This came out in 1999 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Before Brian Setzer wanted to be Louis Prima with a guitar, he wanted to be Eddie Cochran.
The current king Of retro swing, many of you will recall, started off as a rockabilly rebel in tattooed ’80s trio The Stray Cats. Fittingly, this retrospective kicks off with their biggest hits, Sexy + 17 and Rock This Town. Unfortunately, it devotes the bulk of its 67 minutes to Setzer’s later, unsuccessful foray into jangly guitar-rock — the era when he wanted to be Bruce Springsteen. It’s not that Setzer’s stab at heartfelt heartland rock falls flat; just that it can’t compete with what he did before and after. It’s the part of his career no one — including Setzer himself — really needs to revisit.
