Record Collector 1994

One of the finest home-grown songwriters in recent years is back with a new album. Mark Paytress decides it's time to ask her the "Mandy Doubt" question.

Kirsty MacColl first came to prominence as a solo artist during the early 80s, scoring Top 20 hits with There's a Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis and A New England. Her finely-crafted songwriting - still probably best known via Tracey Ullman's cover of They Don't Know - took her to Virgin towards the end of the decade where she enjoyed another major hit with her version of the Kinks' Days. Lifted from her Kite album, a set which overflowed with instantly memorable hooks and lyrics with teeth, it appeared that MacColl had at last won some richly deserved recognition.

A dance crossover single. Walking Down Madison. charted in 1991 but with the Electric Landlady album not quite living up to the expectations of Kite, MacColl became one of many artists shed by Virgin as the label trimmed down for the EMI take-over. Now signed to ZTT, Kirsty MacColl is back with an impressive new album. Titanic Days which might just prove to be her strongest set yet.

MacColl's chequered career suggests a lack of confidence on the part of the mainstream music industry. Assisted by the CD boom, the business has been content to flood the market with all manner of music from the past forty years. But, as if unmoved by the multifarious styles that have emerged, and continue to emerge over the past few years, it has proved itself to be incredibly short-sighted in its attitude towards contemporary music. A sink-or-swim policy might deliver the requisite coterie of huge-selling international artists, but it does little to reflect the increasing fragmentation of the pop market, let alone give much of a chance to performers who don't quite fit neatly into the categories.

This is where the independent labels have gradually stepped in, their low overheads able to sustain a far greater 'risk' element. But if Kirsty MacColl's acutely observed 'slice-of-life', three-minute musical observations sit uneasily with the comfortable platitudes of international 'Michael Bolton-ish' AOR, and with the primacy of the pulse-beat, there's a professional lushness and distinct lack of over-amplified sound in her music which also prevents easy assimilation into the indie market. Kirsty is inclined to agree.

"I don't think I was ever really fashionable, or associated with any one particular era or style," she says "and that's probably why I'm still going. I think that's an advantage, though it's probably a disadvantage in terms of radio programming in that they have strict categories. But I don't want to be limited by other people's preconceptions of what I do. If I wanted to do that, I'd be like Status Quo, and just make the same record over and over again."

MacColl's barbs at categorisation extend beyond the rigidity of the music industry hierarchies. Prompted by her recent experiences, which have seen her tour extensively throughout Britain, Europe, and now America, without record company backing ("You can't get more indie than that, can you?"), she also mentions in passing the incongruity of so-called indie bands who "often have very lucrative record deals".

Aside from the self-sufficiency which has characterised her recent career. MacColl's preconceptions of the indie market have been shaped by her grounding in the Iate-70s. when she turned up firstly with Chiswick no-hopers the Drug Addix, and then as a solo artist for Stiff. However. much of this early period has been overshadowed by the fact that her father was the noted folk-singer Ewan MacColl - a potential source of inspiration for the pointed social commentary of her lyrics, perhaps?

"I didn't have a folk background, really." Kirsty insists, "My background was living in Croydon with my mum, listening to the radio - I didn't even live with my father." Pop music, on the other hand, came to her early, and by the age of seven, she was exchanging her record tokens for airplay favourites such as the Spencer Davis Group's Keep On Running and the Beatles' Day Tripper.

Many have related MacColl's melodic skills back to the classic songwriters of the 60s: "I like the songs that Brian Wilson wrote with Van Dyke Parks. Surf's Up was just brilliant. And I particularly like Ray Davies songs for the lyrics, their Englishness, and for the quality of the songwriting - they're such beautiful short stories. So much of the stuff written here during that period was pseudo-American."

MacColl's musical obsession continued to flourish, and by the early 70s, she was raiding her elder brother's collection and learning all about Frank Zappa and the Mothers (unprompted. she reeled off verbatim a verse of Absolutely Free!). As luck would have it, she found herself standing next to the late, great Grand Mother at an early punk gig in London, where they struck up a conversation. But by this time, it was the anyone-can-do-it philosophy of the new wave which was foremost in MacColl's mind.

Attending art college and working in a record shop has always been a common route towards pop stardom, and Kirsty's entree followed exactly that pattern. But, unknown to many, her career started a little while before her 1979 single for Stiff, They Don't Know. The words "Mandy Doubt" elicit a hearty laugh. "Blackmail Corner, is it? OK. I was in a band called the Drug Addix. We weren't actually a punk hand, but at the time punk was king and we called ourselves that just to get some gigs. It was actually an R&B band."

Kirsty`s input on the group's 1978 Make A Record EP was largely restricted to backing vocals, while the band's mix of Sweet Jane type riffs and slide-guitar-propelled R&B fell between two audiences. Stiff` had paid for a Drug Addix demo session, but didn't like the results: when they heard that MacColl had been chucked out of the band, she was invited back to the offices. Although without any songs of her own at that point, she returned a short time later armed with the basis of They Don't Know. Stiff boss Dave Robinson liked the song, wasn't sure about her voice, hut decided to stick her in a studio anyway, around Xmas 1978. Kirsty was backed by the Edge, which at that time included guitarist Lu Edmunds (fresh from a spell with the Damned), keyboard player Gavin Povey and drummer Jon Moss.

Coming on the tails of highly publicised records by Rachel Sweet and Lene Lovich, MacColl's They Don't Know, an impeccably crafted piece of pop writing as rigorously constructed as the finest Brill Building material, probably suffered by association. "I never felt I was doing particularly novelty sort of stuff", she reflects. "but there was this 'Croydon's answer to Rachel Sweet' thing - what the fuck does that mean?" If truth be told, it probably meant that Stiff was cornering the market for attractive young female singers, a belief that is actively reinforced when one recalls the rapid appearance of several photogenic picture discs.

"There's a lot of sexist old crap in this business", MacColl continues. "I'm always described as a 'female singer-songwriter'. You don't see all these other singer-songwriters described as male singer-songwriters. I mean, what's your genitalia got to do with it? You're either a singer-songwriter or you're not."

Pigeonholed or not, Kirsty MacColl's They Don't Know secured enough radio play for it to squeeze between Abba and Wings at the top of the airplay chart, but a distribution strike prevented the song from fulfilling its sales potential. Four years later, though, it ended up in the hands of Tracey Ullman, who very nearly succeeded in making a No. 1 out of it.

Back in 79 though, Stiff wasn't particularly interested in developing her as an artist and, after recording a follow-up, You caught me out, they let her go. This single, scheduled as BUY57, reached white label stages, although we're not aware of any finished copies in circulation. (Kirsty says that some American fans possess copies. )

Dropped by Stiff and without a manager, MacColl picked up the pieces at Polydor between 1981 and 1982, during which time she scored her first chart success, discovered angst in the form of stage-fright, and suffered the indignity of recording an album which the record company weren't interested in issuing.

Things got off to a bright start, though. After testing the water with Keep Your Hands Off My Baby, a track she'd recorded prior to the Polydor deal, the singer's career took off when her characteristically dry wit and near-deadpan delivery gave There's A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis a No. 14 chart placing. Its success couldn't easily be repeated, though, and two follow-ups, See That Girl, and her version of the Beach Boys' You Still Believe In Me, failed to register at all.

Neither did the Desperate Character album, produced by the evergreen Nick Lowe. Brimming with country, rock'n'roll and pop influences, it certainly gave the label marketing headaches, at a time when residual post-punk activity in the shape of electro-pop and the New Romantics were gaining all the attention.

Polydor nevertheless gave MacColl the go-ahead to record a second album, provisionally titled Real. "When we got to the end of the recording," the singer recalls, "I realised that nobody from the company had been down or asked to hear the demos. It was obvious that they weren't interested. Then they just dropped me. I was left with a finished album that wasn't coming out. and that does your head in. It's like having a baby and then leaving it in a phone box."

That wasn't the end of the story. When MacColl hit another purple patch a couple of years later, Polydor jumped on the bandwagon, unearthing several of the tracks for the cash-in Kirsty MacColl album. These tracks, Roman Gardens, Man With No Name, Annie, Keep Your Hands Off My Baby, Berlin and Sleepless Nights, were blended in with the Beach Boys cover and material originally released on Desperate Character.

At one stage, Polydor had planned to call it Kirsty MacColl's Greatest Hits, but the singer complained. "I only had Chip Shop! I said 'You can't call it that.' It was a complete mish-mash. The first album material was pub-rock, rockabilly-ish, while the second was much more techno: there was a lot of programming on it."

Worse still, the first album artwork was retained, so none of the musicians who worked on Real - including bassist Pino Palladino and Lu Edmunds, who co-wrote several of the songs - was credited.

To complete a somewhat confused scenario, Kirsty MacColl's debut tour of Irish ballrooms on the back of Chip Shop proved such a harrowing experience that it was another eight years before she returned to the stage as a solo artist. "I was nervous before I went but I was absolutely shitting myself by the time I got home!" she recalls, with the air of someone who's now exorcised that particular demon. "I was extremely ill prepared for it: I was very young. I didn't have much guidance and it was thrown together at the last minute."

That wasn't all. "I've also got a very quiet voice, and though it's a lot louder now, it's not exactly Tina Turner! The band made a hell of a noise, and I couldn't hear myself at all. Being young. I didn't realise that you can tell 'em to turn down. I just couldn't imagine why anyone would put themselves in that position for pleasure."

After re-recording Berlin in 1983 for a stop-gap single on the North Of Watford label, MacColl returned to Stiff ("Tracey needed stuff and I thought better the devil you know"). The Ullman hit was a confidence boost. But MacColl had to wait until the end of 1994 for a Top 10 single of her own. Ironically, it came with someone else's song. "I just knew that Billy Bragg's A New England was like having access to an unreleased Beatles song or something-a real pressie! Everyone else thought I was mad because all they could hear was this bloke singing loik 'at" (passable Billy Bragg impersonation).

MacColl's version carried her own, increasingly recognisable trademark, and the combination of the song's resigned mood, its sparkly pop values and highly polished production won it many friends in both the pop and the then pop-obsessed indie circles.

Some of the single's well-craftedness was down to Kirsty's producer Steve Lillywhite. whom she'd married earlier in 1993. Over the next few years the combination of Lillywhite's production skills and MacColl's vocal arrangements made them one of the most in-demand teams in pop.

Among the many artists who called upon Kirsty's layered vocal backings were Simple Minds (where she was first introduced to Lillywhite), the Rolling Stones, the Smiths, Talking Heads, Robert Plant, Tom Tom Club, The Wonderstuff, Van Morrison, Billy Bragg and Morrisey.

When the arrival of two babies in the mid-80's made pursuing a solo career more difficult, these guest appearances helped pay the bills and maintained Kirsty's profile. The fact that Stiff went bankrupt didn't help matters either. She was prevented from pursuing her solo career until the matter of the legal take-over was sorted out and eventually she was obliged to buy her way out of the contract from ZTT who had inherited Stiff's assets.

Just as that was sorted out, MacColl received another boost when her guest appearance with the Pogues on Fairytale of New York became the finest Christmas single of 1987, and some say of all time. It was a marvellous performance, with the trade-offs between Kirsty and Shane MacGowan conjuring up the rather splendid image of a destitute Nancy and Lee.

Joining the Pogues on tour in Germany eased Kirsty back on to the stage, and also provided her with the motivation to start writing her own songs again. "After all the excitement of a big gig, you've got to go back to some crappy hotel room and all the TV is in German, so you've got to do something. I borrowed a guitar and started writing." On her return from the tour, she began putting together the material that would eventually comprise the Kite album, recording Free World, What do Pretty Girls do and a version of the Kinks' Days. On the strength of them Virgin offered her a deal.

MacColl's method of applying social critique to personal situations was immediately apparent on Free World ("I thought of you when they closed down the school/And the hospital too, did they think that you were better?"), the first of four singles lifted from Kite. As with all her records issued since that time, it appeared on a variety of formats, with the various 10", 12" and CDs often offering non-album material.

From 1979's They Don't Know through to the more ambitious work on her latest album, it's been difficult to suppress the phrase 'quality pop' when writing about MacColl's music. It was Kite, though, which really hammered this home. Some big names popped by to lend a hand (Johnny Marr, who co-wrote two numbers, and Dave Gilmour among them) but none could ever hope to upstage the songs.

You can almost visualise the sawdust on the opening Innocence, its countrified bar-room camaraderie topped with one of those simple-yet-devastatingly effective melodies which have always been MacColl's forte. Few could sing a line like "Sod all your funny little ways" without instantly reducing a song to the level of farce, but No Victims (where unusually the song's motif is the underpinning bass riff) is all the better for it.

Days was an obvious choice as a follow-up to Free World. Supported by a video that conjured up the Disneyesque charm of Mary Poppins, MacColl's version remained faithful to the Kinks 1968 single, adding lush production and tweaking the dynamics by preceding each verse with a nifty drum pattern. Days reached No. 12: Kite, somewhat surprisingly, narrowly missed out on a Top 30 placing.

Neither of the remaining two singles from the album managed to repeat the success of Days, which was particularly strange in the case of Kirsty's country pastiche, Don't Come The Cowboy With Me Sonny Jim!, a kind of Stand By Your Man in reverse, with one or two unlikely chord changes thrown in.

Kirsty MacColl re-emerged in May 1991 with Walking Down Madison. a co-composition with Johnny Marr awash with samples and tailored towards the dance market. It fulfilled its obvious Top 30 potential. But strangely, the accompanying Electric Landlady album didn't, despite MacColl's entertaining appearances on the 1990 "French & Saunders" BBC TV series (for which she recorded a splendid version of Trains And Boats And Planes, unavailable elsewhere.

Much of the album was co-written with ex-Fairground Attraction man Mark Nevin, and while the implicit Englishness of Kite was supplanted by a more international outlook, one reason for its relative failure must have been trying to market it in a climate that was either grunge- or dance-obsessed. Collectors should look out for an Electric Landlady promo-only video, which combines interview material with behind-the-scenes clips.

Some might be surprised to learn that the reason MacColl's new album. Titanic Days appears on ZTT was because she was dropped by Virgin. "I wasn't completely expecting it." she says, "because Madison had done quite well. and you don't get dropped until you've had a complete flop. Virgin were being bought out by EMI, so they got rid of tons of stuff - I wasn't the only person who wasn't treated terribly well." Public Image Ltd. headed a whole host of name acts who fell foul of the company rationalisation process.

Since that time, Kirsty MacColl has thrown herself into live work, which has given her the unique opportunity to unveil new material before getting it down on record. "I'd even do a live album now, definitely." she enthuses, having recently completed a successful U.S. tour. "I've really enjoyed these past two years. It helps having a terrific band. I've got Pete Glenister back again." (her chief co-writer on Kite, Gary Sandford (ex-Aztec Camera) and the original Ruts rhythm section, Dave Ruffy and Vince Seggs.)

Titanic Days has been 18 months, on and off, in the making. But if anything, it has a slightly more open feel than the previous two albums, perhaps a result of' Steve Lillywhite's role being restricted to the mixing desk. "He was out of the country when I wanted to start making it." Kirsty reveals. "and I've made enough records not to need someone there every day, really. I was very glad that he wanted to mix it, though, because that's not my favourite part of the process."

"I want to shake up this world and not to feel so useless" is an opening line that encapsulates the sense of indolent rage felt by the modern-day political radical. MacColl, who once said. "If a record doesn't make you think, laugh or dance - ideally all three - then it's a waste of vinyl", may not dress up her words of social discomfort in rock's traditional revolutionary language (primarily power and speed) neither does she pander to the simple skills of the sloganeer. preferring instead to weave her cultural metaphors (most impressively on the title track) into songs of a distinctly personal nature.

Titanic Days runs right across the musical spectrum. The baggyish beat of the first single. Angel: the almost Twin Peaks ambience of Bad: the biting melancholy of Tomorrow Never Comes, that could almost be a Robert Wyatt song, vocal textures that stray daringly into 10cc territory on Don't go home; Big Boy On A Saturday Night with its rockabilly-plus-classic-MacColl-chorus; and the huge pop extravaganzas of Soho Square and the title track all suggest that Kirsty MacColl is still happy to confound the genres in the age of the niche market. You couldn't fail to spot a Kirsty MacColl record, though, with its vocal delivery that hovers close to melodic narration, and which in turn enhances the filmic quality that most of her lyrics seem to have. "I'm quite pleased to have a voice that you either like or you don't." says MacColl, who's looking forward to a nation-wide UK tour in the next couple of months. "To sound unique is the best thing that can happen to you as a singer. I'd much rather hear Iggy Pop than Michael Bolton."

Can't argue with that.

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Record Collector 1994

One of the finest home-grown songwriters in recent years is back with a new album. Mark Paytress decides it's time to ask her the "Mandy Doubt" question.

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