The Up Escalator
	Produced by Jimmy Iovine
	Released on April 1980
	UK CHART POSITION #11 . . . US CHART POSITION #40
	Find it at GEMM
AL 9517 cover [high resolution photo]

T ogether with his last record, The Up Escalator is top-shelf Graham Parker, including such highwater marks as “No Holding Back,” “Endless Night” and “The Beating of Another Heart.” However, however, however... producer Jimmy Iovine presents Parker as an overcaffeinated Tom Petty on Escalator, with arrangements that are more desperate and dire than they need to be. Nothing on here is as liberating and silly as “Local Girls,” and you get the sense that Jack Nitzsche would have let the band have more fun with a “Stupefaction” or “Devil’s Sidewalk.” As with Squeezing Out Sparks, the sheer quality of the songs bespeaks the album best, and aligns it with the contemporary work of Joe Jackson and EC even as Arista sought to move Parker toward the center of the dial. One troubling aspect here is the quickly vanishing Rumour: Bob Andrews is gone (replaced by Nicky Hopkins) and the Rumour only gets credit on the back cover, not the spine or label. (If you don’t think people trouble themselves with little billing gaffes like that, you don’t know people very well.) It’s hard to listen to Escalator without hearing Parker being groomed for great things, notably in the pairing with icon Bruce Springsteen on “Endless Night.” True, he’s a great songwriter, but was the world really going to warm up to someone as prickly as Parker? As it turned out, no, the world was as wet as they would get for Graham, and the solo makeover simply let him loiter on the fence a little longer. The Up Escalator is best appreciated by those who’d already picked Parker from the pack, and these songs will re-affirm their allegiance. It ranks right up there with the best stuff that Graham Parker (and the parenthetical Rumour) have committed to vinyl.

AL 9517 back cover	AL 9517 picture sleeve

TRACK LISTING

1. NO HOLDING BACK    3:18
2. DEVIL'S SIDEWALK    3:14
3. STUPEFACTION    3:30
4. EMPTY LIVES    5:06
5. THE BEATING OF ANOTHER HEART    4:20
6. ENDLESS NIGHT    3:35
7. PARALYZED    3:12
8. MANEUVERS    3:28
9. JOLIE JOLIE    2:59
10. LOVE WITHOUT GREED    3:24
    
    CD bonus track
    
11. WOMEN IN CHARGE
    
    CD reissue bonus, bonus track
    
12. HEY LORD DON'T ASK ME QUESTIONS (LIVE)
    
    All songs written by Graham Parker

CREDITS

GRAHAM PARKER -- vocals, rhythm & acoustic guitars
MARTIN BELMONT -- rhythm & acoustic guitars
ANDREW BODNAR -- bass
STEPHEN GOULDING -- drums & backing vocals
BRINSLEY SCHWARZ -- lead guitars & backing vocals
Danny Federici -- organ
Nicky Hopkins -- acoustic piano
Jimmy Maelen -- percussion
Bruce Springsteen -- backing vocals (6)
Peter Wood -- synthesizer
Shelly Yakus -- engineer
Dave Thoener, Jon Mathias -- additional engineering
Jack Drumond -- cover painting
Glenn M. Brown -- photography
Richard Giglio -- lettering

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