Graham Parker & the Rumour "Squeezing Out Sparks" [1979]

Much the way Bob Dylan got booed for going electric at the Newport Folk Festival in '65, so too do I boo the grafting of Dylanesque wordiness and multi-verse hell into the still-nebulous era of new wave that is Graham Parker's "Squeezing Out Sparks." If new wave overall was a silly pajama party of diverse pop weirdness, then Parker was the guy taking a shit in the punch bowl. Grouchy, angry prole-rock with a bar band that makes Huey Lewis' News sound edgy, about the only thing this album has in common with other groups of the era is the flat, cookie-cutter production -- clearly this was a defection from the grandiose Jimmy Page multi-layering abominations, but when the end result is sterile as "Squeezing Out Sparks," you're better off listening to a live demo tape from some other nondescript London band. And if all this wasn't bad enough, Parker's ascerbic rants on things like abortion and the sex act in general uniquely separate him from even other English prick dorks; he makes Elvis Costello seem erudite, Joe Jackson reasonable. Finally, whichever genius decided uber-pedestrian Brinsley Schwartz was a good enough guitar player to deserve so many goddamn solos needs to have been flushed out of the music industry immediately. The only thing he lends this album is a suitable reason for Parker to be so pissed off all the time.