 Squeeze The early-to-mid 90s was not a very safe haven for pop bands. Grunge was very much an 800-lb gorilla, "college" music was still sitting on the noisier side of the fence, and not that either of these was necessarily drawing fans away, but you might have well spelled the genre "popp" or "poop", because the "scene" was definitely treating it as a 4-letter word. Bands like Unrest were viewed as "pop", even though the connections made were weak at best, and very much coming from a "I solely listen to Pavement and/or emo" mindframe. Salvation for pop purists would strangely come in the form of Ben Folds Five and the Cardigans, and while it's hard to exactly tell how much affectation is at work there, at least its now safer atmosphere for musicians to come out the "pop closet", so to speak. And so the accolades pour forth for ABBA & Bacharach & Costello, but nary a mention is made in recent times for Chris Difford & Glenn Tillbrook, the forthright songwriting team behind Squeeze. Their 1991 effort Play (along with Michael Penn's supreme Free-For-All) missed the last pop hurrah of the late 80s/1990 by a docklength, and consequently floated to the bottom of the bay, undeservedly so. Play only suffers from a touch of 90s slickness, but otherwise is still a fresh affair. The festivities kick right in with "Satisfied", a song vaguely similiar to a very mellow "Kashmir", which leads in to possibly the most disappointing track on the album, "Crying In My Sleep" – not technically a bad song, but suffers from "gotta recreate last hit single" syndrome, in this case, "Hourglass". This generally causes my index finger & track forward button to "shake hands", as it were, but no worries, as the next three songs, "Letting Go", "The Day I Get Home" (curiously featuring an indistinguishable Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, & Michael Penn on background vocals), and the utterly sublime "The Truth", perhaps the best song ever penned by Messrs. Difford & Tillbrook – certainly the prettiest. The rest of the album continues to lightly trace the affairs of a couple with varying degrees of musical success, but with a refreshing amount of earnesty throughout, and closing with the line from "There is a Voice" – "Each day is a night / then your lifetime is gone." Not entirely profound, but pulled off with the typical Squeeze aplomb. I should also mention that the liner notes present the entire package as an actual play transcript, though while it's respectfully clever, I can't say I've personally been smitten enough to spend time trying to make my way through. Guess this separates the Squeeze men from the Squeeze boys. (??) A mini-Squeeze revivial is due into town any day now, perhaps sparked by recent reissues of their earlier albums. It's a bit jawdropping that Difford/Tillbrook covers have been few & far between by today's popsters, perhaps due to the 90s requirement that there be at least 50mg of irony involved in any cover treatment anymore. Can't wait 'til Squeeze get their due again, and can't wait until the New Honesty sweeps the land. Hopefully, they'll walk hand-in-hand.
Review by AAA |