There is no such thing as musical 'guilty pleasures' #2

Further to my recent observations on the concept of ‘guilty pleasures’ in music, something has reminded me of another episode of foolishness that probably stopped me getting as much enjoyment from music as I should have.             

 

Nik Kershaw’s recent UK tour, in addition to promoting his new album ‘Ei8ht’, featured a complete run-through of his platinum-selling ‘Human Racing’ album from 1984. I was particularly happy to attend a couple of these shows because I had more or less missed out on the ‘Human Racing’ album first time around, not because I was unaware of its existence, but because I was daft enough to have felt guilty about liking a certain kind of pop music.    

I recall that when he first appeared on Top of the Pops, my girlfriend described him as looking like a cross between Gary Numan and someone from Buck’s Fizz; I don’t think it was meant as a compliment. He had obviously had some kind of fashion makeover and looked like what I would have pejoratively described as a ‘manufactured’ pop star (as if other more ‘authentic’ pop stars just appeared out of the ether, fully formed and bursting with talent and integrity). On the final night of 1984, the BBC showed a live transmission of one of his gigs. In spite of the fact that I quite fancied watching it, I kept only half an eye on proceedings and eventually consented to the TV being tuned to something else. I knew deep down that I found his music quirky and tuneful, but I couldn’t give myself wholeheartedly to it, because, well … it just wasn’t ‘cool’ to admit to liking someone who featured in Smash Hits and who was screamed at by teenage girls. I mean, come on.  That kind of stuff, surely, was just not culturally significant? It didn’t have, to use Woody Allen’s phrase, ‘total heaviosity’. 

          

Some would argue that 1984 was a great year for British pop music. Wham, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Culture Club all topped the charts, but they made little impact on me.  Haughtily and ostentatiously snubbing the charts, I would have been too busy with other stuff. When, for instance, I bought my 12 inch copy of ‘What difference does it make?’ by The Smiths, I was convinced that I was witnessing the rise of the coolest and most culturally significant band on the planet. There is no doubt that they made a cultural impact, but –to my ears- much of their work now seems bereft of melody, with many of the songs failing to cash the cheques written by Morrissey’s witty titles.   

I was a big fan of the introspective singer-songwriter David Sylvian. His ‘Brilliant Trees’ album was one of my favourites of 1984, but nowadays I struggle with his constipated vocal stylings and humourless existential angst (and any songwriter that references Picasso and Sartre in his work is surely trying a wee bit too hard). I also admired the dreamy post-punk soundscapes of Cocteau Twins, but find now that I tire rather quickly of their ethereal, meandering, effects-driven epics. Although Liz Fraser’s melodies are sometimes pretty, the lyrical gibberish I once thought charming (or even mysterious) now seems merely annoying.      

Another act that I would definitely have name-checked in any conversation in which I would have felt the need to appear cool (namely: any conversation that would have taken place between ‘waking up’ and ‘going to sleep’) was Echo and the Bunnymen. But whenever I hear their stuff now, I find it difficult to like; much of it appears plodding and pedestrian, drearily anchored by what sounds like a very limited range of keys and tempos.  Most of the time, Ian McCulloch is not so much singing as posturing, sounding like a lippy social sciences student who wished he had studied at the Sorbonne. His lyrics somehow manage to sound vacuous, gauche, pretentious and glib at the same time. The Bunnymen’s 1984 album ‘Ocean Rain’ was launched with a PR campaign that proclaimed it to be the greatest album ever made. It wasn’t. It had a few decent tunes, but the tasteful orchestration helped disguise the fact that most of the songs were little more than average.   

So, off the top of my head, those are four acts I would have enjoyed in 1984, but am quite indifferent to now, along with one act that I pretended not to like in 1984, but am pretty keen on now. 

Hamstrung by silly student snobberies, I let Nik Kershaw’s chart-busting glory days pass me and only deigned to catch his act once his commercial star had started to wane. During the nineties, he took a long sabbatical from performing before returning with the sublime ‘15 minutes’ album in 1998. Mature, reflective, tuneful and adult in its lyrical concerns, it was all that good middle-of-the-road pop should be. His albums now sell in modest amounts, but the recent tour gave his fans the chance to relive the halcyon days of 1984 and, of course, presented a fool like me with a belated opportunity to see those big hit songs performed live.  

The enjoyment I got from these concerts has led me to reflect once more upon how we experience, perceive and enjoy music. How do we judge musical quality? What makes folk imagine that some music is ‘cool’, while other music isn’t? What gives a piece of music longevity? Does age bring greater clarity about what we like, or does it merely make us more conservative in our tastes? Why do some songs remain in our hearts while others lose their lustre?  

I have the feeling I might return to this topic.

In the meantime, here is Nik Kershaw bringing in the New Year at the Hammersmith Odeon on 31^st December 1984, complete with balloons, eighties-style dancing and screaming girls.   

Nik Kershaw - 'Ei8ht'

Nik Kershaw was -as the saying goes- big in the 80s, particularly in 1984 and 1985, when a string of hit singles and platinum-selling albums had him sharing the stage with the rock and pop A-list at Live Aid. As his sales took a dip towards the end of that decade, he embarked upon an extended period out of the spotlight to concentrate on writing for other artists (and famously penned ‘The One and Only’ for Chesney Hawkes). He returned to the fray in 1998 with the splendid '15 minutes', the first album in his post pop-stardom phase. He’s been on that path ever since, quietly producing thoughtful, tuneful, adult pop music without ever threatening to trouble the charts.

His latest release, ‘Ei8ht’, features another diverse selection of excellent material. Crafted middle-of-the-road pop music might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but Kershaw’s melodic gift is such that these songs work their way into your head very quickly and then stay there.
The current single ‘The sky’s the limit’ would be a huge hit if Take That recorded it, while ‘You’re the Best’ has a chorus so absurdly catchy that you’d think he must have stolen it from an old playground chant.

His music is more acoustic and folky these days and some of the material could be bracketed alongside Crowded House, albeit with more focus on the melodic jugular vein. ‘Stuff’, an observation on the perils of rabid consumerism, has echoes of Ray Davies, while ‘Runaway’ contains one of those killer lines (“if you leave me, can I come too?”) that seems so obvious that you wonder why nobody has used it before. He has a nice line in self-deprecating humour and ‘Shoot Me’ is his jaunty take on the notion of old pop stars on the comeback trail.

Although he is very much a pop artist, Kershaw displays a willingness and an ability to explore big themes. A song about death might not sound that promising, but ‘The Bell’ is a beautiful acoustic piece in which he runs through the images he’ll have in his head when the Grim Reaper comes calling. Among these snapshots are images from his childhood, from a family holiday and a moment lying next to his wife. Most touching of all, he recalls an everyday domestic scene with these beautiful and poignant lines:

"There are high hopes in a high chair, sitting in there is a king-to-be;
and he’s smiling his little heart out as he holds out his little arms out to me".

That appeals to the parent (and the sentimental sucker) in me, but in a medium that is all too often mired in cliché, calculation and irony, it is refreshing to encounter unadorned honesty.

The melodies sparkle and soar throughout this album and the arrangements are always slick, but the odd pudding does get over-egged: the catchy refrain of ‘Enjoy the Ride’ perhaps overstays its welcome, while one or two moments feel like they’ve been polished for rather longer than is necessary. But those are minor concerns; the truth is that if we lived in a world in which it was possible for a singer in his fifties to have hits, several of these tracks would have ‘single’ written all over them.

‘Ei8ht’ is further proof that it is possible for a pop star to evolve and age with dignity, grace and humour. Nik Kershaw is an artist who is past the point of worrying about where his music fits in; he’s just writing lovely songs and enjoying life. This album might not push the boundaries of the modern pop song to the limit, but it showcases a very catchy set of tunes from an accomplished singer-songwriter.