Kirsty MacColl
Kite

THE REVIEW

And every time it's like this. Every time I put this record on the turntable. It's the sensation of grasping an old (but alive) memory from beneath a veil of nostalgia. And that veil is not of dust, because – really – I never let the album in question get dusty. When a record continues to sound current, giving you the illusion that every time is the first, and if it keeps "speaking" to you with the impression that those words are always new... then there's no time or space for dust. Only for those sounds. Never really aged. Never too distant to seem "dated".

"Kite" is a Pop record in the truest and deepest sense of the term (which is so often overlooked, by the way). But unlike the vast majority of pop records released in '89 and the surrounding years, it hasn't lost an ounce of its value in these almost twenty-five years. The reason? Perhaps you already guessed, and anyway, it’s so simple that it seems obvious: it has nothing pre-packaged, nothing artificial, no characteristics that mark it as a typically '80s music "product". It could have been recorded yesterday, so distant it is from the clichés of the era. As distant as Kirsty was: never a pop-star (and never eager to become one at any cost), never a woman of glossy covers, never lost in the chaos of disposable music. Rare sensitivity, elusive personality, refined and gentle image, far from the spotlight as from the stage-aggressiveness of the decade's idols. Never compromised, in order not to undermine the sincerity of her approach.

She was too much HERSELF, Kirsty. Too much, for those years of pompous concerts and dazzling colors. She paid the price insofar as her exquisite talent was never fully recognized. A few years earlier, "Desperate Character" had been anything but a false start or a record to forget: indeed, in hindsight, it's hard not to love its naive and playful simplicity. Then there were years in the background but not in silence, Smiths and Talking Heads (among the first) discovered the greatness of a Character who had much more than just an important surname (!). Her Voice became legendary thanks to "Fairytale Of New York", confidence regained after a long period of insecurities and stage fright, and – toward the end of the decade – the new piece in a solo career fragmented but filled with genuine jewels. Produced by her then-husband Steve Lillywhite (no introduction needed) and a prelude to the extraordinary variety of "Electric Landlady".

"Thank you for the days, those endless days, those sacred days you gave me... and though you're gone, you're with me every single day, believe me" – indeed, a cover rarely more fitting. Kirsty had much of Ray Davies' attitude, that melancholy hidden beneath the smile that often emerged from her songs: "Days" is more than just a tribute, while "Fifteen Minutes" is very KINKS-like from start to finish – in writing and delivery. Emblematic of her style just like "Don't Come The Cowboy With Me, Sonny Jim!" – cowboys aren't the ones on horseback with hats, but "the boys with hearts of ice who don't know the meaning of pain, and you, Sonny, are not like them..." a country ballad similar to many recorded in Nashville & surroundings, but unique for the unmistakable ENGLISHNESS Kirsty adds to it.

If "Innocence" is filled with that (self-)irony evident even from the related video (!), tracks like "Free World" reserve behind their catchiness a look at England and at Thatcherism in its final throes. For the rest, every time it's the enveloping sweet melody of "No Victims" that draws me in, and the mariachi-serenade guitars of "Dancing In Limbo" that move me – no otherworldly reality in LIMBO, just the summer afternoon boredom of "time that flows slowly", and in this regard, one cannot help but think of "Sunny Afternoon" (also Davisesque, by chance...). And two songs co-written with Johnny Marr, whose instrumental touch is not hard to recognize in the harmonic completeness of the record: "The End Of A Perfect Day" and "You & Me Baby", the likely Masterpiece, where Kirsty's Voice (enhanced by overdubs, as elsewhere) lets itself be accompanied by David Gilmour's Guitar...

...as unforgettable as She is.