Review- Magazine Unknown 

Writer uncredited.

Loverboy: Lovin' Every Minute Of It (CBS)

Squeeze: Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti (A&M)

Here's a telling study in music biz realities. You're going to hear a lot of Lovin' Every Minute Of It, the album that will likely make Vancouver's Loverboy the missing link the chart-smashing Canadian trinity with Bryan Adams and Corey Hart. Calculated to do just that, it's grossly commercial, paint-by-numbers rock, a numbing diversion for people who require some loud, familiar noise on their car stereos. The record is a career move, and it should work just fine. The songs are catchy and tailor-made for American radio, the sound of five hard-working musicians just trying to make an honest buck. The artistic merit of Lovin' Every Minute Of It will be quite beside the point, of course, when it is sitting comfortably in the top-10. 

You won't hear much of Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti, the triumphant return of the reformed Squeeze; it fits radio playlists about as well as The Fat Boys in size 28 jeans. This is classy, intelligent pop with more artfully crafted twists and turns, dips and dizzying spins than a dozen Loverboy albums. Such aural wonders as "No Place Like Home" are simply brilliant explorations of everyday reality - not the highs and lows of life, but the grey, matter-of-fact normalcy. Carrying on in the tradition of such 20th century songsmiths as Gershwin, Porter, Lennon & McCartney and Elvis Costello, Squeeze writers Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook deserve a bigger audience than Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti will get. Once again, commerce triumphs over art. 

An old blues lyric says, "You don't miss your water till your well runs dry." A dry well was pretty much what the English pop band Squeeze had become by the time it broke up in 1982, disillusioned and with only one hit single to show for years of rave reviews and cult adoration. But wandering in the desert of independence seems to have given Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford, the group's talented singing and songwriting team, and Jool's Holland, the keyboard cutup who stalked out in 1980, a renewed appreciation for the unique sound that was Squeeze. Joined on the reunion album by Gilson Lavis, the group's original drummer, and Keith Wilkinson, a bassist working with Squeeze for the first time, they sound reenergized and glad to be back. Difford and Tilbrook weave some of the most ornate and intriquingly oblique melodies this side of Elvis Costello. They are in top form, especially in I Learnt How to Pray, a soul strut about crossing the boundary between friendship and romance; and Last Time Forever, a smoldering exorcism of regrets that scales the same emotional peaks that sent Tempted to the top of the charts in 1981. Difford and Tilbrook's verbal cuteness remains undiminished as the LP title demonstrates. And their lyrics, as on earlier Squeeze LPs, never quite deliver the story with coherent meaning that their semi-narrative style at first promises. The primary pleasures of Squeeze lie in those slippery melodies, the convincingly bluesy, soulful and honky-tonk rhythms and the instrumental detailing, which, thanks in part to Holland's return, has never been better. The album is not as immediately accessible as the group's classics, Argybargy and East Side Story, but it unfolds and expands with repeated listenings. Maybe you can go home again. (A&M)

Contributed by David Henderson

Squeeze: "Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti" (A&M Records).

Four of the five original members of Squeeze have reunited after a three-year hiatus to produce Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti - from Mozart to Little Richard, get it? Fans of the band (which will appear with the Hooters and the Truth at the Fox Theatre Saturday, Sept. 14) are certain to be pleased, although there's no one really outstanding song on the album. What Squeeze does is steadily roll along with a high level of musicianship and Glenn Tilbrook-Chris Difford lyrics that are adequate, but not worthy of comparisons sometimes made with Lennon and McCartney and Gilbert & Sullivan.
The vocals by rhythm guitarist Difford and guitarist Tilbrook and the band harmonies are interesting; and Jools Holland's keyboard work adds a lot, particularly on "Last Time Forever", the last song on the first side, and virtually all five songs on the second side. Even so, there's the impression Difford, Tilbrook, Holland, drummer Gilson Lavis, and bassist Ken (sic) Wilkinson are holding back, or at least making an effort to make it a band sound rather than a Difford-Tilbrook duo with backing musicians. It was an inability to reach such a balance that led to the band's breakup, but, as Holland says, "Each of us on our own aren't nearly as good as we are together." What they add up to on Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti is a crafted pop album that won't offend but isn't likely to overexcite, either. Some of the songs - "King George Street" and "No Place Like Home" - deal interestingly and sometimes humorously with life and love, while others deal with current subjects. "Hits of the Year" is concerned with airplane hijackings and "Heartbreaking World" concerns itself with death by starvation and death by trampling at a soccer match.

Contributed by David Henderson

SQUEEZE
Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti
Producer(s): Laurie Latham
A&M SP-5085
Genre: POP
PICK

Reunion of the band's four founding members and new bassist Kevin Wilkyson (sic) yields a ripe, witty set of modern pop/rock with often dark themes, dressed in their most ambitious production yet. Writers Chris Difford and Glen (sic) Tilbrook are up to snuff, with infectious vignettes covering murder ("Lack(sic) Time Forever"), domestic crisis ("King George Street") and even hijacking ("Hits Of The World(sic)").

Contributed by David Henderson