A couple of weeks ago I tweeted something about wanting to listen to Nik Kershaw. This was no random tweet – I had had an urge for a while. Various bits and pieces of his songs had been going through my mind and I suddenly wanted to listen to him again. I had nothing on CD (although I do have the vinyl album for Human Racing), so I succumbed to my urge and purchased this:
The Essential Nik Kershaw it is called, but it may as well be titled All The Good Songs From His First Two Albums With None Of The Bad! They are all here: Wouldn’t It Be Good, I Won’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me, The Riddle, Human Racing etc. I hadn’t listened to much of this stuff in a generation (most of these songs are from ’84) and I had forgotten just how good it was:
Having loved him back in the mid 1980’s, I assume I must have given in to the ‘Nik Kershaw is super uncool’ vibe and turned my back on him for too many years. Needless to say, this CD is highly recommended.
But wait!
In that very same order, I added two other CD’s. For many, many years there were two bands that I supposed I should have always been a bigger fan of but for various reasons had not been. Given I am already half dead, I figured it was time to remedy this oversight, and therefore the following two collections were also added to the cart:
Maybe I thought O.M.D. were a bit limp-wristed back in the day. In reality, I was probably too influenced by the marketing in such magazines as Smash Hits, and the fact that pretty-boy duo’s were a dime and dozen and besides whats-the-difference-between-OMD-and-Go-West-anyway? Or maybe it was the vocal on Locomotion that put me off? Who knows, and I certainly cannot remember why I just ignored them. Which means I probably never listened to this song:
Jesus, Mary and Joseph was I wrong! OMD was a band heavily influenced by Kraftwerk, with an experimental sound and a cutting-edge command of electronic music. Although their biggest hits (If You Leave, Forever Live And Die) didn’t come until 1986, they were producing amazing songs back in 1979 while touring with the likes of Ultravox and Gary Numan. I never knew this and am so glad I have now rediscovered them. As with the above two, this album is packed to the gills with amazing music that needs to be heard. Very highly recommended.
And then we get to Ultravox… I don’t think anyone would argue with the fact that Ultravox was an amazing, influential, and very important band. They arguably created the new wave of electronic music, and led the way for countless other bands to follow. In the early to mid 1980s they had a few massive hits, including Dancing With Tears In My Eyes, Reap The Wild Wind, One Small Day and one of the very best singles ever released, Vienna. I loved all these songs; I loved the band. I even loved Fade To Grey (a single Midge Ure put out under a different band name, Visage). And yet I never for some reason owned an Ultravox album.
I’m very pleased that this has now changed, because this one is a tour-de-force of one great song after another. Consider this masterpiece:
How did I miss this back when I was 13 and massively into Mode, Kraftwerk and Gary Numan? My highest possible recommendation.