Kim Wilde’s hit singles, from ‘Kids in America’ to ‘View from a bridge’, are some of the best examples of latter-day girlie pop you could find. And, in the tradition of the girlie pop genre, she can’t claim much responsibility for them. Kim Wilde’s material is wholly written by her father and brother, Marty and Ricky Wilde ,with Ricky Wilde producing. In view of the fact that her team don’t perform live, Kim’s sole contribution is to stand in front of a studio mike (or a camera) and sing (or pout).
This may almost be as well, because while the songs themselves range from lively to outright exciting (the male Wildes have a wonderful sense of dramatic tension and an ear for soap operas within three verses), the Wilde upfront has a voice which is notable only for its complete immaturity; it’s amazingly vacant. A kind of bruised, bovine quality supplies the requisite sexuality, a form of sexuality, it should be said, that is tantamount to Kiddie-porn. The songs she sings are classic pop, but in the course of an entire album the impression of complete colourlessness tends to detract from the emotional dynamics Ricky Wilde has so skilfully charted.