Kim Wilde - 'Wilde Winter Songbook'

I have broken the Christmas Law of not listening to Christmas music until December. My excuse is that this is Kim Wilde's new album, 'Wilde Winter Songbook', which is now available and, after a long journey home tonight, I deserved it. I'm sure Kim would approve. Nay, she would insist!

There are a few duets (with Nik Kershaw, Rick Astley, her dad Marty Wilde and husband Hal Fowler) and it's a mix of standards and new winter and Christmas songs. It's also great fun, with her own Christmas hit, 'Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree' opening with an announcement that 'the next station is Potters Bar' which is a reference to the video of her last year being slightly tipsy after a Christmas party singing the song with brother Ricky on the train home. Gets a big thumbs up from me!

A couple of the songs are delivered in New York supper club style with the emphasis on Kim's voice as it is in all the songs - but nothing's obvious with Kim. There's no power pop Christmas but it works for me. I think it's the new songs that are my favourites, songs like 'Hope', 'One' and 'New Life' with nothing Christmassy in the titles but they drip Christmas sparkle and magic. All in all it's a fun record, sometimes thoughtful and sometimes cheeky, and very full of the Christmas spirit.

I need to put the record away until December when I can listen to it on rotation but it sounds excellent on one listen. I hope she plays these songs on her Christmas Party tour  before Christmas.

I can't help but think of what Kim wrote in the booklet to her last record ('Snapshots') when she said "[I] wear my Pop Star badge with pride!" She's still a Pop Star to me and I'm looking forward to seeing her play live at Christmas.