Kim Wilde

Kim Wilde (real name Kim Smith, b.1960) is a British singer and TV personality. She first reached mainstream success as a solo recording artist with songs such as Kids in America, Chequered Love and Water On Glass, all hits in 1981. She was backed by a band led by her brother Marty - both are the children of late 1950s/early 60s pop star Marty Wilde. Continued success meant that she received the Brit Award for Best British Female solo artist in 1983. She also enjoyed success in Europe, the US and Australia and by the end of the 1980s had become a worldwide pop phenomenon. Wilde holds the record for being the most-charted British female solo act of the 1980s, with seventeen UK Top 40 hit singles throughout the decade. Her charts success continued throughout the 1990s, and towards the end of the decade, pursuing her hobby for horticulture, she became a 'celebrity gardener' presenting specialist shows for both ITV and the BBC. She has also written books on the subject.

Her latest album Here Come the Aliens was released in 2018.

Links to Peel
Although Wilde's post-punk/pop crossover musical output met with approval from Radio 1 colleagues whose tastes were close to those of Peel (eg. Jensen, Powell, Skinner) there is no evidence of him ever playing her records on his own shows. Wilde's songs were featured on some editions of Top of the Pops presented by Peel, most notably on the Christmas Day 1981 show, where he said, "That's Kim Wilde, nice head of hair, nice pair of boots..", which may or may not have been a veiled allusion to Wilde's physical attributes.

In his Observer review of the Michael Jackson Wembley concert in 1988, of which Wilde was a support act, Peel states:

"'I felt a bit sorry for Kim. Very much the bread roll with which we toy absent-mindedly while awaiting the meal, she had yet, as the tabloids had emphasised with their usual quiet persistence, to meet Michael Jackson. But there she was, waving a red scarf and bending over a lot so that the cameras could catch the cleavage.'(source)" Peel did play a cover of the Wilde hit Kids In America by Lawnmower Deth on a BFBS show in 1991, and asked himself the question:

"'Whatever became of Kim Wilde anyway? Well she's probably playing to audiences of over 110,000 in Rio de Janeiro like Samantha Fox'. "

For her covers album Snapshots (2011) Wilde recorded a cover of the David Bowie song Kooks which was first broadcast on an In Concert programme presented by Peel in June 1971. The album also includes covers of songs by Peel session artists Buzzcocks (Ever Fallen In Love...) and The Cure (In Between Days). In 2006 she released a cover version of Steppenwolf's Born To be Wild, which had occasionally been played by Peel over the years.

Shows played

 * none

Top of the Pops

 * 25 December 1981 (TOTP) - Kids in America
 * 05 May 1983 (TOTP) - brief interview only (1,000th edition)
 * 04 August 1983 (TOTP) - Love Blonde
 * 09 May 1985 (TOTP) - Rage To Love (breaker)