Squeeze

New wave critical shorthand claimed that Squeeze's songwriting team of Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford were the era's answer to Lennon and McCartney. In retrospect, however, Squeeze was more like the musical equivalent to Britain's Angry Young Men, the playwrights and novelists who made poetry out of the deprivations of post-war working class life. Tilbrook's choirboy voice and knack for sweet melodies often masked the sadness (and, almost always, alcoholism) at the root of Difford's often ironic and blackly funny lyrics. A rough-edged debut album produced by John Cale -- who insisted the band throw out all their prepared songs and write new ones on the spot -- was quickly followed by a string of near-masterpieces from 1979's Cool For Cats to 1982's Sweets From A Stranger, after which Difford and Tilbrook announced they were breaking up the band. A halfhearted 1984 duo album by the pair was followed by Squeeze's first reunion, which resulted in the atrocious Cosi Fan Tutti-Frutti, possibly the most obscenely overproduced album of that often obscene and overproduced decade. Paring back the excess on 1987's Babylon and On gave Squeeze their biggest US hit, "Hourglass," but although the ensuing albums ranged from not-bad to actually pretty good, Squeeze never regained the mastery of that initial 1979-1982 run. A falling out between the core duo resulted in another split in 1999, though the old sparring partners reformed a touring edition of the band in 2007.