East Side Story (1981)

New wave UK popster unit Squeeze was always more popular elsewhere than the US, so I was surprised, looking it up, first to see that they did chart twice here and then that those occasions were in 1987 and 1988, with "Hourglass" and "853-5937," respectively. Full disclosure, I don't know those songs. I barely knew they were even still together then—and note, furthermore, they are still together today. But I think the very early part of the 1980s remains their heyday, on the new wave project of a self-conscious return to three-minute pop aesthetics and dynamics (and "fun"). I had the 1980 album Argybargy, their third, and loved it dearly, playing it to death. This follow-up East Side Story is arguably their best. The first single they released from it, "Is That Love," felt like a continuation of the Argybargy groove, a sprightly tune that skips and dazzles and clocks in at 2:31. The second single, "Tempted" (4:00), better represents attempts at growth and development, not to mention a certain star power. It features the band's newest keyboard player then in Paul Carrack, who sings the lead. You may recall Carrack's steady imploring style from the 1975 hit by Ace, "How Long." "Tempted" also features vocal support from Elvis Costello and it's still an exciting moment to hear his memorable, barely competent voice burping up and squeaking out his lines and harmonies. My complaint about East Side Story is not exactly a complaint. I just have never quite been able to put my finger on the whole. It skips around so willfully from style to style, asserting the pop mastery of Chris Difford's and Glenn Tilbrook's collaborative songwriting, that it never quite finds its own groove. These exercises include essays at country in the third single, "Labelled by Love," a limping "Eleanor Rigby" take in "Vanity Fair," all tarted up with a dreary string arrangement, and some tossed-off rockabilly in the fourth and final single, released only in the US, "Messed Around." The song that caught my attention most often listening to East Side Story again recently was the unfortunately named "F-Hole" (in fairness, an F-hole is technically the opening in the body of stringed instruments in the violin family). But "F-Hole," more of a rock band number with a driving hypnotic groove, is another song unlike any other on the album. I see I've used the word "groove" a few times, which is kind of unusual for a project that is so determinedly pop, at least in formal terms: it's all verse-chorus-verse variations with a lot of emphasis on melody and hooks, clocking in at three minutes at least aesthetically. The average song length here is actually closer to four minutes but you take the point. These songs swing wildly in style though most are recognizably Squeeze. I never quite feel like I have a firm grip. Yet playing it, I often find myself noticing how it is full of amazing moments. Maybe they don't quite all add up to an album (14 accomplished tracks notwithstanding) and maybe no song stands very well on its own—they seem to need each other somehow. Curious project, curious reaction. Solid good album?

Argybargy (1980)

Are you a Squeeze fan? I was infatuated with them in the early '80s. Argybargy was the first of their albums I knew and seems to be the place I turn when I'm in the mood, though it's arguable at least that East Side Story might be their best. The typical label applied is New Wave, and that's fair enough—it's basically primary colors, three-minute pop songs, and loose-jointed shuffle-dancing. This is the British flavor of New Wave, so there's a certain amount of bluesy pub-rock affinities lurking about as well (most concentrated in the person of keyboardist Jools Holland, whose only song here is "Wrong Side of the Moon"). Principal songwriters Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook reportedly worked out an eccentric strategy for concocting their tunes: Difford wrote the lyrics on his own—in the middle of the night, if I recall, later slipping them under Tilbrook's door (this started when they were roommates, evidently). Tilbrook then made the music. That probably accounts for the strange moods and travels of these songs, which do hit verse-chorus-verse marks but come across perhaps most forcefully as strange and gnomic, almost suffocating in a way. Consider "I Think I’m Go Go," which makes a hash of its arch ambience and musical gestures, finally turning into something that plays like a solo barbershop quartet part written for a zombie. Maybe that's not the best example—it's practically the novelty here, calling attention to itself by its dense and cheeky manner. I think I like it but I can see how someone might shrink from it. So consider the more obvious first single, which kicks off the first side, "Pulling Mussels (From the Shell)." It's tuneful, fun to yelp with as you pick up the words; even as it moves about restlessly from one musical idea to the next some infectiousness keeps you faithfully in its tow. But pay a visit to its Wikipedia page and what do you find? Nineteen footnotes citing a dozen or more critics talking about an "observation of the British working class," clarifying that it's Difford's memories from a British holiday camp, pointing out that "pulling mussels" "is British slang for sexual intercourse." That seems to be an awful lot of exegesis for a #44 on the UK charts, but maybe that's just me. As pop music it dwells in a cerebral place. And I still can't figure out how much I like it or not—maybe that's exhaustion. It was in very high rotation at one point.