TEASES & DARES

Released 1984 Label MCA Chart Positions UK No.66 US No.84

Kim may well have had second thoughts about leaving RAK for MCA following her new label’s insistence she reinvent herself as a wild-haired Barbarella for her fourth album’s cover art: alongside the likes of Roy Hattersley, ready meals and the 1986 buddy action cop comedy Running Scared, the star later put the outfit she sported into the BBC’s Room 101.

It’s not clear exactly what the correlation is between the space adventurer and Teases & Dares. While Kim’s previous efforts had moments of sci-fi inspiration, her 1984 LP is a relatively slick and straightforward synth-pop affair free of any extra-terrestrial bleeps. Even the track Bladerunner sounds more suited to a dreamy rom-com than the same-named Ridley Scott classic.

At times, Teases & Dares is the sound of the Wilde family going through the motions. Rage To Love is another out-of-place detour into old-school rockabilly which suggests Marty, now also joining Ricky and Kim on production duties, was determined to vicariously relive his youth. Although it returned Kim to the US Top 40, (where it was renamed Go For It), there’s something slightly icky about a pop star delivering various chat-up lines (“You need some magic, come on let me lean on you”) when they’re co-written by their dad. And despite being one of two entirely self-penned affairs, even Kim seems bored on the lacklustre mid-tempo Fit In.

Her songwriting skills are much more effective on Shangri-La, an eerie tale of a faltering marriage which recaptures the melodrama of the near-named 60s girl group (“Is our time up and on to the next fire/ Got my fingers burnt and cut into the wire”) and closing make-up tale Thought It Was Goodbye. Opener The Touch and the Heaven 17-esque Is It Over are also worthy of gracing a Best Of.

As arguably the most disappointing album of her 80s days, Teases & Dares didn’t exactly hint at the transatlantic chart success that was just around the corner.

AT TIMES, TEASES & DARES IS THE SOUND OF THE WILDE FAMILY GOING THROUGH THE MOTIONS