Quiet Please...The New Best of Nick Lowe doesn't beat around the bush. It's direct not just in name (both reflecting Lowe's current stylistic bent and logically supplanting 1989's Basher: The Best of Nick Lowe) but also because it begins with what may literally be the very best of Nick Lowe: the increasingly canonical "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding". That song could have appeared on this set in any of several different forms, each equally important to Lowe's career, albeit for different reasons. There's of course the popular and most recognizable version by Lowe's friend Elvis Costello. There's also the less familiar version by Curtis Stigers, found on the soundtrack to The Bodyguard, whose massive sales earned Lowe enough cash to subsidize his 90s resurgence. Then there's the stripped-down version Lowe typically plays live these days, indicative of the hushed turn his career has taken in its fourth decade.
The version that begins the new 2xCD best-of set, however, is by the marginal pub-rock band Brinsley Schwarz, the early outfit that gave Lowe his start. The Brinsley Schwarz cut dates back to 1974, well before Lowe hitched his wagon to the nascent Stiff imprint, produced vital singles by the Damned and Pretenders (among others), struck out on his own with a brilliant debut, Jesus of Cool, rode a solo career through many ups and downs (both musical and personal), and eventually even married into the Johnny Cash clan (Lowe's "The Beast in Me" would also become a highpoint of Cash's own contemporaneous comeback, American Recordings).
Which leads us to where Lowe is today, a place far removed from his sly roots-rocker persona and more inclined toward post-war proto-rock and subdued soul. If there's one favor this new best-of does, it's reminding us that this other side of Lowe was in fact there all along. "Endless Sleep", from 1977's cleverly titled Bowi EP (released in response to Bowie's Low) wouldn't be out of place on any of Lowe's recent records, and the same could be said for 1979's "You Make Me", 1982's "Raining Raining", or 1990's "What's Shakin' on the Hill".
On the other hand, Quiet Please is the product of artist prerogative. Its tracklisting was handpicked by Lowe, and with the benefit of hindsight the artist has deemed a few songs from his previous best-of unworthy of inclusion here. If the effect isn't quite the rush of Basher, Quiet Please does offer a more fully-formed portrait of the artist as a young man, old man, and all places in between, tossing in among the obvious "Cruel to Be Kind", "I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass", "Without Love", "I Knew the Bride (When She Used to Rock and Roll)", and a handful of tracks from Lowe-related projects such as Rockpile and Little Village before moving on to more recent material.
Lowe has claimed that his current reinvention as a classy and classic crooner stems from toting his acoustic guitar out into the countryside and playing anonymous music halls until his own compositions approached the somewhat obscure numbers he'd long admired. You can sure hear that in songs like "You Inspire Me", "Lonesome Reverie", "Faithless Lover", "Lately I've Let Things Slide", and the wry "Has She Got a Friend" (essentially a gender-swapped rewrite of Richard Thompson's "Has He Got a Friend for Me", and the lonely companion to Lowe's blithely misogynist "I Trained Her to Love Me").
Admittedly, not everyone has taken to Lowe's quiet side, and compared to his early work it's easy to confuse his weariness for snooziness. But that early work's still there-- and here-- for the listening. What Quiet Please does, then, is offer a clearer trail of breadcrumbs leading anyone familiar with Lowe only at his most witty and high-energy to his current role as punk jester in repose.
