Wilde At Heart

Hangin' on.

I first heard the term "emo" a few years ago. I associated it with Goth girls and My Chemical Romance, and wasn't too far off. But  I've come to understand that in order to be emo, a work of art needs to have abject emotion. I was thinking of this concept and relating it to my own favorite works of art from over the years, the ones in which I seem to have been able to perceive intense emotion that may or may not have been put there by their creators. I'm talking about aggressively breezy pop and dance music in particular (though also TV shows and some movies). I remember passionately arguing with a snobbish friend of mine—who in the '80s only cared for pop crafted under the influence in the '60s—that music by Culture Club, Eurythmics and Madonna was packed with import, with feeling, with emotion. I didn't dare tell him I thought the same of some tunes by Exposé, Company B and worse.

They were taking me to the point of no return.

I guess if emo is short for "emotional hardcore" rock, the emo I was unwittingly dreaming up was short for emotional softcore pop.

One artist I found exotic and alluring and emo was Kim Wilde, whose "Kids In America" these days sounds a bit chirpy despite its original icy-hot video presentation. I loved that song, and found similar depth in her shallow-on-the-surface remake of "You Keep Me Hangin' On," but it wouldn't be until I bought her hits collection years later that I'd discover other truly enthralling early songs like "Cambodia." In the meantime, during the late '80s, Kim hit her most emo(soft) for me, with the painful yearning of "You Came" and the sexually charged "Never Trust A Stranger," perhaps the ultimate bar song for me.

"Kids In America," "You Keep Me Hangin' On," "You Came," "Stranger."

I guess in some regards, in order for me to see and hear and—of course—feel the emo in a song, context is influential. When those songs dropped, I was just entering gay bars and gay relationships and gay men for the first time—and it was way before songs were said to have "dropped." We all tend to adore the popular culture that surrounded our coming of age, even if it's crap. (And, as in the case of the Baby Boomers, if there are enough witnesses to said popular culture, it becomes elevated to mythically powerful status—Elvis, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, the Beatles are several examples of their emo faves that they have brainwashed future generations into adoring almost as much as they did...)

Chequered love.

I am thinking of Kim because I haven't thought of her in 15 years or so. I have a peculiar fascination with pop cultural figures I've forgotten about, and in tracing their footsteps since last I paid attention. This is why Alphaville and a-ha blew my mind with their extensive, post-"one"-hit-wonder careers abroad (I bought up all their CDs once I realized), and less positively, this is why I become overly obsessive when discovering someone briefly famous of whom I have not thought for a while has not only gone on to have a whole life minus my gaze, but a whole death.

Kim Wilde is not dead, but on a related subject, I think that when we fixate on a star, he or she becomes a representative forever—of a moment in time, a feeling or, when the fixation is intense, of ourselves, our own youth and happiness and direction in life. I think that's why we snark on stars and rage against their foolish choices, turn on them, feel betrayed and hurt by poor decisions or by their losing battle with age. Because they are us and they are the stand-ins for our own successes and failures. So when one gets old, looks bad, fails or makes a comeback from failure, these all cause disproportionately intense, emo reactions.

This might explain why, once I randomly looked up Kim Wilde's "Kids In America" video on YouTube, I spent two hours watching other songs to see what the hell she's been up to, why I was happy to see she was alive and after a period of inactivity in the '90s resumed performing regularly in the 2000s. As an emo double-whammy, I found out she'd made a fairly lesbocious and utterly amazing duet with Nena—another to-me '80s star who's gone on to iconic status in her native Germany—in 2003 called "Anyplace, Anywhere, Anytime" and that she must agree with me on her greatest hit seeing as she saw fit to do "You Came 2006."

Cute in the Nena video, fucking hot live—only a few years ago!

(Sadly, her new version was not emo, it was the opposite—it drained all the urgency and energy from the original. The video reduces her to rolling about on a bed on which she looks more likely to drift into a nap than to masturbate, which was the intention. No offense intended to Wilde fans.)

Horrors.

It also explains why I was happy to see her looking gorgeous in some of the videos, and why I was bothered to see her looking too heavy in others and why I was really morbidly fascinated by her too-severe plastic surgery in some of the most recent videos, which has pinched and cheapened her exquisite beauty—she had been from the same gene pool as Kim Basinger, Teri Copley (now an insane born-again Christian, UGH!), Michelle Pfeiffer and Deborah Harry—rather than extending it.

Trying way too hard to take the world in a love embrace six years ago.

Though in an unguarded moment, I might feel smug seeing a star looking bad, I actually feel sad even thinking that Kim Wilde looks kinda bad, that time has to pass, that the youthful desires and impulses that so often make up the kinds of emo sights and sounds to which I'm referring must always give in to the passage of time, the inexorable process that takes us from the realm of exciting possibilities to that of sobering realities and...eventually, beyond.

Teri, Debbie, Michelle, Kim B., Kim W.

I guess all of this boils down to the fact that even though I'm always happy for birthday gifts, I am getting dangerously close to my 40th birthday (Christmas Day). Coincidentally, Kim hits 48 on Tuesday, and yet she and I just keep hangin' on.

Comments

[John Logsdon]

Ahhh memories...I LOVED Kim....I had so many of her 12 Singles ... I still have quite a few of the MP3s I could dig up. I actually really liked her Born to Be Wild...she looked soo good in that particular video. Now...the You Came 2006 ... we all know you look younger when you lay on the bed...but Kim....an entire video laying on a bed...UGH! Oh well... I always like to think of all those artists of my youth as being exactly the same...all performing in some cool club somewhere...forever.

[markus]

Kim went back to college and became an horticulturist and landscape designer, she pops up every so often on BBC for the Chelsea flower show,

[kenneth]

Im also a huge Kim fan from back in the day, although her label sure didnt make it easy. I remember after her first album did well (2-6-5-8-0 = perfection!) they decided her second, Select, wasnt worth releasing here. I only found out about it when Madame Kaesler -- my 10th grade French teacher -- got back from Paris and pulled out a 45 of Cambodia along with a pile of other singles that had been huge hits in France that year. (Yes, I stole it and still have it today.)

Luckily, the import record store in Tempe was great so I was able to get it (and later her third album, Catch as Catch Can, which was also deemed unworthy despite its Nile Rogers single Dancing in the Dark and Love Blonde, which came with this fab color poster in the 12-inch single!).

The video for Say You Really Want Me sealed the deal on my homosexuality, and I completely agree that You Came was touched by the heavens above.

You dont look anything close to 40 and I still havent figured out what emo is, but that doesnt make me love this any less.

[Matthew Rettenmund]

Thanks for the great comment, Kenneth. I figured Kim Wilde would be chum in the water for you. Thanks for the compliment, too! But Kim didnt look anything close to 40 at 40 and at 48 (Happy Birthday today, Kim!) doesnt look close to 50, except from the opposite direction. I guess I better avoid plastic surgery. I think it sits better—if on anyone—on naturally very thin people, which is so mega-unfair!

[James]

Kim Wilde is fantastic the video you posted for You Came2006 was not the original video it was just bonus.. the original Video for You Came is different by the way her New song Perfect girl 2007 was excellent she brought back the 80s sound w twist and swearls for 2007 and it sounds GREAT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPuJZ3948S8