Album of the Day 7/12/11

Every day, our 1000 best albums of all time countdown continues all the way to #1. Tuesday’s album was #567:

Squeeze – East Side Story

Ironically, this 1982 album is best known for the band’s worst song (and biggest hit – go figure), Tempted, the only cut that keyboardist Paul Carrack, who was in the group for only this album, ever gave them. But the rest of the songs are so good that they make you forget it’s there. More effectively than any of the well-loved British new wave band’s other albums, it contrasts Chris Difford’s quintessentially English, vaudevillian-tinged, lyrically dense tableaux with Glenn Tilbrook’s more diverse, Beatlesque tunesmithing and blazing lead guitar. Many of these songs take a sardonic but genuinely warmhearted look at romance from a woman’s point of view, without being sappy, notably Woman’s World, the poignant Someone Else’s Heart, the scurrying Is That Love and playful Mumbo Jumbo. The rest of the album is more eclectic than anything the band would do before or afterward, with the bitter country ballad Labelled with Love; the shapeshifting psychedelia of There’s No Tomorrow and F-Hole; Heaven, with its eerie, lickety-split banjo outro, the bouncy, cheery Piccadilly, Someone Else’s Bell and In Quintessence among the fourteen tracks on the original vinyl release. Here’s a random torrent via Ustedville.

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Song of the Day 8/22/09

Every day, our top 666 songs of alltime countdown gets one step closer to #1. Sunday’s song is #339:

Squeeze – I Think I’m Go Go

A Samuel Beckett reference? Wouldn’t put it past Chris Difford. Darkly swooping, deliciously ominous synthy new wave from Argybargy, 1981. Mp3s are everywhere.

Song of the Day 5/30/09

Every day, our top 666 songs of alltime countdown gets one step closer to #1. Saturday’s song is #424:

Squeeze – Labelled with Love

Chris Difford at his most keenly perceptive with a sad country ballad from West Side Story, 1981. This is an actually commonplace tale, a WWII bride who “learned from a distance that love was a lesson,” who ends up taking up her husband’s bad habit back to the UK, ultimately finding herself completely and absolutely alone with a bottle “labelled with love.”

Song of the Day 3/16/09

Every day, our top 666 songs of alltime countdown gets one step closer to #1. Monday’s song is #499:

Squeeze – Another Nail in My Heart

“And here in the bar, the piano man’s found another nail for my heart,” Jools Holland’s Farfisa blending magically and intensely with Chris Difford’s distorted guitar. One of the most texturally beautiful moments in recorded music history. Never mind the fact that it’s a killer new wave pop hit. From Argybargy, 1980; mp3s are everywhere