Dee C. Lee is a fan of Girls Aloud’s cover of her classic hit single, See The Day, and credits the group for doing “a really good job with it”.
The former Wham! singer turned Style Councillor hit the upper regions of the UK charts with the smooth ballad back in 1985, peaking at No. 3 and landing the biggest hit of her career to date.
Girls Aloud released their version of the song as a single from their third album, ‘Chemistry’ (2005), and in turn it introduced her material to a new generation of listeners.
“And it’s really funny for me to think of it like that,” Dee chuckles in an interview for RETROPOP’s April 2024 edition. “People saying, ‘I love that Girls Aloud song’ – but I don’t care and I’m so not bitching about them, because I was more than grateful and I thought they did a really good job with it!”
Last month, the singer-songwriter returned with her new album, ‘Just Something’ – her first in over 25 years – which was born of a chance reunion with Acid Jazz’s Eddie Piller at a 2020 event for the launch of the movie ‘Long Hot Summers – The Story Of The Style Council’.
“Just before the pandemic, I realised I was at a place where I needed to get back into working. My son kept saying, ‘Mum, you need to do something, go back to music’ – which basically meant, ‘Get out of the house and leave us alone!’,” she laughs.
“So when The Style Council documentary came out, it was wonderful and it reminded me of the history of my career, and led to me bumping into Eddie, who is the founder of the coolest record label ever. He said, ‘What are you doing? You need to sing again!’ and I was like, ‘I’m so glad you said that because I need something to do – help me!’
“And put it this way: if I’d met him on the Wednesday, we had the ball rolling by Friday, and here we are…”
‘Just Something’, features 11 songs, including nine originals co-written by Dee, which channel her musical history and influences with an autobiographical thread running through the lyrics.
Over the years, she’s worked with various artists, from Adamski to The Blow Monkeys’ Dr Robert and Animal Nightlife, along with Gang Starr frontman Guru on a single from his solo project ‘Jazzmatazz’, but after fulfilling so many ambitions early in her career she was left without direction.
“Once I’d done that, I hit the peak of my career and I didn’t really know what else to do with myself because I’d done everything I’d ever wanted to do musically by my late 30s,” the vocalist admits. “I mean no disrespect to the other artists, but music changes all the time and when I got back listening to music after that project, there was nothing that excited me anymore so I just chilled out and took a step back for a while.
“But there’s only so many lunches with friends you can do before you get bored!”
Now she’s back in the game and looking to the future; having cleared out her stockpile of songs, Dee has plans to return to the studio to work on more material, while also considering looking to the past and revisiting her catalogue.
“There’s some old stuff from albums that I put out by myself – I think ‘Smiles’ (1998) only came out in Japan – but there’s some good stuff on there, so we might go back and freshen them up,” she hints.
