“Exsqueeze me?”
As you are no doubt painfully aware, I don’t cotton to “Greatest Hits” packages much. It’s not a rule, and there are exceptions, like this one…
SQUEEZE
Singles 45’s and Under
ORIGINAL RELEASE DATE: 1982
TRACK LISTING:
Take Me I’m Your
Goodbye Girl
Cool For Cats
Up The Junction
Slap and Tickle
Another Nail In My Heart
Pulling Mussels (From The Shell)
If I Didn’t Love You
Is That Love?
Tempted
Black Coffee IN Bed
Annie Get Your Gun
Squeeze was a great band with so many great songs, and anybody calling themselves a lover of pop music should definitely own Cool For Cats, Argybargy and East Side Story in their entirety. After those it all gets a little spotty, with brilliant tunes intermingling with pale imitations of what they used to be capable of producing. But if you can only find the money for one CD buy this first compilation of the band’s early hits. It brilliantly shows the band’s progress from jerky new wavers (Take Me I’m Yours), to amazingly poignant and current songwriters (my personal favorite Up The Junction, Another Nail In My Heart, Pulling Mussels, etc) all the way through to their white boy soul classic Tempted. The progression was so seamless that it doesn’t really sound like you’re listening to a greatest hits package. It sounds like a really, really great ALBUM. Not a duff track to be found, unlike most of their ‘proper’ albums which always contained one or two. If you’re a fan you’ve probably stopped reading by this point, so for all of you newbies to Squeeze you need to pick this up immediately.
Got this album as a Christmas present 1982. Love it, not a duff track you’re right, one of my favourite albums ever. Annie Get Your Gun is my favourite track, but I can listen all the way through without skipping tracks. Later compilations don’t work as well, the reformed Squeeze tracks spoil the flow.