Power Pop #1

The Best:

Nick Lowe/"Jesus of Cool" (1978/2008, Proper Records CD, CHOSEN1)

In March 1978 Nick Lowe's long-awaited first solo LP, "Jesus of Cool" appeared in British records stores.  Already hailed as the hottest "new wave" producer around with debut albums by Elvis Costello and The Damned among others under his belt, this former pub rock stalwarth apparently could do no wrong.  Accompanying single "(I Love the Sound of) Breaking Glass" immediately became a Top 10 hit in its own right and remains his biggest U.K. solo hit to date.

Even though the album was chock-full of sure fire hit single worthy material such as "Little Hitler", "Tonight",  "Marie Provost", "So it Goes" - his first proper solo single in 1976 - and a live version of its B-side "Heart of the City", "Breaking Glass" nonetheless became the sole charting single culled from the album.

In the U.S. the album's title was not surprisingly deemed a tad too risky, so with a couple of adjustments to the tracklisting (a studio version of "Heart of the City" replaced its live counterpart and Lowe's hilarious spot-on Bay City Rollers piss-take "Rollers Show" was also added) and a different title in the unforgettable "Pure Pop for Now People", the album was issued on Columbia Records also in March 1978.



Then in 2008 Proper Records collected both versions of the album onto one CD and beefed it up with single-only releases, B-sides and other rarities from the era, creating in the process a 21 track extravaganza no pure pop fan should be without.

Among the extra curios we have the original demo version of "Cruel to Be Kind" by his previous band Brinzley Schwarz (re-recorded for his next album, it became a sizeable worldwide hit for Nick Lowe in 1979) and faithful covers of such classics as Goffin/King's "Halfway to Paradise" and Sandy Posey's pre-feminist "Born a Woman", not to mention the little known gem which is "I Love My Label" - undoubtly inspired by his spat with his and Brinzley's old record company United Artists (Reportedly, another earlier and more blatant Rollers "tribute", "Bay City Rollers We Love You", got him kicked off said label):
,,They always ask for lots of songs of no more than 3:50 long, so I write them some.
  They never talk behind my back and are always playing my new track when I come along"   

A power pop classic!


The Rest:



The Romantics/"Super Hits" (1998/2007, Sony BMG CD, A 705482)

Okay, I first heard those guys back in 1979 and truth be told, was none-too impressed.  The album was "The Romantics" with the band wearing RED LEATHER SUITS on the cover!  In the era of back-to-basics punk and '60s inspired new wave, how utterly ludicrous and over the top they were!

But never judge a book by its cover since, thankfully, the music was an altogether different matter.

Although I must say I've never been overly fond of their best known - and most durable - track "What I Like About You".  But, admittedly, it has grown on me.  A gazillion movies, TV shows and commercials have served their purpose well... 



Nope, the song which I fell for from that album with the silly cover was "When I Look in Your Eyes".  "Tell it to Carrie" wasn't half bad either.





Musically mere inches from another overrated American - or so I thought at the time - act, The Knack, it was back to the British Invasion of the mid '60s for those guys.  With The Beatles' sense of melody and The Kinks' sense of energy firmly in the foreground. 

However, as far as I am concerned The Romantics have never been anything but a half decent singles band and therefore I can not recommend anything more than this 10 track "Super Hits" compilation CD.  It includes pretty much everything they're best known for.

And although, at the time, "What I Like About You" never became a big chart hit (it barely scraped the U.S. Top 50), their sole Top 5 hit "Talking in Your Sleep" (1983) and the following year's Top 40 entry "One in a Million" both sort of cement the "Super Hits" status.  Sort of...

 

HAJ August 2011.