1980 demo of 'Tearaway' released on cd

The story of the song 'Tearaway' is familiar for most Kim Wilde fans. It was one of the songs that Ricky recorded in 1980 for an album he might release. While recording, he asked his sister to do some backing vocals. Mickie Most saw and heard her, and suggested that she would take the lead instead.

Many songs were recorded since then (including a version of 'Tearaway' by Kim solo), but any recording of the song 'Tearaway' never saw the light of day. Or so we thought...

It turns out that the first demo version of 'Tearaway' by Kim and Ricky was released on cd in 2002, on a 'various artists' compilation series called 'Singing heroes', volume 3. The cd itself was deleted pretty soon after its release. Copies of it appear on the internet from time to time, particularly on the ebay.de and hood.de websites.

The tricky part is that the track should never have been released in the first place. The cd was released by an unnamed label, while the tracks were licensed from a company called Carinco. This company went into liquidation last year.

On the one hand, therefore, we have a real historical discovery, on the other hand the release is very much an illegal one, and the fact that 'Tearaway' was licensed without the artists knowing about it comes down to theft.

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