I have made a trip back in time. And I have to thank Kim Wilde. Do you remember her, the British singer from the early eighties, with blond hair, that sultry voice and those beautiful, always somewhat sad-looking eyes?
A lot of guys my age were watching television a little more attentively when TopPop broadcast songs like “Kids in America”, “Cambodia” and “View from a Bridge”. Me too. I even bought an album from her. At the time I was taken by the song “Love blonde”. Now I wonder if the photo of the love blonde on the cover was not the real reason for the purchase.
I once dreamed of meeting Kim Wilde and last night that happened. In October, she performs at CineCity XL in Vlissingen and PZC was offered an interview with her in advance because she was here in the Netherlands for a television appearance. In preparation I took that old LP from the attic this weekend, where my record collection is gathering dust for twenty years. Discarded, but still too precious to get rid of. Of course I have Spotify to listen to old songs, but I wanted to hold that large sleeve in my hands again, to hear the old crackles in the vinyl.
It’s just that I did get rid of my old record player.
And so I hurried to the shop for a portable gramophone, some retro model. First, I naturally played ‘Love blonde’, but soon I hummed along to songs by other artists that I liked at that time as well, like The Undertones, Talking Heads and Elvis Costello.
Suddenly my sons saw the return of old adolescent, enjoying every scratch on his old LPs. Without Kim Wilde they had still been in the attic. And I would still have been the old man with a cabinet full of CDs. But now I have a nice trendy turntable.