Mel & Kim

Four highly energized and fashionable Top Ten pop hits made siblings Mel and Kim Appleby one of the most successful U.K. acts of the late ’80s. Originally from East London, specifically Hackney, Mel & Kim were signed to Supreme Records on the basis of a demo. The label had achieved prominence with Princess’ “Say I’m Your No. 1,” and subsequently matched Mel & Kim with that hit’s emergent songwriting and production team, Stock, Aitken & Waterman. “Showing Out (Get Fresh at the Weekend),” “Respectable,” and “F.L.M.” — all of which appeared on F.L.M., the duo’s lone album — reached the Top Ten of the U.K. chart, with “Respectable” becoming a number one hit. The non-album single “That’s the Way It Is,” another Stock, Aitken & Waterman collaboration, kept the Top Ten streak intact in 1988. The success extended far outside the Appleby sisters’ homeland, including the U.S., where they twice topped the Billboard club chart. Melanie, who was treated for cancer prior to the launching of her career with Kim, was diagnosed with recurrent cancer, and due to a weakened immune system, died of pneumonia in 1990. Kim resumed on the Parlophone label as a solo artist, beginning with an album featuring songs she and her sister co-wrote and intended to record for the second Mel & Kim album. A modernized fifth Mel & Kim single, “Where Is Love,” was released in 2018. ~ Andy Kellman