If you're stumbling into the whole punk/new wave/power pop/new, improved power pop (why doesn't everybody wise up and forget about labels and just listen to music for a change?) scene late (and with nine zillion homemade and/or imported records popping up every day, I'd better be at the record store bright and early tomorrow morning or, my heavens, I'll be out of touch) and you've never heard of Nick Lowe before, then I suggest you keep away from Pure Pop For Now People. Once you hear it, you'll be hooked and you'll want to hear more; and though this album is Lowe's first as a bona fide solo artist, he's been around since '69, so even after you manage to track down all the Brinsley Schwartz albums (where he can be found singing and playing bass), and possibly even dig up his Stiff singles under his own name, there's plenty of stuff under assumed' names or as part of little rock and roll kamikazee outfits like the Takeaways or the Disco Brothers and as you keep finding all of these little known outside the U.K. gems you might go completely batty and set out for Sapporo in search of the Tartan Horde's classic "Bay City Rollers We Love You" (that one was Lowe, Dave Edmunds and Rat Scabies) and then you'll lose your job at the factory—maybe, just maybe, Nick'll score some hits over here (I can dream, can't I?), prompting CBS, that corporate bastion of infinite wisdom, to gather all the stuff up and release it in say, 1988, when all of this is real past history (by that time, maybe the Clash's first album will finally be available), so let's just sit tight and enjoy this record and leave the fact finding to the Anglophilial infomaniacs of the world. (Hold on for a few seconds; I still can't believe I worked my way out of that last sentence.
...let alone paragraph.) Anyway, that Bay City Rollers tongue in cheek homage isn't on this album, but the followup is and that's as good a place as any to start explaining why listening to Nick Lowe does wonderful things to my heart and soul. "Rollers Show" is such an infectious, born for AM ears tune that I was singing along before I even knew, what the song was about and along about the sixth time around on the chorus, it finally dawned on me that what I was singing was "Gonna see the Rollers /Got a ticket for the Bay City Rollers," which is exactly the point. Lowe knows so much about pop music that he can turn his parodies into the real thing, his wit and perceptiveness intertwined with a love of musical form as form. So that "Rollers Show," with all its hilarious lines ("As long as he's a Roller then we'll love him" particularly tickles me, capturing both the ludicrousness and ecstasy of blind fandom that is such a huge part of it all anyway), is the best Bay City Rollers song ever written.
The album is filled to the brim with transcendant moments like that. "Heart Of The City" is a no-holds barred rocker about the fantasy of a rock and roll lifestyle; "Tonight" is all wonderfully icky and gooey in its images of on-the-run teen romance; and ("I Love The Sound Of) Breaking Glass" brings you to the disco doorstep all loose limbed while Lowe chortles away about the relaxing effects of the threat of goro-ramic violence. And even when Lowe seems to be pressing things a bit, he still manages to emerge victorious. Taking the story of Marie Provost, a faded movie star who winds up being eaten by her dachshund and attempting to make it bright and snappy is, to say the least, a bit risky. And how he pulls off that chorus, complete with use of the work "doggie," Ill never know, but those background vocals and that sturdy rhythm guitar just take me right off the floor.
I have to admit that side two of this album is considerably weaker than side one, but its opener, "They Called It Rock," a chronicle of rising and washed out rock dreams, just may be the best single track here. Besides, Lowe is into singles anyway, and until he reaches into his bag of tricks for his next send-up/tribute, this'll do just fine. And remember our motto: 180 seconds or bust!
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