SQUEEZE – HOURGLASS (A&M RECORDS)
This single is one of the best examples of how a great pop song need not necessarily be suffocated by glossy production and studio slick. In many ways this track represents everything I stand against in music but such elements represent a non issue when the song serves to draw such a rarely invigorating emotional response from myself.
That is not to say the song is perfect as the first ten seconds sees an excessive and unnecessary bad Roxy Music-esqe saxophone intro but climbing past this held within there are exuberant hooks, subtle in celebration and immediately memorable in that way that can make a person feel energetic and young that all adds up to at times something nearing a perfect composition.
Squeeze were always an interesting outfit in the UK music scene. They would have arrived around the new wave but there is not necessarily much to suggest that their roots would have been in punk music even if there line-up might suggest otherwise. In some ways there are elements that remind of Madness which could signal a leaning and affinity to the lighter side of Stiff Records recording artists and having Jools Holland as a bit player amongst their ranks has given them a strange placing in the books of music history. This is one of their later efforts coming from the late eighties which suggests the high production levels that would appear to hinder the song rather than empower it as the lyrical content could even be that of an indie band such as Teenage Fanclub.
Here is proof positive that not everything in chart music was bad in the eighties (just the majority of it). These are the songs FM radio was invented for.
Thesaurus moment: spry.
Squeeze
A&M Records
This single is one of the best examples of how a great pop song need not necessarily be suffocated by glossy production and studio slick. In many ways this track represents everything I stand against in music but such elements represent a non issue when the song serves to draw such a rarely invigorating emotional response from myself.
That is not to say the song is perfect as the first ten seconds sees an excessive and unnecessary bad Roxy Music-esqe saxophone intro but climbing past this held within there are exuberant hooks, subtle in celebration and immediately memorable in that way that can make a person feel energetic and young that all adds up to at times something nearing a perfect composition.
Squeeze were always an interesting outfit in the UK music scene. They would have arrived around the new wave but there is not necessarily much to suggest that their roots would have been in punk music even if there line-up might suggest otherwise. In some ways there are elements that remind of Madness which could signal a leaning and affinity to the lighter side of Stiff Records recording artists and having Jools Holland as a bit player amongst their ranks has given them a strange placing in the books of music history. This is one of their later efforts coming from the late eighties which suggests the high production levels that would appear to hinder the song rather than empower it as the lyrical content could even be that of an indie band such as Teenage Fanclub.
Here is proof positive that not everything in chart music was bad in the eighties (just the majority of it). These are the songs FM radio was invented for.
Thesaurus moment: spry.
Squeeze
A&M Records
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