Victim of Pleasure - Music Career

Music Career

The press coverage that surrounded Smith's personal life largely contributed to her career as a singer. In 1986, Smith was to be interviewed on TV's Saturday Live until RTÉ decided she should be downgraded to being a mere member of the audience. She was axed entirely when her manager disagreed, with RTÉ saying she was "not important enough" and that she might "give a bad example to young teenage girls". The story appeared in the international media.

In 1986, at age 16, Smith was signed to PWL by Stock Aitken Waterman. The SAW team wrote and produced her first two singles - "I Just Can't Wait" and "Positive Reaction". A collaboration with Daize Washbourne produced further singles, "Boys and Girls" (which reached No. 8 in South Africa) and "Victim of Pleasure". Despite the lack of British chart success with these singles, an album, Mandy, was released in 1988. Smith was successful in Scandinavia, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Turkey, South Africa, and Japan, where she entered the Top 10 music charts. She was about to launch her career in the United States in 1989 with her single "Victim of Pleasure" released under Atlantic Records but due to health problems, she had to cancel the promotion. The same happened with her fifth European single, a cover of The Human League hit single "Don't You Want Me?". These events and a difficult recovery marked the end of her short musical career, though several remixes of "I Just Can't Wait" appeared in the early 1990s; her album was also re-released in Japan in 1993 and a special edition was released with bonus tracks in 2009. She also recorded the original version of "Got to Be Certain", which would later be the second international single release for fellow PWL act, Kylie Minogue. Smith's version remained unreleased until 2005 when it was premiered on PWL Radio and included on the 2005 release Stock Aitken Waterman Gold as a bonus track.