Kirsty MacColl - He's On The Beach (Stiff)

A sad tale from Kirsty about a boy who takes off on holiday and ends up in Australia. Still, he's happy there. Kirsty will be happy too when the single marches up the charts. It's even better than "A New England", more bouncy and with a chorus that stays in your brain after just one listen. (Anne Lambert, No 1, June 15, 1985)

Even though Kirsty wrote this herself it sounds very like her last single, Billy Bragg's "A New England" - lots of shiny guitars above which a million Kirsty MacColls breathlessly sing the tune. I just don't quite understand why she's bothered to write a song about an old drinking partner who's gone to Australia, spends all his time on the beach and isn't coming back. (Chris Heath, Smash Hits, June 19, 1985)

The lovely Kirsty is always worth a lot of anybody's time. Her appreciation of the finer aspects of pop construction are enough to warm even the coldest discaphile's heart. All the usual ingredients are there - sometime bittersweet but ultimately optimistic lyric, hefty, pacey backbeat, just the right amount of memorable jangling and those trebly harmonised vocals. A tribute to lost love? A yearning for sunnier climes? A summer hit? All these, and more. (Graham K Smith, Record Mirror, June 15, 1985)