Music Review: Shoes, 35 Years—The Definitive Shoes Collection 1977-2012

By Cait Brennan

By any measure, 2012 was a banner year for the pioneering power pop rockers Shoes. For decades, the band has hewed its own indie path through pop music, with a strong DIY ethic that helped kick start the home-recording movement decades before Garageband made it easy. Back together in the studio for the first time in 17 years, brothers John and Jeff Murphy and their high school pal Gary Klebe joined with drummer John Richardson for Ignition, a spectacular new album of originals that reestablished Shoes as power-pop masters and made its way onto a number of critics’ year-end best-of lists (review). They were the subject of a new biography, Boys Don’t Lie: A History of Shoes, and their first four pre-Elektra albums—One In Versailles, Bazooka, Black Vinyl Shoes, and Pre-Tense (the Present Tense demos)—were issued on vinyl in gorgeous deluxe editions by the Numero Group.

Truly, it’s never been a better time to be a Shoes fan. But for those who haven’t yet joined the cult of Shoes, it might seem a little daunting to find a way in to a band whose widely acclaimed output stretches to at least 180 songs on 17 albums recorded over a 38-year period.

Real Gone Music has this problem sorted with its excellent new disc 35 Years—The Definitive Shoes Collection 1977-2012. From their ’77 breakthrough Black Vinyl Shoes all the way through Ignition, it’s a great survey of some of the finest moments of their career, and the perfect place to start a Shoes safari.

The set starts off in fine form with “Tomorrow Night.” One of four Shoes songs/videos in heavy rotation on MTV’s very first day in existence (the others were “Too Late,” “Cruel You,” and “In My Arms Again”), the song has all the hallmarks of a great Shoes song: a longing heart-on-your-sleeve lyric, gorgeous harmonies, crunchy guitars, and a surprisingly hard-rockin’ production that’s nigh impossible to resist. It’s one of five tracks from 1979’s Present Tense, arguably their best-loved album.

“She Satisfies” follows, one of four from the band’s edgier second Elektra platter, 1981’s Tongue Twister. From there, we jump forward to 1994’s fine Propeller for “A Thing Of The Past,” a one-two-three punch that hints at the breadth of the band’s output represented here. There are four tracks here from 1990’s excellent, underappreciated Stolen Wishes (“Love Is Like A Bullet,” “Feel The Way That I Do,” “Your Devotion” and the set’s closer, “Torn In Two”), two each from 1982’s Boomerang and 1984’s Silhouette, and one from 2012’s Ignition. The hits are all here (and quibble about sales figures if you must, but songs like “Too Late” are monster hits in any universe) as well as a well-chosen representation of ear candy like “The Summer Rain,” “Your Very Eyes,” the wonderful “Three Times (See Me, Say It, Listen)” and the relentlessly catchy “Feel The Way That I Do.”

Considering its decades-long range and the vastly different circumstances behind the Shoes’ albums—from early home recordings to major-label digs to modern indie recording technology—it’s a remarkably consistent set centered around great songwriting, muscular hooks and harmonies and expressive, vulnerable lyrics. The fundamentals that worked so well for Klebe and Jeff and John Murphy in 1974 and 1981 and 1994 work just as well in 2013.

The album was compiled by the band themselves along with music journalist Stephen “Spaz” Schnee. Schnee also contributed the thoughtful liner notes, which draw on fresh interviews with Klebe and the Murphys to paint a picture of the behind-the-scenes intrigues that saw Shoes go from indie to the majors and back again. It’s an epic tale stretching out over four decades, and one we hope is far from over. The Definitive Shoes Collection 1977-2012 is a fine survey of the band’s first 35 years. Here’s hoping for 35 more.

35 Years—The Definitive Shoes Collection was released by Real Gone Music on October 2 and is available to order from the label’s website.