Great Moments In Pop – The 90s Part 11.

Who is the best pop star to have come out of Iceland, a country that is not exactly known for its music… or anything else, really. Well of course, it is… Alda! Who did you think I meant? Miss Olafsdottir is someone who had previously been in various groups, and came on to the pop music scene in the UK in the late-90s, when she had two hit singles.

The first was in August 1998 when “Real Good Time” was released and became her first and only Top Ten hit in the UK, which also led to a Top Of The Pops performance. Now there is a rather odd reason as to why I remember this one, but hopefully you will realise what I mean. As I have said before, in the late-90s, I was a regular listener to Capital Gold’s particularly noisy football coverage.

This was fronted by Jonathan Pearce and his remarkably big mouth. I remember there was a trail which featured “Real Good Time”, with the “maybe I squeal…” part, followed by a clip of Pearce yelling “absolutely magnificent!” about some long-forgotten goal presumably, and then going into the “but I enjoy making some noise…” chorus. Well that’s one way to interpret the lyrics of this one I suppose.

And looking back at this again now, I really did notice Alda’s rather remarkable hairstyle, which was blonde and long. It’s not that far off being similar to the hairstyle of Justine, the rather mysterious woman who only released one single in 1986 that I spotted online a while ago, I never did find out any more about her. Is there a chance that they are related, or maybe Alda was Justine all along!!

In December 1998 Alda’s second and final hit single “Girls Night Out” was released, which just made the Top 20… and guess what, this sounded exactly the same as “Real Good Time”! Well if it worked a first time, so why not a second time. Also around this time there was the album “Out Of Alda”, but this wasn’t a hit, and barely four months on from her debut she was never heard of again.

I suppose in a way Alda had the perfect pop career really. Turn up suddenly, have two hits that sound the same, make sure they stick in people’s heads, sell some records, feel that you’ve done your bit, vanish off the scene. What a great way to do it. Although for all I know she could’ve had about 23 Number One singles back in Iceland. Somehow I doubt it though.