🎵 AotW Squeeze - EAST SIDE STORY (SP-4854)

[LPJim]

Squeeze
East Side Story
A&M SP-4854

Chris Difford & Glenn Tilbrook - guitar & vocals
Gilson Laws - drums
John Bentley - bass & backing vocals
Paul Carrack - keyboards & vocals

SIDE ONE

In Quintessence 2:57
Someone Else's Heart 3:03
Tempted 4:04
Piccadilly 3:29
There's No Tomorrow 3:31
Heaven 3:51
Woman's World 3:44

SIDE TWO

Is That Love 2:34
F-Hole 4:52
Labelled With Love 4:44
Someone Else's Bell 3:11
Mumbo Jumbo 3:13
Vanity Fair 2:45
Messed Around 2:43

All selections written by Difford & Tilbrook and published by Illegal Songs Inc. (BMI)
Produced by Roger Bechirian and Elvis Costello except "In Quintessence," produced by Dave Edmunds assisted by Neil King

Del Newman - orchestral arrangements
Bob Bromide - photography

Entered the Billboard Top 200 on May 30, 1981, charted for 25 weeks and peaked at #44
Reissued as SP/CD 3253


JB

 

[Rudy]

"Tempted" is likely their best-known pop song. One of their best (and most acclaimed) albums also.

 

[Mr Bill]

Odd how "Tempted" is their biggest hit and does NOT feature Difford & Tilbrook as the lead vocalists. Paul Carrack (who replaced Jools Holland on keyboards) does the lead vocals. He was previously with the band Ace and had a 1982 solo hit with "I Need You" after leaving Squeeze less than a year after being recruited by Difford & Tilbrook. (He was replaced with Don Snow of The Sinceros (and a later day Procol Harum)).

 

[Rudy]

Carrack was also well known as the lead vocalist on many of the Mike + The Mechanics recordings.

 

[A&Mguyfromwayback]

In the US, I think they suffered from way too much of the "Difford & Tilbrook are the next Lennon & McCartney" type of PR....things like that set up unrealistic expectations for success and don't allow you to hear the music on its own terms for what it is.....

 

[A&Mguyfromwayback]

Re: Paul Carrack - I remember two other songs (at least I think they were under his name, not with other bands) - "Don't Shed A Tear" and "I Live By The Groove"......

 

[Rudy]

Re: Paul Carrack - I remember two other songs (at least I think they were under his name, not with other bands) - "Don't Shed A Tear" and "I Live By The Groove"......

He did have some solo hits, but not sure if they were before, during and/or after his work with Rutherford.

Agreed on the Lennon-McCartney view. I remember that comparison also, especially in the rock press.

 

[jfiedler17]

I can answer this one for you guys!
Carrack has had one heck of an amazing career. Obviously, he got his original break via Ace (he's the one who sings lead on their only American Top 40 hit, "How Long") in the mid-'70s, and then, in the late '70s, did a two-year stint in Roxy Music (he's featured on both Manifesto and Flesh + Blood), splitting keyboard duties with Bryan Ferry. He put out his first solo album around 1980, Nightbird, but it didn't do anything and shortly after was when Glenn and Chris recruited him into Squeeze. Around the same time, he simultaneously started doing a stint as keyboardist for Nick Lowe's band, helming the keyboards on every Nick Lowe album from '81 through '90 (and even sharing lead vocal duties with Lowe on one of Nick's singles during that time, "Wish You Were Here"). He put out his second solo album - Suburban Voodoo; the one with "I Need You" on it - in '82, just after leaving Squeeze.
Right around this time, he also did a blink-and-you-missed-it stint stint with the Pretenders, doing just one single with them ("Thin Line Between Love and Hate") while Hynde was still trying to re-configure the band's lineup after Honeyman-Scott's sudden death.
He joined Mike + the Mechanics as co-lead vocalist (alongside Paul Young, formerly of Sad Cafe), staying with them until 2004. (He sings lead on most of their biggest hits, including "The Living Years" and "Silent Running," also co-writing "Over My Shoulder," which stiffed in the US but became one of their biggest hits elsewhere around the world)
He resumed his solo career in 1987, "Don't Shed a Tear," "One Good Reason" (which he co-wrote with Difford), and "I Live By the Groove" all going on to be Top 40 hits for him from 1987-1989.
And in the '90s, he briefly re-joined Squeeze for one album (Some Fantastic Place, their one-off return to A&M) and also had another major hit as a songwriter, being one of three writers (Traffic's Jim Capaldi being another) behind the Eagles' "Love Will Keep Us Alive."
Not too shabby a resume, huh?

Cool piece of trivia: East Side Story was originally supposed to be a double album, with a different producer overseeing each side (Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds, Elvis Costello, and Paul McCartney). Not sure how much of that idea actually got committed to tape and was simply abandoned or left unreleased, but obviously Costello and Edmunds each show up on the finished product.
Wonderful album, though! "Tempted" and "Is This Love" became new-wave classics, of course, but there's plenty other gems on here, too ("Labelled with Love," "Messed Around," "Someone Else's Heart," etc.) Definitely one of their best full-lengths.