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This record is so fab it hurts. The title suggests as much, the sleeve confirms it and the songs put the whole issue beyond any reasonable (or irrational) doubt: Basher's fashioned himself a masterpiece of contemporary pop so thoroughly immersed in wit, style and imagination that it leaves stranded in its brilliant slipstream the efforts of virtually everyone else currently trying to clamber aboard the pure pop / power pop / nouveau pop stationwagon.
The Jesus Of Cool confirms with a casual flamboyance Jake Riviera's description of Nick Lowe as the last pop genius.
Certainly, I can think of no one so dedicated right now to the very idea of pop: no one so fully capable of exploiting with so much humour and affection the contradictions of such an energetic commitment to a style of music usually characterised by its flippancy and its transient impact on its audience.
Pop music, until very recently, has been widely regarded as inferior to the more pompous escapades of some of our most popular groups (you know, don't you, to whom I refer?). Basher's known all along, though, that three minutes of magic in the shape of a classic pop record can be an experience so thrilling — and so much fun — that it can rarely be erased from the old mental jukebox.
And so, over the last three years, since the demise of Brinsley Schwarz, he's been recording at his own pace an album of such songs, refusing always to conform to the grosser imperatives of the rockbiz: the result is as delightfully individual as one might have expected and in its overall excellence and consistently-inspired surprises it transcends all anticipated reactions.
I should say here that five of the eleven songs have been released already: "So It Goes" and "Heart Of The City" (the version here was recorded live with Rockpile at the Roundhouse) were issued as the first Stiff single, "Marie Provost" was included on the Bowi EP, and "I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass" was released last week as a 45 (there's an alternative version of that record's B side, "They Called It Rock" available here, re-recorded retitled "Shake And Pop").
I've no bitter complaints about the inclusion of these cuts. The original "So It Goes" single has long been deleted. Its presence will therefore be appreciated by all those unfortunate enough to have missed out on it last time around (it is a masterful creation with some marvellously cryptic lyrics and one of the loopiest guitar solos on record).
"Heart Of The City " is recommended for Rockpile's frenzied arrangement, the fury of which is underlined by Dave Edmunds' whiplash guitar solo and the wonderful wallop of Terry Williams' drumming.
"Marie Provost" is another great Lowe song, overlooked by the populace when released on Bowi. Inspired by a macabre anecdote from Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon, it's characterised by the most infectious refrain and a melody that clings like Supergrip to the memory.
The song deals with Marie's decline from movie stardom into squalor and eventual death from a drugs overdose in her apartment where her corpse is nibbled at by her pet dog. It's a scenario that Lowe exploits with tremendous verve: "The cops came in and they looked around / Throwing up everywhere over what they found / The handiwork of Marie's little dachshund — that hungry little dachshund!"
"Breaking Glass" has already won just acclaim, so it need not detain us here (let's just say it's simply wonderful). The aforementioned alternative to "They Call It Rock," called here "Shake And Pop," is a looser, more expansive version of the prototype, with some extrovert rock 'n' roll piano from Andrews and more emphatically projected lyrics, the cynicism of which are echoed in "Music For Money," the opening salvo on this album: both are vindictive comments on the music biz, with the former musically stark and centred around a violent headbanger riff across which cut weirdly distorted keyboards,
The same musical mood is apparent on the version of Jim Ford's "36 Inches High" which appears on side two (Lowe also performed this regularly on the Stiffs Greatest tour): the sense of menace evoked here is rather more laconic that sinister, though.
Similarly dynamic and aggressive is "No Reason" (a song originally written for the last, unreleased Brinsley Schwarz album), on which Lowe is joined by the Rumour, who contrive to recreate the atmosphere of "Watching The Detectives " (which Lowe arranged and which also featured the rhythm section of Bodnar and Goulding, who are excellently deployed here).
The three remaining cuts probably constitute the album's most outstanding moments. They are, in order of appearance, "Little Hitler" (the title originally of Elvis Costello's forthcoming album, and nicked by Basher when it was dropped), "Tonight" and "Nutted By Reality" (the song title of the decade?).
"Hitler" is a quite extraordinary affair and the most successful evocation of the surformance of the Beach Boys since John Cale's similarly grandiose "Mr Wilson." The song virtually explodes with widescreen harmonies (courtesy of the Dave Edmunds Male Voice Choir), over which in tones reminiscent of Billy J. Kramer, Basher, quite hilariously proclaims, "as the world turns at the edge of night, I'll find a Little Hitler of my own..."
Its spectacular sound is challenged only by "Tonight," a classically-structured vision of Brylcreemed angst and teenage romance, replete with Spanish guitars and breathless harmonies. "Tonight we're just a boy and girl," croons Basher as Edmunds' harmonies swoon on the breeze, "the only people in the world, tonight..." Aaaaahh.
"Nutted By Reality" — the song was inspired by a phrase made popular by Larry Wallis on the Stiff tour — is no less inspired. Lowe is joined here by the Blockheads, Ian Dury's band, who supply a perfectly-realised disco riff beneath a vaguely latin shuffle, over which Lowe (with the vocal purity of vintage McCartney) repeats a rumour about Castro being castrated during the Cuban revolution — believe me, please! — before the song swerves irresistibly into a fullblooded Europop melody that's going to be a big hit for someone this year on the Costa Brava.
A wonderful album. No self-respecting teenager should be without a copy.
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