Nik Kershaw:
Human Racing
(1983)

Genre: Crafty pop.
Produced By: Peter Collins
Record Label: MCA

Being a child of the eighties, the fact that I include this album in the Top 50 may possibly be hard to understand for people who are not children of the eighties themselves. But the fact that this was a very important album when I was first starting to happen musically and remains to be a great album today has convinced me that the album contains so much personal baggage - along with the obvious musical qualities - that it just can't be ignored. The biggest hit here - "Would It Be Good" - and one of the greatest singles of the eighties pretty much illustrates the rest of the album. It's filled with melodic, clever popsongs, all with a certain twist to add extra personality. There's so much more here that just ordinary pop music. I've always thought that Nik Kershaw never got the recognition he deserves as a songwriter - this is a small attempt to correct that...

Overall Rating (on a scale from 1 to 10): 8

Howard Jones, Arcadia, Duran Duran, Tears For Fears.