Lowe has had a long and impressive career. I think he's been exceptionally consistently good, except in the 1980s, when his albums were patchy. But my favorite time period of his career has to be the late 1970s. Not only did he put out his two best albums, "Jesus of Cool" in 1978 (also known as "Pure Pop for Now People" in the US), and "Labour of Lust" in 1979, but he toured extensively with Rockpile. I have a whole series of albums I plan to post covering his work with Dave Edmunds and Rockpile.
This stray tracks album covers the exact time of his career peak, so of course it's pretty damn good too. All but three songs here are from 1976 and 1977, which is when his solo career was slowly getting started, but before "Jesus of Cool" came out. There's been a compilation released of roughly this time period called "The Wilderness Years," and a lot of songs here come from that.
After some false starts documented on the 1975 stray tracks album I posted already, including some strange Bay City Rollers tribute songs released under a pseudonym, his solo career got started for real with his great single "So It Goes" in mid-1976. "So It Goes" is a fantastic song, and I'd love to have it here, but he included that exact same single version on "Jesus of Cool," so I don't want to duplicate that. The B-side, "Heart of the City," is nearly as great. That also made it on "Jesus of Cool," but the version there is a live one. The B-side version to "So It Goes" is the studio version, so I was able to include that.
Three of the songs here are from an EP Lowe put out in 1977 called "Bowi." There's a funny story behind that name. In 1977, David Bowie put out his acclaimed "Low" album. Lowe jokingly pretended that Bowie had named the album after him, but had left out the last letter of his name. So he responded with the EP "Bowi," with the last letter of Bowie's name missing. He even parodied the "Low" album cover, for instance using the same font and text location. I enjoyed this joke so much that I've used "Bowi" as the name for this album as a whole.
Lowe was a very prolific songwriter in this time period, so much so that he gave away lots of good songs to other artists without even recording any known versions for himself. Dr. Feelgood even had a ton ten hit with a song he co-wrote, "Milk and Alcohol." So it's not surprising that most of the songs on this album are Lowe originals. I'm not totally sure, but I think the only songs here he didn't at least co-write are "Born a Woman," "Halfway to Paradise," and "Endless Sleep."
A few songs need a little more explanation. "They Called It Rock" shows up here. It's basically the exact same song as "Shake and Pop" on "Jesus of Cool." The only difference is that the chorus of one is the phrase "they called it rock" repeated several times, and the other has the chorus of "shake and pop" repeated several times. Lowe wrote the song and preferred "Shake and Pop." However, his Rockpile band mate Dave Edmunds preferred the "They Called It Rock" version, so Rockpile always played it live that way. I'm not sure why Lowe recorded "They Called It Rock" as a B-side.
"Heart" is a song that appeared on Rockpile's 1980 album "Seconds of Pleasure." It sounds a lot like Lowe singing it, but that version is actually sung by band member Billy Bremner. The version here is sung by Lowe. He also did it on his 1982 album "Nick the Knife," but this has a different reggae styled arrangement.
"I Knew the Bride (When She Used to Rock and Roll)" is one of my favorite Lowe songs. Although he wrote it, he gave it to Edmunds for his 1977 album "Get It." When Rockpile would play live, Edmunds would always sing it. But this version from an obscure 1978 album has Lowe doing most of the singing. (I'm not sure who he's singing with, since Edmunds isn't on that recording.) Lowe would release his own studio version on his 1985 album "The Rose of England," but that has a very different arrangement.
01 Heart of the City (Nick Lowe)
02 Let's Go to the Disco (Nick Lowe)
03 Everybody Dance (Nick Lowe)
04 Keep It Out of Sight (Nick Lowe)
05 Truth Drug (Nick Lowe)
06 Born a Woman (Nick Lowe)
07 Endless Sleep (Nick Lowe)
08 Shake that Rat [Instrumental] (Nick Lowe)
09 Halfway to Paradise (Nick Lowe)
10 I Don't Want the Night to End (Nick Lowe)
11 I Love My Label (Nick Lowe)
12 Heart [Reggae Version] (Nick Lowe)
13 I Got a Job (Nick Lowe)
14 They Called It Rock (Nick Lowe)
15 I Knew the Bride [When She Used to Rock and Roll] (Nick Lowe)
16 Basing Street (Nick Lowe)
https://www.upload.ee/files/15264508/NickL_1976-1979_Bwi_atse.zip.html
The cover is just the cover of the "Bowi" EP without any changes.
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