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Part of Rhino’s annual “Start Your Ear Off Right” promotion is a very welcome surprise: a remastered and expanded edition of one of the most underrated albums by British pop/rock band Squeeze. 1991’s Play will return for its 35th anniversary on January 23; available on double vinyl at participating independent retailers – its first release on the format in America – but it’ll also be released on CD, too, pairing the remastered 12-track album with four hard-to-find B-sides from the album’s singles, “Satisfied” and “Sunday Street.”

The release of Play found Squeeze at a crossroads. After a moderately successful reunion in the mid-’80s stalled with the under-promoted Frank in 1989, the band departed longtime label A&M Records, signing with Reprise for a new decade. The ever-changing line-up was once again different, though by subtraction instead of addition: singer/songwriter/guitarists and founders Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook were joined only by bassist Keith Wilkinson and drummer Gilson Lavis. (Keyboardist Jools Holland, whose big band work and burgeoning career as a TV presenter made him cheekily absent from the Play album art, split from the group once more, and no official member replaced him.)

Despite this potential setback, Play may be one of Squeeze’s greatest “late period” works. In the producer’s chair was Tony Berg, who’d just scored a sizable U.S. hit with the irresistible Michael Penn cut “No Myth.” (Berg has, recently, enjoyed a career renaissance for his collaboration with alternative singer/songwriter Phoebe Bridgers.) His studio wizardry meshed well with a collection of tunes that tackled various vagaries of love and loss, from breakups (the upbeat “Crying in My Sleep,” the downbeat “Letting Go”) to keeping it honest (“The Truth,” “House of Love”), slice-of-life scenes (“Sunday Street,” “Satisfied”) and even a relaxed celebration of coming back from a concert tour (“The Day I Get Home”). (The lyric sheet was included in the package as a sort of libretto, though the tunes weren’t meant to be conceptually linked.) Squeeze scored some coups in the studio, recruiting longtime Elvis Costello keyboardist Steve Nieve to take over duties on most tracks; other guest appearances included some accordion by Bruce Hornsby and a gang backing chorus on “The Day I Get Home” that included Michael Penn as well as actors Christopher Guest and Michael McKean (two-thirds of comedy rock band Spin̈al Tap!).

Though Play was only a moderate success in England, just missing the Top 40 of the British charts, the period is looked on warmly by both fans (thanks in part to absolute B-side gold like the mandolin-driven “Maidstone”) and even the band themselves, despite a challenging time behind-the-scenes where Difford entered rehab to address his relationship to alcohol. “When I look at the songs on Play and I look at the two people that wrote them,” Difford told MOJO in a recent interview, “I think it’s amazing that things were so brittle, but the songs were perfection.” Tilbrook concurred in the same interview: “The best songs on play and Some Fantastic Place [their 1993 follow-up] are amongst the best that we ever did.”

With Squeeze set to release a new album this spring (Trixies, drawn from songs Difford and Tilbrook wrote when their partnership was just starting out in the mid-’70s), the time is right to revisit the hidden gems in the band’s catalogue, of which Play certainly qualifies. It’ll be available on LP at participating indie retailers and on CD as a general release from January 23, which you can order below. (As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.)

Play (35th Anniversary Edition) (Reprise/Rhino, 2026) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

1. Satisfied
2. Crying in My Sleep
3. Letting Go
4. The Day I Get Home
5. The Truth
6. House of Love
7. Cupid’s Toy
8. Gone to the Dogs
9. Walk a Straight Line
10. Sunday Street
11. Wicked and Cruel
12. There is a Voice
13. Happiness is King
14. Laughing in My Sleep
15. Maidstone
16. Mood Swings

Tracks 1-12 released as Reprise 26644, 1991
Tracks 13-14 released on “Satisfied” U.K. CD single – Reprise W0071CD, 1991
Tracks 15-16 released on “Sunday Street” U.K. CD single – Reprise W0054CD, 1991