart and spawned the further singles “Chequered Love” and “Water on Glass”.
Wilde’s 1982 album “Select” was another successful album, aided by the singles “Cambodia” and “View from a Bridge”, which both became chart-topping singles in France. The singer’s third album “Catch as Catch Can” was a comparative failure and Wilde subsequently left RAK Records and inked a deal with MCA in 1984.
The singer-songwriter’s debut for MCA arrived in 1984 entitled “Teases & Dares” and whilst it didn’t perform well in the UK, it earned a positive response and chart listing throughout the rest of Europe. Led by the single “Schoolgirl”, “Another Step” was issued in 1986, which spawned the surprise hit “You Keep Me Hangin’ On”. The reinvention of The Supremes classic hit became a No. Two single in both the UK and Australia, and in 1987 became a rare U.S. No. 1 Hit Single.
The success of the single propelled Wilde to popularity and her subsequent album “Close” spent close to eight months in the UK Albums chart. The release led to the singer opening for Michael Jackson on his Bad World Tour, and after the release of “Love Moves” in 1990, Wilde became the opening act for David Bowie on his European tour.
After collaborating with Rick Nowels to produce the album “Love Is” in 1992, and releasing her first compilation album “The Singles Collection 1981-1993”, Wilde embarked on an extensive world tour including gigs in Australia and Japan. The new millennium brought an ’80’s revival tour alongside Paul Young, The Human League and Howard Jones, and after signing a new record deal with EMI, Wilde released her 10th studio album “Never Say Never” in 2006. The singer-songwriter has subsequently released the albums “Come Out and Play” in 2010, “Snapshots” in 2011, and the Christmas themed “Wilde Winter Songbook” in 2013.
It’s probably not unreasonable to say that Kim Wilde was one of the iconic pop figures of the eighties; after her signature track, ‘Kids in America’, introduced her to the world in 1981, she’d go on to channel the new eave stylings of the decade in a manner that proved so successful that she actually managed to sell in excess of ten million records worldwide. Her best-selling record, Close, came at the close of that decade, proving that her appeal spanned it from start to finish, although once the nineties swung around, her commercial viability had unmistakably begun to wane. In 2006, after an absence of almost a decade, she released the appropriately-titled Never Say Never, and has continued to record since, releasing her latest, the Christmas-themed Wilde Winter Wonderland, in 2013. She still performs live, too, and not just, as became notorious a couple of years ago, drunkenly on the train, either; that incident, though, might actually have been the spark for her to tour the UK late last December, with a trio of Christmas shows comprising her first shows in the country for thirty years. She’s making a couple of festival appearances this summer, too, marking a comeback to the live scene for one of Britain’s most successful pop exports.
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