Cool for Cats

by

Squeeze

Edit

"Cool For Cats" is the album where Squeeze hit their stride, when Difford & Tilbrook were mentioned in the same sentences with Lennon & McCartney.

In retrospect, that seems hyperbolic, but I couldn't resist falling in love with this album. And Squeeze in general. Squeeze was a band to love.

As other reviewers have noted, the production here shows its' age, and it really wasn't that spectacular to begin with. This remaster (finally, thank you very much) presents the album as clean as it's ever gonna get.

You'll hardly notice, as the sheer tunefulness of these songs...the melodies that firmly lodge in your brain, the harmonies very suggestive of those Fab Four, the dizzying piano fills, locomotive drumming...it's a set of terrific songs. And Squeeze doesn't sit around wasting a lot of time...7 of the original 12 songs are under three minutes.

Many of them paint little English vignettes, as detailed as a small, independent film.

Personal favorites include the opener, "Slap and Tickle" with it's proto-synth-pop background;

"It's Not Cricket" - a lovely story-song with boinging bells and piano;

"Hop, Skip and Jump" - their best-bar-band-in-the-world song;

"Slightly Drunk" - for the opening line ""slightly drunk once again";

and the exquisite "Goodbye Girl"...

...heck, I could find something nice to say about pretty much every song on the record.

This one's up there with the greats, and pretty much essential to anyone who likes what was once called "power pop". Squeeze towers over that genre...and here's where it begins.