The Rumour – Frogs, Sprouts, Clogs & Krauts

2 min read

From 1979, the twilight of disco and the dawn of punk, springs an almost completely unknown collection of British pub-rockers who were originally united as Graham Parker’s backing band. Though it has quite possibly one of the most derogatory album titles you’ve never seen, this is a fantastic album. The Rumour deserve so much more than just a mention as Parker’s old band in the musical history books, if only for this album alone. It’s one of the most consistently fantastic bluesy pub-rock albums I’ve ever heard, even better than Dave Edmunds’ average output! As if that’s not enough, the CD reprint has four bonus tracks I’d never heard of before, mainly the B-sides from this album’s singles. No description could do this 4 out of 4album justice. It rocks hard, it has a couple of good ballads, and one of the bonus tracks sounds for all the world like it would’ve made a good number for Otis Redding had he written and recorded it. A most undeservedly obscure treasure!

  1. Frozen Years (3:34)
  2. Emotional Traffic (2:46)
  3. Tired of Waiting (3:24)
  4. Loving You (Is Far Too Easy) (3:21)
  5. Euro (4:00)
  6. Leaders (3:10)
  7. We Believe In You / New Age (5:10)
  8. All Fall Down (2:33)
  9. One Good Night (2:50)
  10. I Can’t Help Myself (2:45)
  11. Hard Enough To Show (3:20)
  12. Frozen Years – edited version (3:27)
  13. I Want To Make You Very Happy (3:33)
  14. Call of the Faithful (3:08)

Released by: Stiff / Repertoire
Release date: 1979
Total running time: 47:01