Chris Difford

Chris Difford will always be better known as the guy in Squeeze with the gruff voice. Over the past 26 years, he has appeared on more than a dozen albums with his songwriting partner Glenn Tilbrook, but now he is finally stepping out on his own with I Didn’t Get Where I Am Today. Difford is at that time in his life when his music has mellowed, not that there’s anything wrong with that — it would be unrealistic to expect another "Cool For Cats” at this point in his career. Instead of sounding like Squeeze, he’s sounding more like later Prefab Sprout — not necessarily a bad thing. What hasn’t changed is his ability to write witty, literate lyrics, even if the subject matter has shifted somewhat. Collaboration is still important to Difford, with Francis Dunnery (formally of It Bites) helping out on most songs. More interesting is the collaboration with Danny Wilson’s Gary Clark on "Cowboys Are My Weakness,” an apparent gay paean to cowboys and one of the album’s best songs. He also revisits one of the songs he wrote for Squeeze, "Electric Trains” and brings back his original demo version, which had more of a country twang and sounds much better as a result. I Didn’t Get Where I Am Today is a very polished debut, which is hardly surprising from a veteran musician, but some might find it a little too mellow for their tastes.