Kite Salvo****

“The wit of Ray Davies and the harmonic invention of The Beach Boys,” Morrissey said of the late, great Kirsty MacColl, whose back catalogue is now being reissued. MacColl, who died in a tragic accident almost 12 years ago, was, as Moz well knew, a singularly British songwriter.

Kite, originally released in 1989, was a landmark in many ways, not least in that it was the first brilliant flourishing of MacColl’s songwriting skills (which had been stalled by marriage, motherhood, stage fright and record label “issues”).

Mixing spiky musings on cynicism, celebrity and class-war economics with pithy character portraits (all of which was aligned to a frighteningly good pop sensibility, all present and correct here), MacColl could lay safe claim to being the poster girl for assertive, acutely insightful and often very funny femininity. God, she’s missed. kirstymaccoll. com

Download tracks:Innocents, Free World, What Do Pretty Girls Do?