Why is Kirsty MacColl’s Kite on my best 1,000 albums ever list?
Pop gems from a UK-based singer-songwriter with a flat-out gorgeous voice.
Some stats & info about Kirsty MacColl – Kite
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Singer Songwriter, Pop, Pop Music, College Rock, Rock, Rock Music
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4.5 out of 5 stars
- When was Kite released? 1989
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #862 out of 1,000
Kirsty MacColl’s Kite on Spotify
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective take on what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.
What does Kirsty MacColl’s Kite mean to me? What does it make me feel? Why is it exciting or compelling?
For many of the albums on this best 1,000 albums ever list, I have some kind of history with that either dates back to the time of the album’s release or when I happened to discover it. But there are some, like this one, that I stumbled across during the process of listening to the music of thousands of artists and bands – and many thousands of albums – during nine plus months of research (yeah, it really was and is an insane project!).
And what a joy it is to stumble across an artist like Kirsty MacColl and an album like Kite. In 1989, I would have had close to zero interest in a singer-songwriter from the UK with a gorgeous voice. Led Zeppelin and The Doors and R.E.M. and U2 were the main fascinations in my life right around that time.
So it’s great to be a little bit older (okay, maybe more than a little, thanks!) and (hopefully) a little bit wiser, and to hear an absolute pop gem like “What Do Pretty Girls Do?” for the first time.
The range on this album is pretty wild to behold as well. Check out the marvelously gentle “Dancing in Limbo,” for instance. All Music gushes, “MacColl was quite likely the best female singer of her generation,” and it’s hard to disagree.
“Days” is probably the most accessible song on the album, a delightfully sunny yet yearning track that would work great coming out of your dashboard on an open road kind of a day or while you’re getting your coffee to kick things off.