The album contained 12 tracks (13 on the CD and cassette) and a varied team of songwriters, as well as Wilde herself co-writing more than half of the tracks. The first half was uptempo, whereas the second consisted of ballads. Most of the tracks were produced by Ricky Wilde, but there were also production duties fulfilled by Rod Temperton and Bruce Swedien known for working with Michael Jackson and there were also Reinhold Heil, Richard James Burgess and Dick Rudolph.
The album's first single was "Schoolgirl", which was released only in Australia and several European countries (although not the UK). This single was the first Kim Wilde had co-written herself. The first single released globally was a cover version of the Supremes hit "You Keep Me Hangin' On". In the United States it became Wilde's first number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, in the summer of 1987. It also reached No. 1 in Canada and Australia, and was almost equally successful in the UK, where it peaked at no. 2.
The next single was "Another Step (Closer to You)", a duet with English R&B singer Junior Giscombe, which went to top 10 in the UK. The third globally and final single off the album was "Say You Really Want Me", which caused a minor controversy when the video was banned from children's programming because it showed Kim writhing on a bed having fun with a pearl necklace. Despite the raunchy image and publicity which accompanied the specially-remixed song, it didn't set the charts alight and the album saw no further single releases. The album reached US No. 40, her only album to do better in America than in the UK, where it only hit No. 88 on the first release. Elsewhere, the album was a massive success in Norway, where it hit No. 2, and in Canada, where it hit No. 11, and selling Gold.
All of the tracks on Another Step were a departure from the synth-pop sound of the previous studio albums. There were more guitars than before: "The Thrill of It" and "I've Got So Much Love" had a distinctive 'rock' feel. The final five songs were ballads, the most noteworthy being Kim's self-penned and produced "Don't Say Nothing's Changed" which closed the album.
A re-package of this album was released a few months after the initial launch, with a new sleeve design and the addition of bonus tracks, and this time the album made it to number 73 on the UK Albums Chart. Although this failed to reignite interest, it has since become a collectors item for fans.
Kim Wilde cemented her reputation as a singles artist with this album, as again overall sales were disappointing despite the huge success of the songs released from it. She has since voiced her regret that she did not put more effort into cracking the US market after she had scored her first number one hit there.
Critical response
Writing for Melody Maker, Caroline Sullivan called Another Step "her best LP ever" and praised Wilde for embracing her camp appeal. Comparing "Missing" to the work of Kathy Kirby, Sullivan elaborated; "side two in its entirity [sic] could have been airlifted directly from 1962, when a song was a song and, as such, afforded properly melodramatic treatment." More praise was reserved for the "tenderness and poignancy" in her voice, a quality the reviewer compared to that of Marie Osmond.[3] A second review for Melody Maker (this time by Mick Mercer) was less positive, describing her "small voice and very limited range" as "hopelessly unconvincing when approaching anything remotely resembling balladeering territory".[4]The Age praised "You Keep Me Hangin' On" and "Hit Him" but found the rest of the first half of the album to be "quite undistinguishable." Side two was described as "much more appealing", with the self-written and jazz-influenced "Don't Say Nothing's Changed" singled out for praise along with the preceding "How Do You Want My Love".[5]Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph found Wilde's vocals "attractive rather than arresting" and singled out "I've Got So Much Love" as a Sheena Easton-style soaring ballad.[6] A reviewer for the Manchester Evening News unfavorably compared "I've Got So Much Love" to the work of Pat Benatar but found the "sugary soul" of tracks like "She Hasn't Got Time for You" and "Brothers" slightly more pleasing.[7] Despite comparing Wilde's bared midriff on the front cover to Madonna and noting the influence of Michael Jackson in "The Thrill of It", Smash Hits found the sound on the album to be "firmly entrenched in her old "Kids in America" style" and described "You Keep Me Hangin' On" as a "brutal massacre of the old Supremes classic".[8] A short review in Just Seventeen described the singer as "The girl who was Madonna before Madonna ever thought about making records".[9]Q described the first track as "a remarkably drab version" and said of the sound of the record – "if you've followed her career to date you've practically heard this album already -bassy synths, crunching guitars and the rebel-by-numbers yell you'd expect to hear emanating from a leather clad blonde."
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