Squeeze

It’s been 10 years since the last high-profile Squeeze compilation “Greatest Hits”, which itself appeared a decade on from the Top 3 “Singles:45s & Under” collection that drew a veil over the band’s first tour of duty. So, it seems these things occur at regular intervals, either to mark a particular moment in the group’s existence (The Big Squeeze coincides with the latest “we’re calling it a day” announcement from Difford, Tilbrook & Co.) …or, cynics will suggest, to make any easy buck or two. Again.

This 2002 update rolls out the same opening dozen songs from Singles:45s & Under in almost identical order, adding a further 8 selections dating from albums released between 1985 and 1998. Therefore, it’s not the most balanced of retrospectives, and the continued selection of Goodbye Girl and Annie Get Your Gun ahead of later gems such as 853-5937, Loving You Tonight or Heartbreaking World is a bit of a shame, really.

The Big Squeeze throws in a sweetener to compensate for the lack of imagination in the track selection, a bonus disc of B-sides and rarities, but only on initial copies. The general impression here is of simply retelling a familar story; the celebrated songwriting double act of Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook’s acutely observed kitchen sink dramas full of uniquely English humour, wordplay and beguiling melody. To paraphrase a well-known marketing tagline, “You know more Squeeze songs than you think you do.”

Cool For Cats, Up The Junction, Labelled With Love – all UK Top 5 hits in their first flush of chart activity, and all essential to any Squeeze Best Of. Their peers back then were Madness and Elvis Costello, also purveyors of intelligent and incisive vignettes of urban daily life. Although Squeeze enjoyed modest success on the album charts, their forte was – as with the Nutty Boys – the 3-minute pop classic. There were a few commercial misfires during those early years – Bang Bang (not included), Goodbye Girl, and Pulling Mussels From The Shell (how such a blinding example of new wave pop could only reach No.44 in 1980 remains a mystery) – but generally they made the Top 40 their home for 4 glorious years.

Minor changes in personnel and a growing musical maturity led to a shift towards less instantly zippy releases such as the soulful Black Coffee In Bed and the sublime Tempted, before 1982’s Sweets From A Stranger album# signalled the end of Squeeze Mk.I, Difford & Tilbrook briefly breaking off to record on their own. A&M took the opportunity to issue Singles:45s & Under, which became the band’s most successful album by some distance.

Their extra-curricular dalliance didn’t last long, proving less than satisfactory, and Squeeze returned in the summer of 1985. Jools Holland – who departed in 1980 to persue a career in television – was back on board to provide virtuoso piano and keyboards, and Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti contained some of D&T’s finest compositions. The album was criticized for the distinctive, heavy-handed production from Laurie “Paul Young” Latham (and indeed for its punsome title), but Last Time Forever was as darkly compelling as they come. It’s also the only track to make it onto The Big Squeeze, when King George Street and No Place Like Home perhaps deserve a similar appraisal.

1987 brought the biggest hit of Squeeze Mk.II’s lifespan, the insanely catchy Hourglass (a Top 20 hit on both sides of the Atlantic), and their highest-charting studio album Babylon And On. Abandoning the slickness of Latham’s touch on Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti, it was their freshest-sounding record since 1981’s East Side Story. With further high calibre singles 853-5937 and Trust Me To Open My Mouth, the potential was there for Squeeze to consolidate (and even bulid upon) their commercial renaissance, but somehow it never quite happened. Hourglass proved to be the last hit single of any magnitude.

For the next 8 years, a pattern of one studio album every 2 years was established. Babylon & On’s follow-up, Frank, arrived in 1989 and become their least successful album with a solitary week at #58, spawning no hit singles whatsoever (If It’s Love and Love Circles both had the pedigree, but neither cracked the Top 75, let alone Top 40). A move to Warner Brothers imprint Reprise followed, and tellingly there are no tracks on The Big Squeeze taken from either Frank or 1991’s Play on their new label.

The full track listing is as follows:

Disc 1

1. Take Me I’m Yours
2. Goodbye Girl
3. Cool For Cats
4. Up The Junction
5. Slap & Tickle
6. Another Nail In My Heart
7. Pulling Mussels (From The Shell)
8. Is That Love?
9. Tempted
10. Black Coffee In Bed
11. Annie Get Your Gun
12. Labelled With Love
13. Last Time Forever
14. Hourglass
15. Some Fantastic Place
16. Third Rail
17. This Summer
18. Electric Trains
19. Heaven Knows
20. Domino Disc 2

1. Suites from Five Strangers
2. Squabs on Forty Fab
3. Model
4. Spanish Guitar
5. Elephant Girl
6. Trust
7. Yap Yap Yap
8. Fortnight Saga
9. Wedding Bells
10. What the Butler Saw
11. Going Crazy
12. Introvert
13. Who’s That?
14. Vanity Fair
15. Christmas Day
16. Maidstone
17. Discipline
18. Periscope
19. All’s Well That End’s Well

However, the band became one of the casualties of Warner’s over-ambitious signing of several quality names in too short a period, and Play was their only effort for Reprise. Truth be told, it’s actually the best example of later-era Squeeze, combining their trademark lyrical dexterity and impeccable craftsmanship with a polished, sophisticated production which avoided the overbearing stylings of Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti.

Yet that isn’t part of the story as told here, as this compilation seeks to trade on the slightly stereotypical public perception of these cheeky chappies, East London’s answer to Lennon & McCartney, and their best-known moments.. Indeed, as Tilbrook wryly comments in the excellent sleeve notes, during the mid-90s Squeeze were promoted as the godfathers of Britpop, “in a desperate piece of marketing.” By that time, they had been reunited with A&M for 1993’s acclaimed Some Fantastic Place and 1995’s Ridiculous, and rejigged their line-up once more to effectively create Squeeze Mk.III, though the personnel shared similarities with both Mks. I and II.

The nature of the UK chart had altered by the 90s to such an extent that Squeeze’s remaining fanbase was still substantial enough to help the first singles off each album into the lower reaches of the Top 40 for a week or so. Third Rail, This Summer and Heaven Knows all benefitted, but their fate would have been quite different a decade or two earlier.

After that, Squeeze faded rather than imploded, 1998’s Domino barely registering with the public conciousness beyond their core following. Glenn Tilbrook released a solo album in 2001 to encouraging reviews, while Chris Difford’s will follow this autumn, but as far as the band is concerned, it’s thank you and goodnight.