New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Nik Kershaw exploded onto the UK pop scene in 1984 as a solo artist, rapidly setting about writing and recording what would become a string of global hit singles. Tracks including 'Wouldn't it Be Good', 'The Riddle' and his biggest hit, 'I Won't Let the Sun Go Down on Me' helped to propel him to an incredible 62 weeks on the UK Singles Chart through 1984 and 1985 - beating every other solo artist and earning him a crowd-pleasing performance at the legendary Live Aid concert at Wembley Stadium in July '85.
Following an eight-year hiatus, 'Oxymoron' signals an exciting return by one of the UK's most versatile and dextrous songwriters. At an old-school sixteen tracks, 'Oxymoron' sees Nik back to his lyrical best following a step away from the limelight to concentrate on home life and writing/demoing what would eventually become this latest album release. The first single to be taken from the new album is 'From Cloudy Bay To Malibu' - released Sept 11th.
On writing the album, Nik commented "I've been writing songs for the best part of fifty years. It doesn't get any easier. The creative energy gets lower as the quality control bar gets higher. There is no blind confidence of youth, just the knowing self-doubt of age. Most songs fell by the wayside. 16 made it through. I'm proud of each and every one of them."
Nik is also no stranger to writing and producing for other people, notably writing the Chesney Hawkes's mega-hit 'The One and Only' and collaborating with the likes of
Elton John (including writing and producing one of the songs on the Duets album), Sia,
Gary Barlow and
Les Rythmes Digitales among many others, whilst continuing to release his own well-received studio albums, featuring his distinctive vocal style and evocative lyrics. He has also continued to play festivals and tour consistently throughout the 4 decades he's been a performer.
Nik recently released a six-track taster EP called 'These
Little Things' as a precursor to the full studio album, through Audio Network. Nik has been working Audio Network for some years now and was encouraged by the global music company's Chairman to work with them on this, his ninth studio album, and his first release since 2012. Nik Kershaw is a masterful songwriter, blending a wonderful gift for soaring melodies with articulate wordplay and thoughtful lyricism.
Recording this new material at Abbey Road Studios marked a return to a location with a lot of history for Nik. The room where this album was recorded was the same one in which he recorded 'The One and Only' with Chesney Hawkes. At Abbey Road, Nik says, "You get the best studios, the best engineers, the best string section, the best brass players - and they bring everything together, with the mixing, to make [the record] sound like it's all come from the same place."
Having avoided writing about himself in his 80s heyday 'because I wasn't interesting enough!', Nik says of these new tracks that, "they're probably all about me really. Some things are cathartic, but it's never conscious," whilst also confessing that, as with many of his songs, "often you only find out what they're about retrospectively, and through talking to people about them."
