Nik Kershaw
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Nik Kershaw est un chanteur anglais né à Bristol le 1er mars 1958.
On lui doit surtout deux tubes au milieu des années 80, Would’nt It Be Good et The Riddle.
[modifier] Biographie
Né Nicholas David Kershaw à Bristol, en Angleterre le 1er mars 1958, il grandit à Ipswich, et jouait de la guitare et chantait dans plusieurs groupes jusqu'à ce qu'il décide de se consacrer à sa carrière d'auteur de chanson. Cependant, il signa un contrat avec MCA Records en 1983, qui sortit un premier single, "I Won't Let The Sun Go Down On Me", qui rata de peu le Top 40 au Royaume-Uni. Début 1984, il devint célèbre quand "Wouldn't It Be Good", avec une video de Kershaw portant un habit extraterrestre chromakey, atteint la place numéro 4 dans le hit-parade UK. Il a eu encore trois tubes supplémentaires dans le Top 20 hits tirés de son premier disque Human Racing, dont le titre du même nom et la réedition de son premier single qui devint ultimativement son plus grand tube et atteignit la place numéro 2 du Hit-parade anglais.
Despite winning awards, attracting admirers for his writing such as Elton John and gaining a huge teenage fanbase, Kershaw was not without his critics. Some complained that he did too much onstage when he had a competent backing band called the Krew to play all the required guitar and keyboard parts of his songs. Others derided his fashion sense (Kershaw made the snood and fingerless gloves into vital sartorial requirements in 1984) and some claimed he was, vocally, trying to sound like Stevie Wonder. Others made personal attacks; for example, Malcolm McLaren labelled Kershaw a 'wimp'.[citation needed]
Kershaw, who was married to long-time love and backing singer Sheri, then released a single called "The Riddle", which would send fans, journalists and linguists into overdrive, as each tried to establish what the meaning was behind the strange set of circumstances and clues which Kershaw put in the verses and chorus. Another major hit, it was also the title track of his second album, which also spawned two more UK Top 10 hits, "Wide Boy" and "Don Quixote".
En juillet 1985, Nik Kershaw était parmi les artistes participant au Live Aid, au Wembley Stadium. His star began to wane soon afterwards and he enjoyed only one more UK Top 40 hit. He continued to make and release records, and perform on other people's records. His prowess as a songwriter served him well in 1991 when his song "The One And Only", appeared on the soundtrack to the British movie Buddy's Song and in the American film Doc Hollywood, and provided a UK Number 1 single for the star of the film, Chesney Hawkes (son of the Tremeloes' Chip Hawkes). In 1993 The Hollies had a minor hit with another of his songs, "The Woman I Love". During the mid-nineties he also wrote and produced a substantial amount of material for the boy band Let Loose, with two of the tracks ("Seventeen" and "Everybody Say, Everybody Do") achieving reasonable success.
In the 2000s, the onset for 1980s nostalgia brought Kershaw back into the public eye to discuss the heights of his career and it was at this point that he revealed that "The Riddle" meant, in fact, nothing. He added that he could not say anything at the time because he was receiving thousands of essays and theses on the song, establishing what "The Riddle" meant and stood for, and what the answer was, and he did not want to disappoint people. [1]
Il publia en 1999 le disque "15 Minutes", une collection de chansons généralement plus personnelles et plus mûres qu'il n'envisageait pas être enregistrées par d'autres artistes. Avec le disque plus commercial "To Be Frank" (2001), ces nouvelles chansons ont un style différent de ses œuvres précedentes et sont davantage accompagnées par des guitares (acoustiques et électriques) que par des synthesisers.
Au fil des années, Nik Kershaw participa à la réalisation d'album avec des artistes tels que Elton John, Bonnie Tyler, Tony Banks, Les Rythmes Digitales et Imogen Heap.
En 2005, une nouvelle compilation "Then And Now" fut publiée, comprenant 4 nouvelles chansons.
Il a publié en octobre 2006 un nouveau disque appelé "You've Got To Laugh". Ce disque comprend 12 nouvelles chansons et est disponible sur son site internet ainsi que sur i-tunes. Le disque est unaniment considéré comme un des meilleurs qu'il a produit.
