release date: Apr. 9, 1979
format: cd (1997 remaster)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,70]
producer: John Wood & Squeeze
label: A&M Records - nationality: England, UK
Track highlights: 1. "Slap and Tickle" - 3. "Touching Me Touching You" - 4. "It's Not Cricket" - 5. "It's so Dirty" - 7. "Hop Skip and Jump" - 8. "Up the Junction" (official video) - 10. "Slightly Drunk" - 11. "Goodbye Girl" - 12. "Cool for Cats" (official video) (Top Of The Pops)
2nd studio album by new wave quintet Squeeze - consisting of the two founders and the band's main songwriters: lead vocalist, lead guitarist, and keyboardist Glenn Tilbrook and (other) lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Chris Difford. Here, they have teamed up with bassist Harri Kakoulli, keyboardist (and lead vocalist on track #7) Jools Holland, and with drummer Gilson Lavis they constitute Squeeze.
The album peaked at number #45 in the UK (number #18 in Australia). The song "Goodbye Girl" was chosen as first single and peaked at number #63 (the track was released in a special single edition and a third edition is available on the American version of the album). The second single was the title track, which became one of the band's highest-charting singles reaching number #2 on the UK singles chart. "Up the Juction" was third single, and it also made it all the way to number #2, and the fourth and final single from this album, "Slap and Tickle" reached number #24.
I've always liked Squeeze and Cool for Cats is one of the band's best-known albums with several great songs, but I'm not entirely enthused. There are moves to lots of energetic songs incorporating funk, traditional English beat, and power pop, but it seems the band doesn't quite know whether to pull completely towards the inspiration of the Beatles, Kinks, and The Who, or to follow the contemporary currents alongside Elvis Costello, Madness, and The Jam. Should they be modern and dirty, or should they be more traditional? They seem stuck in a schism that isn't fully resolved. And with the experience concerning the debut Squeeze (1978) in fresh memory with a producer (John Cale) who most probably found a platform for his own ideas, so the indecisions are actually common sense! And Cool for Cats is definitely a much better, more contemporary, and more defining of the band's style and also a much more coherent album than the near famous debut. One thing that already shows the band's strength here are the strong compositions. With the band's 'only' second album, Difford / Tilbrook have already established themselves as a contemporary Lennon / McCartney songwriter duo with evident gifts as songwriters, a position they only strengthen on the following albums.
Cool for Cats is imho, part of the band's top-3 albums, and it lands in third place.
[ allmusic.com, Smash Hits, Uncut 4,5 / 5, Rolling Stone Album Guide 3,5 / 5 stars ]
