The craftsmanship is scrupulous as ever. Q magazine’s Phil Sutcliffe called it right when he praised the “choice of detail, choice of words, the melody and sound that exactly catch the mood”.

Other songs go the character-sketch route. The women Difford writes about come to life in all their dignity and sorrow: the harried housewife underestimated by her family and frustrated by her routine in “Woman’s World”; the would-be social climber whose best efforts constantly come up heartbreakingly short in “Vanity Fair”; the British GI bride left widowed by her drunken American husband and subsequently without a true home in “Labelled With Love.” These are short stories in song, the details of the lyrics and the twists in the melodies delivering the emotional punches without any of the manipulation commonly found in the pop music of the time. History hasn’t been kind to the production, while the reach of Squeeze’s ambition exceeds its grasp, but Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti is still an important entry in the band’s canon, presaging a more sophisticated direction. BABYLON AND ON, 1987 Squeeze albums – Babylon And On It’s certainly a paradigm of kitchen sink pop, evolving the template set by Squeeze and Cool For Cats and burnished this time out by sonic nous. Thomson, Graeme (2006). Complicated Shadows: The Life and Music of Elvis Costello. Canongate U.S. ISBN 978-1841957968. Consequently, it makes for a satisfying album, “stuffed with melodic treats and lyrical wit, for consumption by an audience significantly smaller than they deserve”, according to Vox.There’s a laddish poetry in Difford’s lyrics that would issue a clarion call to future generations of proletarian Brit-poppers, the unromantic knee-tremblers and dodgy geezers recurring motifs in an acutely observed tableau of contemporary culture. I wouldn't have believed my least favorite decade for pop music of the 20th century, the 1980s, would have produced an album like this. It's catchy from start to finish, long (14 songs!), varied, and entirely authored by the same two co-writers. Though it's not a dead ringer for any of these, it reminds me of the The Beatles' mid-to-late-'60s albums as well as The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society and Odessey and Oracle, in terms of impeccable English pop songcraft.

Vanity Fair” mines lyrical territory that’s all over East Side Story: beleaguered women trying to cope in impossible situations and a sexist world. Working her fingers to the bone, the song’s unappreciated protagonist ends the day in true Squeeze fashion—by getting blind drunk. “She comes home late with another screw loose”, Tilbrook sings under a groaning orchestra, “She swears to have had just a pineapple juice / Falls asleep fully clothed in her bed / With her makeup remover by her head”. He would stay for more than a decade, becoming Squeeze’s longest-serving custodian on the instrument. Christgau, Robert (29 June 1981). "Christgau's Consumer Guide". The Village Voice . Retrieved 16 June 2016. It’s hard to tell how differently East Side Story would’ve turned out if Riviera’s wish had come true (a sort of power-pop take on The Clash‘s London Calling comes to mind), but it’s not unfathomable that it may have turned into an inconsistent mess. Whatever the case, Costello and Roger Bechirian ended up producing the bulk of the album—now a single CD—with Edmunds producing one song, “In Quintessence”. The results were phenomenal and yielded one of the most expertly-crafted (and perhaps unjustly underrated) albums of the ‘80s. There is an element of ‘Taxman’ by The Beatles to this, but Chris’s vocal carries it completely. He sounds totally at ease with himself.Is That Love is the eighth song on East Side Story, and is one of Squeeze’s best known titles. It charted 35 on the UK Singles Chart and Ireland at number 15. It placed, in Israel of all places, number one, and remains Squeeze’s only number one hit single anywhere. After a fifth album was released in 1982, Squeeze took a break for a while before reforming later in the decade. Although they continued to record interesting music, the band would not again reach the heights of East Side Story. Unfortunately, Cale’s perception of Squeeze differed from that of the band themselves. “He had us doing some awfully strange things,” said Chris Difford.

PC it isn’t, but then good writing, whatever the medium, is about reflection, not correction. ARGYBARGY, 1980 Squeeze albums – Argybargy Chris Difford was inspired to write the song after he saw his then-wife Cindy’s wedding ring by the soap in the shower.

Companies, etc.

I can't help but blame Squeeze's craft and stylistic commitment to explain why I was fooled. (It couldn't have been my fault!) The older I get the more I'm receptive to bands that are able to update old styles for the present. (Something I used to really dislike, unless it was a style I really liked.) Squeeze's brand of power pop is distinctly traditional but also has enough modern touches to confuse people into calling it "new wave." America loved Hourglass, with its tongue-twisting chorus, though Difford suspected this success had much to do with the promotional video. “It’s been played a lot, and everyone you speak to compliments you on it,” he said at the time.