Nik Kershaw - The Riddle

[Penelope]

MESMERING

 

[Agneeta]

FABULOUS

 

[VoR]

Love all three of his big hits (I Won’t Let The Sun Go Down on Me, Wouldn’t It Be Good and this).

I wasn’t struck by much else though when I dove into his Greatest Hits. Still, those 3 and the fact that he wrote The One and Only are probably more than enough for him to dine out on for life.

 

[lolly]

And such lovely knitwear

 

[Shirley]

It's ALL RIGHT but it's only WOULDN'T IT BE GOOD that I care for much. If you had to sit through the end of 1984 and ENDLESS THEORIES about the MEANING of THE RIDDLE you might feel the same. As far as I can tell it means FUCK ALL but that never stopped TANITA TIKARAM

I'm sick of fighting
Even though I know I should
I don't want to be here no more

QUITE darling

 

[octophone]

"Human Racing" is one of the weirdest hits of the era, albeit a minor one. The chord changes are bonkers - it's like he chanllenged himself to see how many he could cram in. There's also a piano song called "So Quiet" that was a b-side which is genuinely brilliant.

"Dancing Girls" was good too, in the surprisingly crowded field of 80s synth-pop songs about people having a breakdown.

Aye, I liked a bit of Nik, so I did.

 

[hyperwoof]

Human Racing is a beautiful song, Dancing Girls still sounds fucking amazing. I could have done without the bagpipes on this but I never ever skip it when it shuffles into my ears. Oh and later on Radio Musicola is also a total tune.

 

[VV]

I loved all the big Nik Kershaw hits, but don't know much else. It's weird that he was massive in 1984, but then pretty much over by the end of 1985.

See also Howard Jones - although his top 40 career was ever so slightly longer.

 

[lolly]

I loved all the big Nik Kershaw hits, but don't know much else. It's weird that he was massive in 1984, but then pretty much over by the end of 1985.

He released two albums in less than 9 months in 1984. I wonder if the he or the label were just too keen to build on his momentum to get the second album out into the lucrative Christmas market at the end of the year and this was overkill, particularly with getting four hits from the first album in that period. And then this meant he crashed and burned to some extent after that. I do remember he was all over TV and magazines like Smash Hits and Number One in 1984 and into 85, but then did take a longer break to the third album, by which time people had lost interest.

Pop music is littered with acts who had two big albums with accompanying hit singles, but that usually gave an act two to three years of pop culture relevance. He had about 18 months.

 

[octophone]

It felt ominous that "When A Heart Beats" wasn't a decent sized hit because it probably would have been just a year later. By the time Radio Musicola appeared, the landscape had shifted. Both Kershaw and Jones suffered a bit from being just a bit prog rock and wanting to be "taken seriously" so by the time Pet Shop Boys had rebirthed synth pop with that incredible run, they both seemed a bit po faced.

 

[straightorbroken]

I always forget he did his with Les Rhymes Digitales (aka Stuart Price).

 

[hyperwoof]

I’d argue both Kershaw and Jones were slightly the victims of stylists - they are both great musicians and interesting writers, but they both got saddled with very Use By Date looks. Human’s Lib is a terrific album by any standard.