People who look back on the eighties and despair or scoff are probably thinking of hits like “Too Shy”, the very definition of flossy, flimsy, flouncy faux-funk foolishness. It’s a record so evanescent that you half-suspect it was specially created and retconned into history by a cabal of budget “Hits Of The 80s” compilers. (OK, no, that would have been “Big Apple”)
If you like this kind of pouting weightlessness – and I do, a bit – none of those are terrible things. Limahl doesn’t have a voice for the ages but he bluffs his way through a low-content lyric with some aplomb. In the half-light of the teenage disco, “too shy shy, hush hush, eye to eye” turns from idiocy into desperate meaning. As for Nick Beggs’ showy bass, it’s as evocative in its way as Limahl’s camera-ready hair. As you could have learned from the merest glance at their name, Kajagoogoo were young men chasing a trend with little in the way of thought or dignity – but that kind of group is what gives pop its texture, and I’m always ready to forgive it.
Score: 5
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