The Big Sound Authority – An Inward Revolution (Cherry Red)

It’s thirty years since the first release of An Inward Revolution on MCA, an album that scored The Big Sound Authority three single releases.

The band came together after a competition in Smash Hits (a British pop magazine) had vocalist Julie Hodwen singing backing vocals with The Jam. The Jam’s Paul Weller put Hodwen together with songwriter Tony Burke and so The Big Sound Authority were born…I vaguely remember them.

Here, this two CD collection, out on Cherry Red has the bands original album and the 7″ releases on one CD and their 12″ releases and B sides on the second. There’s also some excellent sleeve notes

It should sound dated , and there is a clear eighties power pop feel to the tunes herein, but good tunes are good tunes whenever they were made. The Weller influence is really evident, particularly on the Soul Man tune and given my obsession with The Jam in my teens it’s no surprise that this record strikes a chord.

There are production contributions from Pete Wilson, Greg Walsh, Robin Millar and Tony Visconti and the song-writing is really fabulous – The Big Sound Authority deserved bigger success in my book.

The highlights for me is the ballad When Things Fall Apart and the Style Councilesque Soul Man, but the whole record is well worth having in your collection.

Sure, it’s going to appeal to people of a certain age but I reckon it will have wider appeal than just the folk looking for a bit of nostalgia.