Nik Kershaw

From the start, there was always something a little otherworldly about homegrown synth-pop hero Nik Kershaw — he arrived in a blaze of light, wearing a chroma-key suit in the video for his breakthrough single, 1984's "Wouldn't It Be Good", then embarked on a tidy run of hits inextricably linked to his leftfield fashion sense (the snood-and-fingerless-gloves combo became a trademark). Beneath the image, though, lay a songwriter of genuine class, as 1986's excellent Radio Musicola confirmed. Kershaw heads into the 21st century with synths on the backburner, in Deep Cuts.

The musical landscape at the end of the 20th century seemed to hold little for a forgotten chart star who had spent more than a decade writing songs for other performers — so Kershaw stripped away the synths on which he had built his name and delivered a guitar-based stunner, 15 Minutes (1999). His original fanbase was naturally delighted that he still found time for a hook-up with retro-electro prodigy Stuart Price (as Les Rythmes Digitales) on "Sometimes".

Nik Kershaw started out, during the mid-'70s, as a guitarist in a Deep Purple cover band but — with the arrival of his debut solo album, Human Racing (1984) — he instantly became one of synth pop's leading lights. A master of the brooding verse that anticipated a bright, chart-friendly chorus, Kershaw possessed far more songwriting talent than most Smash Hits poster boys — he went on to pen "The One and Only" (a hit for Chesney Hawkes) and supplied tunes for boy band Let Loose. It's surely a sign of the digital times that he made his sure-touch 2006 album, You've Got to Laugh, available only through his Web site or iTunes. Songs like "Yeah, Yeah" and "Oh You Beautiful Thing" are proof-positive that Kershaw remains one of our greatest, criminally underrated, singer-songwriters.