Track Listing
1. Music for Money
2. I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass
3. Little Hitler
4. Shake and Pop
5. Tonight
6. So It Goes
7. No Reason
8. 36 Inches High
9. Marie Provost
10. Nutted by Reality
11. Heart of the City
12. Shake That Rat
13. I Love My Label
14. They Called It Rock
15. Born a Woman
16. Endless Sleep
17. Halfway to Paradise
18. Rollers Show
19. Cruel to Be Kind - (Original Version)
20. Heart of the City
21. I Don't Want the Night to End
| Details | | Playing Time: | 62 min. | | Producer: | Gregg Geller (Reissue), Jake Riviera, Nick Lowe | | Distributor: | Redeye Music Distribution | | Recording Type: | Mixed | | Recording Mode: | Stereo | | SPAR Code: | n/a |
Album Notes
Contains 2 CD bonus tracks and a 16 page booklet.
Personnel: Nick Lowe (guitar, piano, background vocals); Dave Edmunds (vocals, guitar, acoustic guitar, background vocals); Billy Bremner (guitar, background vocals); Ian Gomm, John McFee, Larry Wallis, Martin Belmont, John Turnbull , Brinsley Schwarz (guitar); Steve Nieve (piano); Roger Bechirian (organ, tambourine, background vocals); Stan Shaw (organ); Sean Hopper (keyboards); Pete Thomas , Steve Goulding, Billy Rankin, Bobby Irwin (drums).
Audio Mixers: Dave Edmunds; Nick Lowe; Roger Bechirian; Vic Keary; Vic Maile; Barry Farmer.
Liner Note Author: Will Birch.
Recording information: Chalk Farm Studios, London, England; Eden Studios; Jackson Studios, Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, England; Pathway Studios, Stoke Newington; The Roundhouse, London, England.
Nick Lowe's first album threw down the gauntlet in grand form--a baker's dozen of "pure pop for now people" (which is, in fact, what a nervous Columbia Records retitled the album for its stateside release). Lowe was charting regularly in his English homeland, and though he didn't reach the same heights of chart success in America, several songs have become familiar late '70s/early '80s reference points, particularly "I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass" and "So It Goes." At the time of this album's release Lowe was also the house producer for Stiff Records (Britain's first independent record company) and Elvis Costello, producing his first handful of albums, as well as touring regularly with Rockpile. This is an auspicious debut, made good upon thereafter by a continuingly engaging career.
On the cover of his solo debut album Jesus of Cool, Nick Lowe is pictured in six rock & roll get-ups -- hippie, folkie, greasy rock & roller, new wave hipster -- giving the not-so-subtle implication that this guy can do anything. Nick proves that assumption correct on Jesus of Cool, a record so good it was named twice, as Lowe's American record label got the jitters with Jesus and renamed it Pure Pop for Now People, shuffling the track listing (but not swapping songs) in the process. As it happens, both titles are accurate, but while the U.K. title sounds cooler, capturing Lowe's cheerfully blasphemous rock & roll swagger, Pure Pop describes the sound of the album, functioning as a sincere description of the music while conveying the wicked, knowing humor that drives it. This is pop about pop, a record filled with songs that tweak or spin conventions, or are about the industry. Only a writer with a long, hard battle with the biz in his past could write "Music for Money" and much of Jesus of Cool does feel like a long-delayed reaction to the disastrous American debut of Brinsley Schwarz, where the band's grand plans at kick-starting their career came crumbling down and pushed them into the pubs. Once there, the Brinsleys spearheaded the back-to-basics pub rock movement in England and as the years rolled on the band got loose, as did Lowe's writing, which got catchier and funnier on the group's last two albums, Nervous on the Road and New Favourites of Brinsley Schwarz.
In retrospect, it's possible to hear him inch toward the powerful pop of Jesus of Cool on the Dave Edmunds-produced New Favourites, plus the handful of singles the group cut toward the end of their career -- it's not far cry from the Brinsleys' stomping cover of Tommy Roe's "Everybody" to the shake and pop of Jesus -- but even with this knowledge in hand, Jesus of Cool still sounds like an unexpected explosion as it bursts forth with blindingly bright colors and a cavalcade of giddy pure sound. Lowe is letting his id run wild: he's dispensed with any remnants of good taste -- well, apart from the gorgeous "Tonight," the only time the album dips into ballads -- and indulged in a second adolescence, bashing out three-chord rockers and cracking jokes with both his words and music. This reckless rock and pop works not just because the tracks crackle with excitement -- ...
Editorial Reviews
4 stars out of 5 -- Ever constant...was Lowe's innate sense of pop's rich heritage, from 50s teen balladry to Motownesque bubblegum and garage band shamble.
Record Collector
Lowe is a great storyteller, with a knack for joyuous pop hooks and a country & western sense of inescapable fate.
The Word
4 stars out of 5 -- Exhilarating, cutting-edge, retro, playful, cynical and picaresque, JESUS OF COOL filters the hopped-up energy of 1977 London through Lowe's quirky genius...
Paste
[S]tuffed to the gills with catchy garage rock, jangly pop and snarky disco...
Harp
4 stars out of 5 -- [H]eld together by Lowe's mischievous wit....A tour de force from a golden era of clever and imaginative pop.
Mojo
3 stars out of 5 -- JESUS OF COOL was Lowe at his unashamedly poppiest....[T]he perfect example of how to exhume the undeservedly forgotten.
Q
Lowe served up originals that showed facility in various classic genres...
No Depression
5 stars out of 5 -- Musically, he traversed territories -- clanging rock, lush ballads, spooky reggae, neurotic pop and black comedy.
Uncut
JESUS if full of mini masterpieces....This underappreciated achievement deserves to be treated like the classic it is. -- Grade: A
Entertainment Weekly
4 stars out of 5 -- Lowe's 1978 debut remains his finest moment, a mix of acid music-biz snark with songcraft...
Spin
4 stars out of 5 -- Lowe still makes great records of pop gleam and wise irony, but this is his Book of Genesis.
Rolling Stone
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