The singer who hates the public

In the countries of central Europe she is already the top of the charts. She has never done a concert, because she says that people irritate her. Yet she has already sold a million records.

She contrasts with her dad, the look sullen and defiant, a daughter of our times. And Kim Wilde, the platinum-blond twenty-one year old, has made people in Britain, Germany, Netherlands and the Nordic countries forget about Toyah, Lio and Lene Lovich with one LP and a larger number of television appearances. But she never did a gig because she says that the public irritates her, yet she has already sold a million records, a record as to throw open the eyes of even Nikka Costa (although Kim is the daughter of art, her father is a British rock ‘n’ roller from the time of Cliff Richard and the Shadows).

Some critics called her a copy and a rejuvenated European Deborah Harry (the former blonde from Blondie). Kim reacts bored and rebellious: “I’m sick of this comparison with Harry, you only have to hear my music to understand that there is no relationship with her.”

Today you’re a star all over Europe, but wouldn’t it come in handy in the future to have a look like Blondie in America, where she is almost more famous than Marilyn Monroe?
Let’s be clear: I’d like to make myself known in the U.S. and I think that will happen soon enough, but I do not consider myself a product of export, a sort of Alfa Romeo, because in this case I’d rather be a Concorde.

To whom did you dedicate the song ‘Cambodia’?
It’s the story of a girl who lost her man in war. It happens every day for people who live and die fighting a war, whether in Cambodia or in Ireland. It is a song of love, but it does not contain a political message.

How do you live with your father?
Very well: he wrote the music and my brother arrangements.

Will you record some of his old songs?
I don’t think so, for now I like the new ones.