Nik Kershaw - The MCA Years cover

Nik Kershaw – The MCA Years is a long-overdue boxset for the singer-songwriter who brought a proggy flourish to the 80s charts

Nik Kershaw – The MCA Years ★★★★☆

In the 40 years since Nik Kershaw burst out of Ipswich with the hit albums Human Racing and The Riddle, both released in 1984, it’s bizarre that there hasn’t been a proper overview of his career until now.

Not only is this 10CD+1DVD collection the first Kershaw boxset, none of his multiple compilations have charted, all are seemingly cheap and cheerful affairs rather than giving his work due diligence.

Comprehensive Compilation

So The MCA Years – running from Human Racing to fourth album The Works in 1989 – is finally chance to assess how Kershaw managed to straddle both synth-pop’s prime era and coping in the more earnest post-Live Aid years, having been on the bill above the likes of Adam Ant, Ultravox and The Style Council at Wembley Stadium. Overseen by Kershaw, the boxset is thorough on what you’d expect, with discs devoted to his B-sides, remixes and edits.

The highlight is the first full release of a 20-song 1984 live show captured at Hammersmith Odeon around The Riddle across the final two CDs.

Twelve of that show’s songs are also on the DVD, additionally housing the videos for the era’s 13 singles. That’s excellent but, Hammersmith apart, there aren’t any surprises of unreleased songs or demos. Considering each album is left in its original unexpanded form on CDs one to four and there are just eight songs on the B-sides CD, there was certainly room for a handful of work-in-progress tracks.

What The MCA Years proves is that Kershaw never quite fitted in, even while Wouldn’t It Be Good and Don Quixote were massive. If he was too in thrall to pop to be labelled as prog, he had more in common with Tears For Fears’ quest to find true meaning than simply settling for big dumb fun. It all climaxed with third album, 1986’s Radio Musicola.

Long-Overdue Release

If Kershaw should have kept Peter Collins on instead of producing it himself, the occasionally dated style can’t hide songs bristling with tension and paranoia, one of the most fraught and unsettling fame comedown albums.

In truth, The Works tries too hard to return Kershaw to the mainstream and loses his charm in its muddled production – but he deserved better than to quit altogether for a decade when The Works didn’t chart, even if he did have the Chesney Hawkes songwriting royalties to tide him over in between.

With his 12″ singles an excuse to get yet more adventurous by extending the songs rather than hand them over to big-name remixers, and B-sides such as anthemic piano ballad So Quiet are further evidence of his songwriting’s breadth, Nik Kershaw deserved this boxset all along. Why did it take 40 years to materialise?

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