[unsung achievers 1] alison clarkson

Eurasian Alison Clarkson [born 1970 in Kensington] was and still is a talent whom Madonna called "criminally overlooked". I'm no fan of Madonna, nor of Clarkson's later dance work but the woman can write songs and is more than useful as a performer.

There are those who say she helped save the British music industry which in 1990 was under severe assault from the American rappers and it needed someone to step up for the Brits. She did and how. She later said of this time:

Basically I wrote my own stuff, I wrote it all in my bedroom and I had a lot to say really. Having been bullied when I was younger I just saw it as a way to get my own back on everyone."

Here's one of her biggest hits and you might wonder how this blogger can like something so kitsch and shallow. I like her, that's all and admire what she did in swimming against the stream at the time:



Of course she was big in the UK but didn't do so well in the US market - predictable really as she didn't try to be black or appear to be any more or less than a Londoner.

Betty became a journalist's favourite due to her forthright and sometimes downright catty opinions on her fellow popsters. She once said she didn't like former New Kid On The Block Joey Lawrence because he had 'girly arms'.

Relations between Betty and GA's record company soured when they asked her to pay for her own Platinum disc of their first album. She asked them how big the disk was. They replied, "normal size." She then asked, "Is it big enough to stick it up your arse?"

Unfortunately, Boo came a cropper in Australia when she dropped her mike onstage and in that country in particular she is vilified for "lipsynching" which practically every artist does anyway.

In this blogger's opinion, people, particularly women, who go their own way as she has done, are always going to come a cropper and for that also I like her. I like that she refuses to play the record label game plus she's a homegrown girl - one of our own.

Here's a recent interview which is quite entertaining if you've got this far in the post: