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In the first few years of the 1980’s, the record racks were glut­ted with a ton of new wave albums by record com­pa­nies look­ing to sign the next Cars or Blondie.  Most of them ended up becom­ing future music-trivia ques­tion answers but a few man­aged to score a glit­ter­ing, synth-y hit or two that would live on via 1980’s nights at clubs and com­pi­la­tion albums.  Kim Wilde was one of the lucky ones thanks to her hit “Kids In America.”  It lit up the charts on both sides of the Atlantic and has been cov­ered more than once.

“Kids In America” is the cen­ter­piece of Kim Wilde and it remains one of the great genre-defining new wave sin­gles.  It fades in on a wave of throb­bing, vaguely men­ac­ing pro­grammed synths before blos­som­ing into an intense rock back­ing that flaw­lessly blends jerky, ener­getic post-punk gui­tar stylings with the sort of sleek elec­tron­ics that Gary Numan or The Human League were known for.  The lyrics paint a por­trait of kids filled with an exis­ten­tial dread of the sprawl­ing sub­ur­bia that sur­rounds them as they look for kicks and rely on music to pull them through.  Wilde croons the lyrics in a detached baby-doll style, act­ing as an unsmil­ing teen dream for the alien­ated, and her approach fits the song to a ‘t.’  Simply put, it’s new wave perfection.

However, Wilde is much more than a one-hit won­der.  Though she only scored one other big hit here — a Stock Aitken Waterman-style rework­ing of the Supremes chest­nut “You Keep Me Hanging On” — she man­aged to main­tain a hit­mak­ing pro­file in Europe through­out the 1980’s.  Those sin­gles even­tu­ally drifted into a more stan­dard­ized 1980’s Euro-dance-pop but her early sin­gles are pure new wave with a dark, off­beat edge.  The ten­den­cies of those early sin­gles also car­ried over to their par­ent albums — and her self-titled debut is one of the best albums to emerge from the early 1980’s new wave rush.

For starters, Kim Wilde is a smooth, skill­fully paced album where each carefully-crafted tune breezes through your ear into your sub­con­scious, one right after the other.  Everything here sounds like it could have been an a-side or b-side on a sin­gle and there is no throw­away filler.  Better yet, the pro­duc­tion and the song­writ­ing weave the occa­sional dif­fer­ent style into the basic synth-plus-guitar-riffs new wave approach: the album fea­tures traces of reg­gae (“Everything We Know”), ska (“2–6-5–8-0″) and even AOR-style bal­ladry (“You’ll Never Be So Wrong”).  It’s a fam­ily affair — dad Marty pro­duced and co-wrote most the songs with brother Rikki — and it’s very savvy about the mar­ket it caters to.

More impor­tantly, Kim Wilde has an unusual per­son­al­ity that dis­tin­guishes it from the pack.  Once you look past the hook-filled melodies, you will dis­cover that the lyrics often have unusual themes: “Water On Glass” is about a real-life med­ical con­di­tion where the afflicted con­stantly hear a sound in their heads and the nar­ra­tive of “Tuning In, Tuning Out” revolves around the meta­phys­i­cal con­cept that sound waves never die.  Elsewhere, the album traf­fics in the angst of mis­un­der­stood teens — not just “Kids In America” but also “Our Town” and “Young Heroes” — but throws out one more curve­ball in the form of “2–6-5–8-0,” a por­trait of a care­free escort girl that bypasses social com­men­tary for cheeky humor.

The final touch is pro­vided by the vocals of the tit­u­lar singer.  She is capa­ble of pierc­ing drama — the intense highs of the cho­rus on “You’ll Never Be So Wrong,” the primal-shout of the title that punc­tu­ates “Falling Out” — but she doesn’t sound like she’s strain­ing for effect.  She can belt it out when the song demands it (“Young Heroes”) but is just as skilled at the num­bers that require a lighter deliv­ery (“Everything We Know,” which is per­haps the high­light of Kim Wilde in terms of vocals).  Best of all, what­ever she sings is suf­fused with a melodic mood­i­ness that suits the often brood­ing tone of the lyrics.  She’s instantly con­vinc­ing and sells the album’s melancholy-bordering-on-edgy per­sona nicely.

In short, this is a win­ner for any fan of new wave sounds.  It has been a big favorite of Your Humble Reviewer’s since child­hood and, though styles have changed sev­eral times over since it was first com­mit­ted to vinyl, it remains a potent slab of moody-teenager fun.

(CD Notes: the recent Cherry Pop reis­sue is the defin­i­tive ver­sion of this album, offer­ing up a punchy remas­ter­ing of the songs plus an addi­tional three tracks (a sin­gle ver­sion of “Water On Glass” and two album-only b-sides that are almost as good as what’s on the album itself).  Better yet, the pack­age includes a great set of liner notes that include pic­tures of dif­fer­ent sin­gle sleeves and mus­ings on each the tunes by Kim, Marty and Ricky.  Whether you’re a fan or just curi­ous, this is the way to hear this album.)