Squeeze: Five Essential Albums

Time doesn't just fly — it careens ahead at alarming velocity— but it's still astonishing that Squeeze is currently on a 50th anniversary tour this autumn. Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook began their witty juggernaut of pop gems back in 1973 as teenagers in Deptford, becoming one of the foremost bands to lead the second British invasion of the late '70s and '80s.

Squeeze is crisscrossing North America and the UK, with Boy George joining dates that include Central Park SummerStage on Tuesday, September 17.

Difford and Tilbrook are forever cool cats and aren't resting on their many laurels, including their genius triptych of 1979's Cool for Cats, 1980's Argybargy, and 1981's East Side Story. Squeeze has two projects in the pipeline. One has a retrospective slant, Trixie's, which is comprised of so-called "lost" recordings from five decades ago, which the band says they are "revising and recording" with their producer and bass player, Owen Biddle. Concurrently, new songs are bubbling up for Difford and Tilbrook, so an album of new songs — their first since 2017's The Knowledge — is also on the horizon for 2025 (hopefully). One of those new songs, "One Beautiful Summer," is already appearing in their sets.

Ahead of their end-of-summer gig in Central Park, Difford wrote about his "Five Essential Albums" for FUV, some of which loomed large in the musician's teenage years and laid early foundations for Squeeze's adroit, smart songwriting.

Squeeze's Chris Difford: Five Essential Albums

The Who, Live at Leeds
I played this album during my exams at school, all of which I failed as I was concentrating on how great it would be to be in a band and play like The Who. I then managed to witness The Who live around 1972 at the Football Ground near where I lived and grew up, it was Charlton Football Ground, and I think at one point it was the loudest gig EVER in Guinness Book of Records

The Beatles, The Beatles (white album)
A record the whole band had parts to play, with a sort of best-of solo, I liked that it made for a varied listen. Inspired for a band pulling in so many different directions at the time. George, for the first time, had more than a couple of songs on the album. I think it was an album that was quite fractious with Paul and John writing completely separately; it was like a solo album for each of the three main songwriters,

Small Faces, Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake
The first album I ever stole from a shop; a story within recordings which I try to trace with my own solo work; a band of amazing talents sadly all now gone, nut gone. I always get upset to think on the day that Live Aid was happening in Philadelphia and Wembley in 1985, Steve [Marriott] was playing to 150 people in a pub in Hammersmith, Great vocalist, great underrated guitarist, inspired so many others including [Paul] Weller.

Willie Nelson, That's Life
And that is life, a life on the tour bus, a life of many great albums and songs. I don't want to be like Willie in my life but I admire his voice his songs and his journey.

David Bowie, David Bowie (aka Space Oddity)
Released around 1969 in the UK I think? Still a few years prior to Glenn and I hooking up. Hugely influential album, hugely influential artist, I was hooked on these songs and played the album to all of my mates. They were into prog, I was into songs with deeper meanings. This was still a couple of years before his groundbreaking "Top of the Pops" appearance, a massive TV show in UK. His band were from Hull, a northern working class area of England: strapping Northern boys, hard as nails, and within weeks he’d talked them into wearing six-inch heels and doing their own makeup.  Backstage they’d be discussing blusher and lipstick rather than Strats and Marshall amps.

- Chris Difford
September 2024