Nick Lowe - Party of One Demos (1988)

I really need to post more Nick Lowe albums. I have a bunch ready to go, but I'm so swamped I never get around to them. However, this is something I only discovered a few days ago (as I write this in May 2026), so it went to the top of my pile of stuff to post.

In 1990, Lowe released the album "Party of One." It was a good album - in my opinion, all of Lowe's albums are at least good - but it didn't sell that well. Somehow, an album's worth of demos from that album has been leaked to the public, with excellent sound quality. It contains all the songs from that album, plus seven more (tracks 6, 9, 11, 13, 14, 16, and 18). Two of those extras ended up as bonus tracks for the album (tracks 9 and 14). Another two (tracks 11 and 18) wound up on a 1992 album by a band he briefly joined, "Little Village." Another one, the great "I Live on a Battlefield," appeared on his next studio album in 1994, "The Impossible Bird." That leaves "I've Got Work to Do" and "Love's Been Gone Too Long" still unreleased.

On the "Party of One" album, all the songs were performed with a full band. Whereas this is just Lowe on vocals and guitar, though the songs are fairly fleshed out. He often added bass and backing vocals as well. Personally, I like this stripped down version better than the album version.

Everything here is unreleased except for two songs: "Rocky Road" and "Don't Think about Her When You're Trying to Drive." These exact versions of those have shown up on a "Party of One" EP.

This album is 58 minutes long. 

01 You Got the Look I Like (Nick Lowe)
02 Shting-Shtang (Nick Lowe)
03 I Don't Know Why You Keep Me On (Nick Lowe)
04 [I Want to Build A] Jumbo Ark (Nick Lowe)
05 What's Shakin' on the Hill (Nick Lowe)
06 Love's Been Gone Too Long (Nick Lowe)
07 All Men Are Liars (Nick Lowe)
08 Refrigerator White (Nick Lowe)
09 You Stabbed Me in the Front (Nick Lowe)
10 Honey Gun (Nick Lowe)
11 Fool Who Knows (Nick Lowe)
12 Who Was That Man (Nick Lowe)
13 Rocket Coast (Nick Lowe)
14 I've Got Work to Do (Nick Lowe)
15 Gai-Gin Man (Nick Lowe)
16 I Live on a Battlefield (Nick Lowe)
17 Rocky Road (Nick Lowe)
18 Don't Think about Her When You're Trying to Drive (Nick Lowe) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/qgCNMcrb

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/nNPgZSSrFS9rhf2/file

The cover image is supposed to have been taken in London in 1989. The original was in black and white. But, as I usually do, I used the Kolorize program to colorize it. For his hair, I checked with color images from around this time, and he'd already gone totally grey/white.