A greater sufferer by turns of record company interference, indifference or intransigence than most, Kirsty MacColl had to wait eight years between releasing albums one and two (the next two would follow in little over four years, albeit even then for two different labels, one of whom could hardly have promoted their artist less).
That alone could have helped fuel the mood so palpably evident in sophomore effort Kite, fundamentally a more angry, determined and strident record than its Kinks-covering breakout single might have led casual listeners to assume.
Angry, that is, but never screaming, as that was never Kirsty’s wont. It’s hard for me to recall another performer so capable of conveying so many emotions in just the one broadly consistent deadpan delivery. Kite’s lead single, not actually the cover of Days but the self-penned Free World, would have been artlessly, over-aggressively spat out by less disciplined practitioners, whereas Kirsty’s straight bat voice (and, for the greater part, straight face in the accompanying promo) handled the coruscating attack on the greediest and most unscrupulous amid the political classes most adroitly.
Disappointment, pity, boiling fury, wry amusement (and Kirsty was always far from humourless – everything from There’s A Guy Works Down the Chip Shop… to In These Shoes? via the television appearances with French & Saunders and Raw Sex tell you that much), despair, feistiness. Kite runs the gamut of these and more, with not the faintest recourse to jarring vocal cosplay.
Nobody’s fool, but on occasion up to that point marginalised as if regarded as one, Kite stands as a vital, defiant piece of work and significant personal accomplishment by Kirsty MacColl. I need hardly add that there is not a single track on it that she ought to be remembered for less than That Duet That’s Out Every Xmas.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.