Argybargy Redux? (UPDATED)

January 11, 2010 By Mike Duquette — No Comments

The always-excellent Matt Rowe at MusicTAP posts news, reviews and insightful commentary three times a week on his site, and today’s post got me pretty excited, because it says A&M is planning a reissue of Squeeze’s 1980 album, Argybargy. If you know Squeeze for their few stateside radio hits (“Tempted,” “Black Coffee in Bed,” “Pulling Mussels (from the Shell)”), this is probably the album to dive into. With singles such as “Pulling Mussels” and “Another Nail in My Heart” or concert favorites like “I Think I’m Go Go” (or one of my personal favorites, “Separate Beds”), this is one to get for the serious pop fan.

There’s just one problem: there’s no additional info past the title and the release date. This is a bit of a tricky situation because A&M reissued Argybargy (along with a few other Squeeze titles) in the UK in 2007. And they were something else: all of them had new liner notes and bonus cuts, but Argybargy took the cake, with nine bonus tracks added to the original album and a bonus disc consisting of a live show recorded by the BBC at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1980.

So the question that stands: is this release making its stateside debut, or should Squeeze fans get out their billfolds for another title? More as always when it comes through the pipeline.

UPDATE – 1/20/2009: MusicTAP’s latest post has this set pushed back from March 16 to April 7 and indeed listed as a double-disc set. My guess is it’ll be the same offering as the 2007 deluxe edition in the UK. Still, there’s little reason to get bothered, especially since a) it’s a worthwhile addition to any collection, and will be available without the import price tag, and b) this may indicate some more rumblings in the Squeeze catalogue. As previously mentioned, a slew of Squeeze reissues or vault titles surfaced in 2007 and 2008, and there’d be nothing wrong with more on the way.

Categories:

News

Formats:

Genres:

Tags:

Squeeze

Mike Duquette

Mike Duquette (Founder) was fascinated with catalog music ever since he was a teenager. A 2009 graduate of Seton Hall University with a B.A. in journalism, Mike paired his profession with his passion through The Second Disc, one of the first sites to focus on all reissue labels great and small. His passion for reissues turned into a career, having written at and worked for all three major catalogue music labels and contributing to Allmusic, Billboard, Discogs, City Pages and Ultimate Classic Rock. He's penned liner notes for Verve, Chess, Mondo and Soul Music Records.

Born and raised in New Jersey, Mike lives in Astoria, Queens with his wife, a cat named Ravioli, twin daughters and a large yet tasteful collection of music.