Songoftheday 5/25/15 - Why do you keep a comin' around playin' with my heart? Why don't you get out of my life and let me make a new start?

"You Keep Me Hangin' On" - Kim Wilde
from the album Another Step (1986)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13

Today's SOTD comes from British singer Kim Wilde, who was last seen riding the early new wave invasion from England in 1982 with her top-40 pop hit "Kids In America". After the follow-up single from her debut, "Chequered Love", also made the top-5 in the UK, she continued to have more moderate success there, only reappearing in America with a minor hit in "The Second Time (Go For It)" in 1984. Switching labels to MCA, Wilde released her fifth album Another Step in 1986. The first American single from the set was a HI-NRG cover of the Motown classic "You Keep Me Hangin' On", which Diana and the Supremes took to #1 in 1966 (when Kim was six years old)...

Kim's club version, produced by her brother Ricky, sped up the tempo to a frantic level, with her more "angry" delivery adapting to the bleeps and whirls in the background to make it palatable for the new-wave-raised audience...

Wilde's returned "You Keep Me Hangin' On" to the top of the American pop chart in June of 1987. The record also climbed to #6 on Billboard magazine's Dance Club Play chart, and even popped in on their Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio list at #30. Internationally, the single topped the chart in Canada and Australia, stopped at #2 in her native Britain as well as Ireland, and top-10 in Germany.

Kim's follow-up single, the original "Say You Really Want Me", barely missed the American top-40 at #44, as did the lead single from her next album, "You Came", which peaked at the frustrating #41. That latter song went to #3 in the UK, along with four other singles. She continued to have success in Europe through the 90s, returning to the British popand the American dance top-20 with another cover song, this time the disco nugget "If I Can't Have You" in 1993. Along with still releasing music, Kim has devoted a chunk of her life to gardening, writing a few books and appearing on TV.

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Many other artists and bands have covered the song, and a few have also made the chart. A year after the Supremes had their hit with the Holland-Dozier-Holland classic, stoner rock band Vanilla Fudge released their take, which was a minor pop hit in 1967 only to re-appear and climb all the way to #6 the following year...

A year later, soul singer Wilson Pickett scraped the Hot 100 at #92 with his version, that peaked at #16 on the R&B chart....

Singer/songwriter Jackie DeShannon released a medley of the song with "Hurt So Bad" and went to #96 in 1970...

In 1995, country legend Reba McEntire covered "You Keep Me Hangin' On" with club remixes to boot, and made it to #2 on the Billboard Dance Club chart...

..and in 2009, the cast of Glee took on the song in their first seasons' Throwdown episode, and "bubbled under" the Hot 100 at #123...

...and finally back to Kim, with the remix that made the top-10 on the dance chart in 1987...

...and live in concert in 1994...

Up tomorrow: a crimson-topped soulster does it appropriately.