Squeeze: East Side Story - 1981
By 1981, many punk/new wave bands and artists were finding that they needed to diversify in order to avoid becoming like seventies boogie rock bands and releasing album after album of similar material.
Squeeze moved, like a few others, from new wave into Americana, rockabilly and country rock for the foundations of their new sound. There were even signs of soul and psychedelia in there. Or so many seem to say. To me, it sounds more like Elvis Costello's Get Happy!! but not as good. Talking of the bespectacled one, the album was actually produced by Elvis Costello - with Roger Bechirian, who had produced his Trust album from the same year - and many of his likings for country (Almost Blue from the same year, of course) clearly rubbed off on Squeeze. Chris Difford spoke glowingly of Costello's influence, saying -
"I was in complete awe of working with him. It was a great challenge to come in every day with a lyric that would be better than the one he might come up with. ... I could tell which were the weak ones just by looking at his face".
There was also a Costello connection in that Glenn Tilbrook sang duet vocals with Costello on his From A Whisper To Scream on Trust as well.
Paul Carrack, once of Ace, had replaced Holland on keyboards and he sang lead vocals on a hit single from the album, the country-soul flavoured Tempted. Also in a country vein, even more so, was the album's even bigger hit, the pleasant Labelled With Love. Other good tracks were Is That Love?, the delightfully jazzy Messed Around, the still New-Wavey Quintessence and the plaintive, cynical Costello-influenced Vanity Fair.
Someone Else's Heart is also very Costello-ish and indeed it was recorded by him, but never released (I don't think). The frantic Piccadilly also retains a Costello/New Wave, organ-driven vibe to it. Also in that Costello vein (there's a surprise) is Woman's World. Overall, though, it is the singles that once again take the honours. There is a bit of a lack of cohesion to the rest of the album and I have to say that the album is long overdue a remastering as indeed all the Squeeze albums are (with the exception of Argybargy, which has a remastered Deluxe Edition).
Also notable was this piece of trivia - The album was halfway completed when John Lennon was assassinated on 8 December 1980. The band were in the studio at the time, Difford recalled,
"We went into the studio and a dozen or so musicians just dropped in. We cracked some beers and just played John Lennon songs the whole day. It was highly emotional."
