( * as part of Mel & Kim )
Chart entered : 20 September 1986
Chart peak : 3
Number of hits : 11 ( 4 as part of Mel & Kim, 7 solo )
This is where Stock, Aitken and Waterman's imperial phase begins. I don't think even they expected this one to go top five but from this point on everything they touched seemed to zoom into the charts.
Kim Appleby was born in Stoke Newington in 1961 to a Jamaican father and white mother. The family were poor and Kim became a teenage mother. She had no involvement with the music business until her younger sister Melanie became a glamour model. The latter signed up with former Marmalade drummer Alan Whitehead for a revue. Realising that she could sing Alan set up a demo and Mel persuaded him to invite Kim, then working in the rag trade along. Whitehead became their manager and got them a deal with Supreme who then persuaded the terrible trio to work with them.
Stock Aitken and Waterman wrote around their personalities as uninhibited, working class aspirational , girls out on the town and "Showing Out ( Get Fresh at the Weekend )" reflects that. But they were also using them as a testing ground; with this record they abandoned the Hi-NRG, sound used up to Bananarama's Venus , for a more contemporary house backing track. The girls are only average vocalists and sing behind the beat like the "Nana's" and the melody is nondescript. The record hung about the lower reaches of the charts for a bit until the video got on The Chart Show and gave it that extra push. It also reached number 78 in the US.
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