Setting Sons
Artist: The Jam
Community Score: 7.50

The Jam's Setting Sons was originally planned as a concept album about three childhood friends who, upon meeting after some time apart, discover the different directions in which they've grown apart. Only about half of the songs ended up following the concept due to a rushed recording schedule, but where they do, Paul Weller vividly depicts... Read More

Randalls New York
Artist: Elliott Randall
Stick to Me
Artist: Graham Parker & the Rumour

Graham Parker and the Rumour's third new studio album to be released in 18 months finds the bandleader running short of top-flight material; "Thunder And Rain" and "Watch The Moon Come Down" are up to his usual standards, but songs like "The Heat In Harlem" find him dangerously out of his depth. As a result, although fiercely played, this... Read More

Rough Mix
Artist: Pete Townshend
Community Score: 9.67

Rough Mix, Pete Townshend's 1977 collaboration with former Small Faces and Faces songwriter and bass player Ronnie Lane, combines the loose, rollicking folk-rock of Lane's former band, Slim Chance, with touches of country, folk, and New Orleans rock & roll, along with Townshend's own trademark style. Lane's tunes, especially the beautiful... Read More

Darkness on the Edge of Town
Artist: Bruce Springsteen
Community Score: 8.06
Squeezing out Sparks
Artist: Graham Parker
Community Score: 9.50

Generally regarded as Graham Parker's finest album, Squeezing out Sparks is a masterful fusion of pub rock classicism, new wave pop, and pure vitriol that makes even his most conventional singer/songwriter numbers bristle with energy. Not only does Parker deliver his best, most consistent set of songs, but he offers more succinct hooks than... Read More

Heat Treatment
Artist: Graham Parker & the Rumour
Community Score: 10.00

Essentially Howlin Wind -- Vol. 2, as Parker and the Rumour demonstrate that their initial burst of high-quality songs can extend to a second album, in the same year as their debut. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide Read More

Howlin' Wind
Artist: Graham Parker
Community Score: 10.00

For most intents and purposes, Graham Parker emerged fully formed on his debut album, Howlin' Wind. Sounding like the bastard offspring of Mick Jagger and Van Morrison, Parker sneers his way through a set of stunningly literate pub rockers. Instead of blindly sticking to the traditions of rock & roll, Parker invigorates them with cynicism and... Read More

Labour of Lust
Artist: Nick Lowe
Community Score: 6.50

Jesus of Cool was a jukebox, spinning out a series of perfectly crafted -- and decidedly quirky and subversive -- pop singles. In contrast, Nick Lowe's second album, Labour of Lust, is the work of a bar band, in this case Rockpile, playing the hell out of the same type of songs. Naturally, the result is a more coherent sound that may be a little... Read More

Pure Pop for Now People
Artist: Nick Lowe
Community Score: 7.00

For his first solo album, Pure Pop for Now People, Nick Lowe completely abandoned the rootsy underpinnings of his work with Brinsley Schwarz and refashioned himself as a pop craftsman or, as the original British title put it, the Jesus of Cool. Lowe tries anything and everything on the record, from the sweet pop of "Tonight" to the blinding rock... Read More

The Modern Lovers
Artist: The Modern Lovers
Community Score: 9.00

Compiled of demos the band recorded with John Cale in 1973, The Modern Lovers is one of the great proto-punk albums of all time, capturing an angst-ridden adolescent geekiness which is married to a stripped-down, minimalistic rock & roll derived from the art punk of the Velvet Underground. While the sound is in debt to the primal three-chord... Read More