Mel & Kim's "Respectable"

My youth! Someone hand me a tissue.

Are you planning on crying or jerking off, r1?

Really fun, OP. Mel Appleby was already suffering from such severe back pain from cancer at age 20 that the recording of the video had to be postponed. She died aged 23.

Mel Appleby already knew she was dying when the video was shot? I don’t think I would’ve been able to put up the willpower.

Not sure if she knew she was dying at that point, R4, but she had been undergoing treatment from the mid 80s.

The "Journey Through SAW" podcast covered Respectable this week and there's a long interview with Kim Appleby about the song's creation and production.

The song was written about Mel having posed naked for a glamour magazine before they had a hit with Showing Out and the tabloids discovering it and trying to shame her.

Mel A was the original Mel B.

NOOOOO!

Mel A was lovely. She was sweet.

Mel B is a horrible, coarse person.

Mel A did her nudies after her first bout with cancer. She didn't want to work in the factory like her sister. She wanted to be young and free. After what she'd just been through, fair enough!

[quote]Mel A was lovely. She was sweet. Mel B is a horrible, coarse person.

If Mel A had lived and been able to do more interviews you'd have considered her coarse as well.

She really was a force of nature.

The song Mel & Kim sing in the Wogan interview was the 4th single from Mel's solo album.

I've never seen this interview.

Their live vocals in that interview are great.

She did a bunch of different nude shots. I saw the dirtier ones in my brother's wank magazine and it was too much for this gay boy at the time.

....

R2: Neither. It's a figure of speech.

Thanks for the podcast link. Interesting note in the podcast that the plan was to release every track from the album as singles. Imagine what might have been had Mel not fallen ill at the absolute zenith of their fame.

I preferred Showing Out.

It's a shame Mel & Kim didn't take off here. Some SAW songs did well here like Dead or Alive's You Spin Me Round, Kylie's The Locomotion, Rick Astely's two chart-toppers but Mel & Kim, Sonia, and Jason Donovan didn't take off here, although some of their songs did well in clubs.

F.L.M. is a great pop album.

Thanks for the link R6 and the Mel & Kim flashback OP.

I always loved this megamix of Respectable and Showing Out.

Those two singles were a one-two punch. The album was great too. I had it on cassette!

shocking the younger sister died so soon of a cancer, very sad

She'd had a bout when she was 18 but it came back when she was famous. Very tragic.

Mel & Kim had two number ones on the US dance charts and one of their singles was remixed by Clivillés and Cole.

sounds very Janet 'When I Think Of You'...

Total rip off.

I love the SAW era. FLM was one of the best albums they produced.

R16 I had the 12 inch single of that. The lyrics always bugged me though: get fresh AT the weekend…

'On the weekend' doesn't have that same sass.

I didn't have MTV at the time.

I saw "Respect." & "S. Out" on VH1 or Night Tracks.

Mel's illness meant that the US promo trip had to be cancelled and that was the end of any breakthrough there for the girls. Sad. I think had she not got cancer they would have been one of the biggest acts of the late 80s.

I couldn't imagine the song without the tay-tay-tay. Can't believe he wanted it out.

Kim Appleby had a couple of solo hits in the 90's, I think she's a songwriter for other artists now

You may have had those two heifers, but in America we had L'Trimm!

Fun. But they're lacking the basic melody that most gays require.

Kim interviewed about the tragedy here:

R20/R21 it's so difficult to imagine the heartache of being on one's deathbed at 23 from years-long battle with cancer since one's teens. How horrifying. Hope she found peace.

What sort of cancer was it, incidentally? It seems like these days cancers are more ubiquitous across all ages, but many people get treatment quicker and survive more often thanks to advances in medical tech and more frequent screening. Wonder if Mel would have had more of a fighting chance at surviving if she'd been famous and ill in the 2020s...

R32 L'Trimm were dressed adorably. They remind me of the 80s Japanese girl-pop duo Wink.

Wish that look on girls and young women would come back--it's sexy and flirty and fun and creative, gets attention, but not in a brand-obsessed, trashy, or p0rnified way.

r35 "Paraganglioma is a type of neuroendocrine tumor that forms near certain blood vessels and nerves outside of the adrenal glands."

Paraganglioma cells commonly secrete hormones known as catecholamines, including adrenaline, which is the fight-or-flight hormone. This can cause episodes of high blood pressure, a rapid heartbeat, sweating, headache and tremors.

In most cases, the tumor is benign, but it can be malignant.

Metastasis is a rare presentation of non-secretory paraganglioma. Consequently, there is no standard of care for the treatment of metastatic malignant paraganglioma. The most widely used chemotherapy regimen for non-resectable cases includes cyclophosphamide, vincristine, and dacarbazine (CVD).

---

From the sounds of it.. she likely would have continuous tumor growths, subsequent removal and go through chemo multiple times with likely reoccurrences. . . end up with compromised kidneys and liver from the condition itself and the treatment, and if it was the malignant version of this condition, the tumors would have a greater spread through the rest of body, both malignant and benign.

the purely benign cases are considered treatable with removal of the tumors. . . but the details on malignant, there's simply not enough data to adequately predict the odds.

many people with reoccurring cancers, especially rare cancers, are more likely to seek to end their lives or stop treatments, if there's no clear path of hope. . .

but the sources I could find say she died of pneumonia.,.. and even in this age, that's just a roll of the dice with a compromised immune. . . toss in coming out of covid pandemic and the realities many of the terminally ill faced during the pandemic, she could still be in a critical risk category for the pneumonia alone... albeit, we could argue that pneumonia shots might would have reduced that possibility.

God how grim and disturbing. The absolute antithesis of Mel & Kim.