Review: “Wicked” by Sinitta (CD, 1989)

Today’s POP RESCUE from a fate uncertain, is the 1989 second album Wicked by American singer Sinitta. Does this album make you Believe In Miracles, or will it make you wanna Hitch A Ride out of here? Read on…

Sinitta - Wicked (1989) album cover — Sinitta – Wicked (1989) album

This 15 track CD album opens with the clattering of drums of single Right Back Where We Started From. This is a wonderfully up-beat and bouncing song from the start, and this continues with ease as Sinitta takes the mic of this cover of Maxine Nightingale’s 1975 hit. This 80’s pop track took Sinitta to #4 in the UK charts, and rightly so. It’s a nice bright pop song, in which Sinitta sounds like she’s beaming throughout alongside the breakdown and the saxophone. It’s a catchy hit, and rightly so.

Next is lead single I Don’t Believe In Miracles, which reached #22 in the UK, and this track – written and produced by legends Mike Stock, Matt Aitken, and Pete Waterman certainly carries their trademark sound – reminding me instantly of some of their work with Hazell Dean and early Kylie Minogue. It doesn’t quite carry the same amount of energy as the previous song, and is certainly more downbeat.

I Just Wanna Spend Some Time With You is next, and this feels very much again like a continuation of the sound and style of the previous song, although this time we have Pete Hammond (from the PWL team) on songwriting and producer roles, and once again sounding somewhat like a song that I could easily imagine as a Kylie album or b-side. The vocal sampling works nicely here, and whilst Sinitta delivers the vocals with ease, the thumping beat and galloping bass line dominates the sound a bit.

Then it’s fifth and final single, Hitchin’ A Ride, which is a dance pop cover of the 1969 track by Vanity Fare. Sinitta makes light work of the lyrics, and the thumping beat and handclaps work well to keep it galloping along too. The backing vocalists help to build the song, and the ‘beep beep beep beep beep beep yeah!’ sounds wonderfully twee now. The song doesn’t really allow Sinitta to show off her vocals alone, and sort of descends into a wall of sound towards the end. The track reached #24 in the UK chart.

That leads on to fourth single Lay Me Down Easy which opens like the theme to 80’s TV series Howard’s Way. This swiftly shifts to a nice dreamy/space-y song, in which Sinitta finally gets to show off some different vocals and she sounds fantastic. The track then heads into the chorus, and takes a harder sound but it plods nice and gently before returning to the minimalist sound. The track is by Ralf-René Maué (worked with London Boys) wasn’t a success though, and finally ran aground at at #88. It feels a little bit out of its time here, or a little jarring with its harder chorus. I’d love to hear a slow full orchestral version of this some day.

The tempo hops back up for You Keep Me Hanging On, which reminds me a little of some of Jason Donovan’s PWL tracks. Here, we’re treated some nice brass notes alongside some blasts on some synths and Sinitta’s softer pop vocals. It’s a nice little pop song from PWL’s team Ian Curnow and Phil Harding.

Right Back Where We Started From (12″ Remix) is next and we’re treated to some almost comedic (at times) vocal samples that sound like a cross between someone doing party tricks on panpipes and Beaker Muppet walking on hot coals. This gives way, and Sinitta is in with her brilliant vocals sat on top of this extended version of her catchy hit. It’s a 5m 21s delight, and likely serves as the closing of side one of the LP version, and it was hard to resist doing over-head hand claps in the breakdown.

Then it’s Love On A Mountain Top, opening with the same drum sample that you can hear at the start of Big Fun’s cover of Blame It On The Boogie – yes, we’re in on another Curnow/Harding production! The track is another cover version, this time of the Robert Knight song from 1968, but here it stood as the album’s 3rd single, and gave Sinitta a #20 hit (it deserved higher!) in the UK. It’s a belter, and a wonderfully catchy track.

Next up is Love Love Love, a second track from Ralf-René Maué, and as soon as it began I felt that it sounded like a London Boys track. Here, the beats, bass, and hand claps are somewhat over-powering of Sinitta’s vocals, and that’s a shame as this would otherwise be fairly catchy. It doesn’t stop for a moment though, and it gallops along through out verse and chorus, and I suspect Sinitta was happy to breathe at the end of the recording.

That is followed by Where Do Nice Girls Go, and this time we hear Sinitta a somewhat stylised vocal over a kind of 80’s cover of what sounds like a 60’s song, despite it being an original. Nigel Wright is on production duties here, and again the softer vocals from Sinitta sound a bit overpowered by the music although the backing vocals help to lift her a bit.

Body Shopping follows that, fortunately not revealing that Sinitta has actually been a midnight body-snatcher all these years. Harding and Curnow are back again for writer and producer credits, and the tempo is back up with a wonderfully intricate piano intro before a piano roll takes us into a nice upbeat track. Here, Sinitta gets to show off her vocal range with some soft and high notes, and even some spoken moments – she sounds amazing. The chorus is pretty catchy here too, flanked by synth stabs that give it a strong late-80’s ‘fresh’ sound that must have been amazing then. Dare you not to foot-tap to this!

Then it’s Don’t Tell Me Not To Cry, which gives us a nice mid-tempo Harding and Curnow track. This gives us some wonderful funky guitars as Sinitta’s vocals shine brightly – perhaps with this slower song giving her time to deliver notes rather than racing against thumping beats. This end result is a really nice warm track, proving that Sinitta can sing more than just hard, fast, bangers.

It Would Be So Easy is next, and the tempo drops again at the hand of Nigel Wright, and in this slower song, it does feel a little bit generic MOTR power ballad. Sinitta does give it her all, and musically the track sounds like its auditioning for a BBC series, but the lyrics feel a bit weak.

That leads on to penultimate track, and we’re back to a thumping pop track of I Just Can’t Help It at the hands of Harding and Curnow. The funky guitars are back over a thudding beat. I can almost hear Sonia here, but Sinitta seems to have fun in the pretty damn bouncy and catchy chorus, and the vocal samples give it a nice point of interest too. It grows really nicely too, and perhaps this track would have been a nice choice for single.

The album closes with Love On A Mountain Top (12″ Remix), and this treats us to a 5m 50s version of the belter. The track doesn’t particularly tread new ground, but packs us a few more vocal samples and percussive fills. Who cares though – it’s a great version, and finishes this CD on a slightly filthy outdoor sex banger with Sinitta.

Sinitta’s lead single ‘I Don’t Believe In Miracles’ (1988).

Verdict

Over all, this album is a bit of a mixture – sounding very familiar stylistically but also not quite the hits you think they are.

On one hand, there is the very clear S/A/W and PWL influence, and these tracks are unmistakeable in their sound, but also a few of these sound like tracks that have made their way down the list to Sinitta rather than being written specifically for her, and in these moments, her vocals get buried in the mix or lack a little power that the song might have hit with a different artist.

That said, there are some really fantastic songs here that buck that feeling; Right Back Where We Started From, and Love On A Mountain Top are brilliantly performed, and joining that are great tracks in the form of Body Shopping, I Just Can’t Help It, and particularly Don’t Tell Me Not To Cry that enable us to really hear Sinitta as a vocalist, and I like it.

If you open out the CD booklet, you get a poster of Sinitta from the album cover looking amazing in her leopard-print everythings… although you then have the dilemma of finding the BlueTac or having a cd booklet.

Not quite thoroughly wicked, but one that you should play if you’re a S/A/W and PWL fan.