Squeezing Out Sparks
Graham Parker & The Rumour Later reissued as part of Squeezing Out Sparks + Live Sparks.
May 17, 1979.. Squeezing Out Sparks; Graham Parker.. to listen to; determined to get out of his U.S. contract with Mercury, Parker followed with a bad live LP.
Squeezing Out Sparks is a 1979 album by Graham Parker and the Rumour, their fourth official record. It was voted album of the year in the 1979 Village Voice Pazz & Jop Critics Poll and later ranked number 335 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Although the Rumour were not credited on the cover, their name was included on the album label.
This is both Graham Parker's best album and a high point of the late seventies. After three exceptional albums of pub-rock and northern R'n'B inflected rock that failed to detonate commercially, Parker took the Rumour and his new work to Arista Records and set out on what he knew was make or break. He'd already seen Elvis Costello make commercial inroads with some of the same concepts he'd been exploring back on Heat Treatment and Howlin' Wind...
