Stray Cats by The Stray Cats

Stray Cats, the rockabilly revivalists' debut, came out in Britain on Arista in February 1981, produced by the band with Dave Edmunds, and it sounds like somebody plugged an old diner jukebox into a punk club's PA. Twanging, rubber-band guitar, a bass that slaps and thumps, drums pared down to a snappy shuffle: it's retro, sure, but played with real urgency and a greaser's grin by an American band that found its first audience across the ocean.

Britain bit hard. The album went top 10 there, and "Runaway Boys", "Rock This Town" and "Stray Cat Strut" all made the singles chart. "Rock This Town" is the jumping, hip-shaking one that ended up on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's roster of songs that shaped the music; "Stray Cat Strut" slinks around the alley with a finger-snapping swagger. The one real surprise is "Storm the Embassy", rebuilt from "Boys Having Babies", a 1979 song by Setzer's earlier outfit the Bloodless Pharaohs, with new words about the Iran hostage crisis.

America had to wait. The record wasn't issued in the States until after Built for Speed, the band's first US album, had done the business in 1982, and by then six of its songs, including "Rock This Town", "Stray Cat Strut" and "Rumble in Brighton", had already turned up there.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.