Time once again to offer yet more untapped retro musical goodness with this week’s Pop Essays. And if you thought we were completely done with 1998 on this here corner of the web, then think again…
- Artist: Alda
- Song: Real Good Time
- Released: 17/08/1998
- Writers / Producers: Alda Björk Ólafsdóttir / Malcolm Mehyer / Chris Laws / Steve Mac
- Highest UK Chart Position: #7
- Chart Run: 7 – 12 – 18 – 23 – 28 – 44 – 64 – 94
We mention them often enough on these posts that we are almost inclined to give the brilliant Pop Music Activism account on social media one of their own in praise of their amazing and tireless work getting previously unavailable 90s and 00s music a wider release on digital streaming platforms.
Perhaps we will in future but for now, we have to give yet another unavailable gem that made its streaming debut inside the last year a post and thus a moment to shine all of it’s own. Born in Iceland before moving to Sweden, Alda Björk Ólafsdóttir – or Alda for short – began her musical career in the early part of the 90s as a vocalist with groups called – amongst other things – Urban K: Loud, Munchie and Exodus.
Alas, it was not to be as a member of a band that she found success. After moving to the UK later in the decade, she attempted a solo career, this time with much better results, and in 1998, whilst sporting a wild be-dreadlocked hairdo that only Faye Tozer from Steps rivalled for bombasticness, she was signed up to an album deal with the new record label Wildstar Records, founded by Colin Lester, who we’ve covered before in other entries on the blog.
Wildstar were, at that time, partly owned by the Capital Radio group of radio stations, including 95.8 Capital FM in London, which was something not lost on the people outside of her team for reasons that will become apparent.
But what of the song itself? Her debut release “Real Good Time” is a really anthemic track that for many paying attention to the charts in 1998 and the tidal wave of pure pop that was rushing in, they may not immediately recall in 2024, but will do after a reminder play or two.
The song is backed by the kind of sample heavy drum track that was so common in production on other songs around the same time – compare this for instance, with say, Alisha’s Attic’s “I Am, I Feel” or “Bitch” by Meredith Brooks. Offsetting it however, was an altogether more upbeat song about a friendship and it’s ups and downs: “You and I are not to blame / Sometimes we just go insane / You and I have much to give, everything is relative / When we have our darker days, we just go our separate ways / Though you and I are not to blame, sometimes we just go insane”.
It’s out of the verses that a shouted count in – “1, 2, 3, 4!” – leads to the song’s earworm chorus: “Maybe I laugh, maybe I cry / Maybe I scream, maybe I sigh / Maybe I feel, the feeling is real / Maybe I curse, maybe I squeal / But I enjoy making some noise / Rolling around, and listenin’ to the sound / That you and I get, and everything’s set / I’ll show you all how to have a real good time, yeah”.
Punctuated by crunching guitars and trumpet breaks, this is pop very much at the “mad as a box of frogs” end of the scale and is all the better for it. And after a summer that had seen B*Witched and Billie Piper breakthrough, Alda seemed a likely candidate to be joining them at the top of the charts with the release of “Real Good Time”.
Originally scheduled to hit the shops in July, the Capital Radio group of stations had started playlisting it as early as 7th June. However, it’s release was then pushed back to the middle of August, by which point, it was also familiar to viewers of CBBC, when it was used in programme trailers for both Live & Kicking and the animated series of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.
Of course, such saturation airplay of almost two months led to some critics calling the early exclusive airplay run of the single from Capital as preferential to an artist they had some form of ownership in, accusations that Colin Lester firmly shut down, citing that all radio stations including those in the Capital network had been serviced with the single at the same time.
Even so, the resulting top 10 entry and peak for “Real Good Time” of #7 was a success, true, but perhaps not to the scale relative to the intense airplay and pre-release exposure it had received; indeed, of the rest of its eight week chart run, only another four of those were spent inside the top 40.
Still, Wildstar pressed ahead and released Alda’s follow up, “Girls’ Night Out“, that December, an ode to the joys of a girlie night on the tiles and sisterly solidarity that contained the genius line “And we’ll always have a reunion / When we’re married and cooking an onion”. However, it was perhaps somewhat ill advisedly in the race for Christmas number one and just scraped into the top 20 at #20.
Her debut album, Out of Alda, thus never saw the light of day (until its long overdue streaming issue last year) and her record deal quietly came to an end. “Real Good Time” then did also find a small amount of international success, when it was covered by Aaron Carter for his second album Aaron’s Party (Come and Get It) in 2000.
Alda does however, still record and perform to this day, releasing her most recent single in 2022, with her Facebook profile proudly declaring that she is a singer, songwriter, writer and Viking – as well as gaining a degree in psychology from University College London, even at one paint re-recording her best known song in a Baroque Goth style reimagining in 2017, proving if nothing else her versatility as a performer that was all but overlooked in 1998.
Don’t forget to follow our Pop Essays playlist on Spotify, which includes this and all the songs we’ve written about. What are your memories of this week’s featured song or artist? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below or message us on our Instagram.
The Niche Reference 