Artiste: Kim Wilde
Nationality: British
Album: Another step
Year: 1986
Label: MCA
Genre: Rock/pop
Tracks:
You keep me hangin' on
Hit him
Another step (closer to you)
The thrill of it
I've got so much love
Victim
Schoolgirl
Say you really want me
She hasn't got time for you
Brothers
Missing
How do you want my love?
Don't say nothing's changed
Chronological position: Fifth album
Familiarity: “Close” plus most of her singles
Interesting factoid: Well you probably all already know (or don’t care) but Kim is the daughter of sixties pop sensation Marty Wilde. Yeah, I thought you wouldn’t care...
Initial impression: n/a
Best track(s): Another step, The thrill of it, Brothers, Missing, Don’t say nothing’s changed
Worst track(s): Hit him, She hasn’t got time for you, Say you really want me
Comments: I’m pretty sure I bought this after having been impressed by “Close”, her next album, even though this preceded that. If you see what I mean. But whereas I don’t think this album comes, er, close to that opus, it’s still a very good album, and a lot of other people must have thought so too, as it’s her biggest selling album in the US and gave her a number one hit single. Sadly, that single is a cover of the old Supremes number
You keep me hangin’ on, though she does give it an eighties makeover and turns it into the kickass dance tune it was always meant to be. Still, I’m not one for covers, especially when they give an artist a hit. And I could certainly do without the funk pop of
Hit him, but then we get to the meat of the matter.
The title track is a glorious slice of pop/rock, the first really guitar-driven track, very uptempo as indeed were the two tracks preceding it, but this is the best so far. Nice big dirty guitar and peppy piano in
The thrill of it, while
I’ve got so much love leans a lot more in an AOR direction, with
Victims keeping the tempo high and with a nice rock vibe about it. Odd thing about this album is that it seems to be intentionally laid out in two halves, with all the fast tracks on one side and all the ballads on the other. I would have preferred more of a mix to be honest. You have to of course like a song that goes by the title of
Schoolgirl, but it's a bit dancey and poppy for my tastes. As is
Say you really want me, which has very funky guitar and brass but annoys me. Mind you, it brings us right on to the ballads, of which there are five in all.
Odd that none of them were ever released as singles, as there are some fine songs here, and where a song like
Schoolgirl or
You keep me hangin’ on made it into the charts, I feel something like
Brothers,
Missing or the closer would have done very well, but it was not to be. There’s a lot of seventies Motown soul in
She hasn’t got time for you, which reminds me in places of Judie Tzuke, and a sax riff right out of Glenn Frey’s
You belong to the city, and to be honest it’s a bit dreary.
Brothers has much more punch about it, while there’s a great Spanish guitar intro to one of the standouts,
Missing, on which Wilde gives one of the most passionate vocal performances of her career. There’s a certain bleak feel to
How do you want my love and then the album closes strongly on another standout.
One of the few songs written by her solo, and indeed produced by her,
Don’t say nothing’s changed is a world away from most of the songs on this album, a deep, thoughtful, tender ballad with beautiful backing and a hook that many of the other songs fail to land in your heart. Listening back over to this now for the first time in years, I realise it’s actually not as good, track-for-track, as I had remembered it, and “Close” is a far better album. Still, for someone written off by most people as the girl who had that “Kids in America” song, she’s done a very decent job here. Another step, indeed.
Overall impression: A worthy album that has rather more flaws than I originally remembered
Hum Factor: 8
Surprise Factor: n/a
Intention: n/a