NICK HEYWARD - "KITE" from his 1993 album "From Monday to Sunday"
My Mom is the best. Like I mentioned in my last post, she has just sent me a box full of 90's love, in the form of old cassette tapes that I thankfully saved from The Great Cassette Purge awhile back, and among them are several 90's vintage mixes made straight from the radio (the late WDRE was my lifeline back in the day when their format was still called "modern rock"). My day brightened, especially when Nick Heyward's "Kite" made an appearance.
I miss this kind of radio pop in a bad way. I grew up in the 80's listening to my Mom play "45's of bands and singer-songwriters like Crowded House, Suzanne Vega, The Pretenders and Joan Armatrading, and in the 90's, NYC radio station WDRE played crystalline modern rock in the vein of Squeeze, The Smithereens, Michael Penn and this cat, Nick Heyward. The observant among you will notice the 80's-90's crossover: this is my favorite phenomenon ever when it comes to the 90's. 80's pop stars often scrambled to find their way in a newly revamped musical climate back then, to differing degrees of success. Nick Heyward, who initially found fame in the 80's with Haircut 100, was the model of how to update your style with style, IMHO.
I just love the stunning structure and literate nature of the lyrics of this song. It kind of merrily bounces along like a little bumblebee, from flower to flower. Nick Heyward's lovely, lush vocals are also a big part of the fun with "Kite." It's just refreshing to hear a song from a singer-songwriter that isn't a self-absorbed, navel-gazing mess, but a crisp, bright, skipping-barefoot-in-the-grass pleasure.
Enjoy:
Here is a video of Haircut 100's hit single "Love Plus One" from their 1982 album, "Pelican West":
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