Ignored             Obscured              Restored

In 1980, Any Trouble — a Manchester pub-rock quartet fronted by Clive Gregson — released their debut album, Where Are All the Nice Girls? on the iconoclastic Stiff Records.  At the time, it failed to chart.  Yet, like a vinyl buried in a dusty crate, it has since emerged as a power-pop classic.

One spin of the opening track, the standout “Second Choice,” makes it clear why.

On first listen, it’s hard not to hear echoes of Elvis Costello — the vocal inflection, the nervous energy, the incisive regret.  Critics at the time weren’t shy about the comparison, and Gregson’s bespectacled appearance only reinforced it.  The comparison is undeniable, but it hardly counts as a slight; after all, Costello was at the height of his powers during that era.

The production of the album, handled by John Wood (best known for his work with Nick Drake and Richard Thompson), gives the record a clarity and timelessness.  According to Gregson, Wood helped shape the arrangements without chasing trends — recording the LP in roughly three weeks, they captured a rawness and freshness that still carries decades later.

One of the more unexpected inclusions on the album is a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Growing Up”, perhaps a nod to their origins as a covers band.

Gregson himself went on to provide backing vocals on Richard and Linda Thompson’s exceptional Shoot Out the Lights, which led to further collaborations with Richard Thompson on Across the Crowded Room.

Listening to Where Are All the Nice Girls? today, you feel both the earnestness of a band learning its wings and the weight of unfulfilled promise.  Gregson may have sung about being “second choice,” but in the long arc of pop history, this album feels anything but.

Enjoy… until next week.