Look for the Cheering to Begin With Graham Parker’s New Album

It was a very good year for pop music: 1979.

That was the time of Elvis Costello’s “Armed Forces,” considered by many to be the most explosive album by the man who has been called “the Cole Porter of rock.”

Among the other highly regarded 1979 releases: Rickie Lee Jones’ stylish debut (“Rickie Lee Jones”), Marianne Faithful’s moving comeback (“Broken English”) and Michael Jackson’s revolutionary declaration of independence (“Off the Wall”).

No recording artist, however, was more cheered by critics nine years ago than Graham Parker, whose probing and provocative “Squeezing Out Sparks” was declared the album of the year in Village Voice’s annual survey of more than 150 U.S. pop critics.

In “Sparks,” Parker sang about matters of faith and betrayal with tough, incisive lyrics and impassioned, R & B-seasoned vocals. His follow-up, 1980’s “The Up Escalator,” was an equally inspired work. But neither caught fire commercially.

Though Parker made three more albums after that, they were such disappointments--lacking his usual musical passion and songwriting invention--that the English singer-songwriter seemed to fade from pop consciousness.

But look for the cheering to begin again next week.

In a pop year mostly characterized so far by minor ambition and modest talents, Parker’s “The Mona Lisa’s Sister” album--which will be released Monday by RCA Records--carries the bold, commanding stamp of an unquestionably major talent. There are conventional moments, but the heart of the 11-song collection bristles with insight and craft.

Given Parker’s creative and commercial setbacks in recent years, it’s not surprising that several of the key numbers in “Sister” revolve around matters of disappointment and self-doubt. The album’s tone, however, isn’t one of complaint.

Chiefly, it seems the work of a man who has been forced to examine his own commitment to his music--and who has emerged from that examination with a determination and perspective that give the album an especially human and compelling edge.

Though there was a biting, confrontational tone to Parker’s early work that earned him the “angry young man of British rock” tag before Elvis Costello was anointed with the same title, there is an disarming sense of humility and occasional confession in songs such as “I’m Just Your Man” and “I Don’t Know.”

Parker’s music, too, is softer and less dense than the full-force gale arrangements of much of his early work with the band the Rumour. The tone in this album, co-produced by Parker and former Rumour guitarist Brinsley Schwarz, moves from smooth, Memphis R & B accents--a whisper of Booker T. and the MGs--through some tasty acoustic touches.

Parker, however, can still strike with a sharp tongue (on critics, he offers, “Some people are in charge of pens / That shouldn’t be in charge of brooms”), and he can still turn out some striking images and rhymes (“She got colder with incision / No one knew he had a fatal vision”).

But he is most interesting when he is talking about the dangers of warped ideals (“Get Started, Start a Fire”) and the seductiveness of success--as powerful a drug as love.

Surprisingly, the album doesn’t end with a Parker tune, but a remake of “Cupid,” the Sam Cooke hit from 1961. There is something strangely inviting--and revealing--about Parker’s choice of the song and his rendition of it. Beneath the song’s sweet, comforting melody, the story itself is about asking Cupid to help the singer connect with a woman who doesn’t even know he exists.

If you shift the request to the pursuit of dreams, the words take on a slightly harder, more urgent twist. “Please hear my cry, and let your arrow fly,” Parker sings in a voice that somehow still believes in dreams, even as he’s sharing the doubts with us in “The Mona Lisa’s Sister.” This is a strong, enriching and deeply moving LP.

SPRINGSTEEN TRIVIA: What may well be the only non-Woody Guthrie cover song sung in concert by both Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen? The answer: “Across the Borderline,” a poignant ballad written by Ry Cooder, Jim Dickinson and John Hiatt for “The Border,” a 1982 film about the victimization of illegal Mexican aliens. With lines like “When you reach the broken promise land and every dream slips through your hands,” it’s easy to see why both socially conscious artists were drawn to it. Springsteen sang it in the second half of the show both Wednesday and Thursday nights at the Los Angeles Sports Arena, while Dylan sang it on his 1985 tour with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. In the film and on the sound-track album, the song was sung by Freddy Fender.

LIVE ACTION: Depeche Mode will be joined by Oingo Boingo, OMD and Wire on June 18 at the Rose Bowl. Tickets go on sale today. . . . Tracy Chapman will make her local debut at the Roxy on May 11, while Australia’s Big Pig is due there May 22. . . . The Mighty Lemon Drops will be at the Palace on May 24, while Clannad headlines June 3 at the Wiltern Theatre.