Saturday 25 July 2015

Powerpop - Kimberley Rew

What a very strange career Kimberley Rew has had. His best known work came with Katrina and the Waves, who gave us 'Walking on Sunshine' in 1985 and the last-ever British winner of Eurovision, 'Love Shine a Light', in 1997. But for the likes of you and me, of course, he's most revered for his epic guitar-playing with the Soft Boys, one of the great live bands of the post-punk years.

Somewhere between those two groups, he also released some solo stuff, starting with the 1980 single 'Stomping All Over the World'. And it's one of my favourite-ever records: a perfect, classically constructed pop song with slightly skewed lyrics that builds into an irresistible hook. Two minutes and ten seconds - that's all you need.

Like Knox's 'Gigolo Aunt', this was produced by Pat Collier at the Alaska studio.


This is one of a series of posts celebrating the poppier end of the post-punk period in Britain. Much of this stuff was neither cool nor popular at the time, but it was what I was listening to, and I worry that too much of it is being lost to history.

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