North of a Miracle by Nick Heyward

North of a Miracle, Nick Heyward's first album on his own, came out on Arista on 28 October 1983, and it's the sound of a boy wonder growing up in public. Heyward had been the singer and songwriter in Haircut One Hundred, and after that band's first album he walked away and kept writing. Geoff Emerick produced, and he gives these songs a warm, rounded, grown-up sheen, pop with every corner smoothed off and a wistful streak running through the tunes.

The singles tell the story: "Whistle Down the Wind", "Take That Situation", "Blue Hat for a Blue Day" and "On a Sunday", all polished to a shine. The album climbed to number 10 in the UK and hung around the chart for 10 weeks, and in America "Whistle Down the Wind" found a home on the adult contemporary chart early in 1984. Postcards From Home came next.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.