Kim Wilde

Kim Wilde (born Kim Smith) is a singer, songwriter, author, DJ and television presenter. She is the eldest child of 1950s rock 'n' roll pioneer Marty Wilde.

She has sold over 10 million albums and 20 million singles. Wilde holds the record for being the most-charted British female solo act of the 1980s, with seventeen UK Top 40 hit singles. 

Real talent will get through whatever the obstacles.

In 1980, at the age of 20, she completed a foundation course at St Albans College of Art & Design.

She first saw success in 1981 with her debut single Kids in America, an instant success, it reached number two in the UK Singles Chart and went Top 5 in Germany, France and Australia.

When I got into the music industry I wanted to be a session singer and I would have been quite happy to do a session and get paid and move on to the next job.

So when it did happen to me, it wasn’t like a big dream of mine to be a big star. I had to get my head round it pretty quickly.

Her debut album Kim Wilde repeated the success of the single, spawning two further hits in Chequered Love (Top 5 in the UK, France, Australia and Germany) and the UK-only single Water on Glass.

My whole career was launched in such sort of poptastic style with Kids In America, and I liked - and like - being poptastic. Songs big on melody, high on energy, lots of attitude... what's wrong with that?

Her follow-up album was 1982's Select, which featurted the hit singles Cambodia and View from a Bridge.

In 1983, she received the Brit Award for Best British Female solo artist.

In 1988, Wilde released her biggest selling album to date, Close, which returned her to the UK top 10 and spent almost eight months on the UK album chart.

Starting in 1998, while still active in music, she branched out into an alternative career as a landscape gardener, which included presenting gardening shows on the BBC and Channel 4.

I felt relieved to walk away from that world, having been in it since I was 20. It was a big release. But to my great surprise I discovered that this big void had opened up and needed to be filled and what really surprised me was that having children didn’t fill it all. In fact it gave me this whole new lease of massive extra energy, far more than I knew what to do with.

So we needed a garden and I’d always loved the natural world and being outdoors so I did a gardening course and just got the bug. Gardening filled the void of creativity that was left when I got out of the music industry. And my family liberated me to do all of this. I’m really proud that 22 years on Hal and I have made it through the slings and arrows and all that. Without them all, I’d be scrabbling around in the dirt.

I don't take myself seriously any more. Sometimes I just garden in my knickers and platform shoes.

In 2005, she won a Gold award for her courtyard garden at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show.

Wilde's twelfth studio album, Snapshots, was released on 26 August 2011 and features cover versions of songs hand-picked from the last five decades.

On the 16th March 2018 she released her 14th studio album Here Come the Aliens.

As a writer I’ve really developed and got masses more experience. It was wonderful being able to write for this album and talk about things that fire me up, that interest me and perplex me.

It’s pop rock in the tradition we set out with and I hope that people feel that it’s a worthy accompaniment to the past.

Our generation pretty much grew up through the history of pop music - For me, listening to pop music as a child in the 60s, being a teenager in the 70s, being a pop star in the 80s and still loving pop music in the Noughties to now, the album is a celebration of pop music and its impact on our lives and how we still feel so incredibly inspired by it.

To learn more about Kim Wilde click and explore any of her media channels and network links in the tool-bar above.