KIM WILDE (UK)

Born: 18 November 1960
Birth name: Kim Smith

Kim was born in Chiswick, a part of Southwest London. Her father was Reginald Smith but he was better known as 50’s rock ‘n’ roll singer Marty Wilde who had seen numerous hits in the late 50’s and early 60’s. Her mother was Joyce Baker who had been a member of the group Vernons Girls who had also seen a few hits in the early 60’s. Sometime in 1980 Kim was irritated by her brother, Ricky, who appeared to be playing the same note over and over again on his new synthesizer. Little did she know that this supposedly irritating note would change her life as Ricky was working on the insistent synthesiser note that introduces the song ‘Kids In America’. The song was completed with dad Marty’s help and Kim recorded a demo which was heard by Mickie Most. Most liked what he heard and signed Kim to RAK records. ‘Kids In America’ was an immediate success, going to 2 in the UK. Her second hit, ‘Chequered Love’ was similarly successful, going to 4 in the UK.  Her success continued with her second album which produced the hits ‘Cambodia’ and ‘View From a Bridge’ and by the end of 1982, she had sold more records than her father had done in his recording career. However, the follow up album did not build on her early success and she was dropped by RAK. She signed to the MCA record label but had to wait till 1986 when her cover of the Supreme’s ‘You Keep Me Hanging On’ took her back in to the UK top 10 where it went to number 2. A year later she teamed up with Mel Smith from the comedy show ‘Not The 9 O’Clock News’ to record a cover of the Christmas classic ‘Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree’. The duo was referred to as Mel & Kim after the sisters Mel & Kim Appleby who were seeing success around that time with hits like ‘Respectable’ and ‘Showing Out’. However, despite further releases, her popularity was on the decline till sometime in the mid 90’s when she abandoned the music scene and went to study horticulture. This led to her presenting gardening shows on TV and she even won a Gold Award at the prestigious Chelsea Flower Show. In 2001 she began performing again being part of 80’s nostalgia concerts with acts like Paul Young, The Human League and Howard Jones. In 2006 she recorded her first album in 11 years and has continued to release new material with her latest being the 2018 album ‘Here Come The Aliens’.

Date of entry	Song	Peak (weeks at 1)	Weeks
19-Jun-1981	Kids In America	1 (1)	15
31-Jul-1981	Chequered Love	1 (1)	11
15-Jan-1982	Cambodia	2	16
16-Sep-1983	Love Blonde	22	3
		Total hits	4
		Total weeks	45

Biggest climber awards	2
Star rater climbs	4
Biggest fallers	2
Weeks with oldest in the charts	0
Longest run in the charts (weeks)	17
Weeks with more than 1 in the charts	9
Biggest gap between hits (weeks)	70
Top 30 points ranking	132
Top 20 points ranking	=112
Top 30 points	992
Top 20 points	547

Kim was 1 of 8 female acts who manged 2 number 1s (none managed to see a third) and she was the first of 3 female acts to see 2 songs spend time at 1 in the same calendar year. Jennifer Rush and Kylie Minogue were the other two.