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Sep 25, 2020 By Frank Valish

Paul Collins is a power pop legend. Unfortunately, much of his best known music existed out of the mainstream spotlight. Excepting a major label showing for the 1979 debut of his band The Beat, Paul Collins stayed largely in the shadows. However, this fact is practically criminal, as the music he made first with Jack Lee and Peter Case in The Nerves, then with Case in The Breakaways, and finally with his own The Beat is some of the best power pop music put to wax.

I Don’t Fit In, its title taken from a song on his Beat debut, is Collins’ story. It’s rare that one gets to read such a personal, insightful book about an artist who largely existed on the boundaries of the big time. But I Don’t Fit In is manna for Paul Collins fans. Collins’ storytelling is exquisite. The pages are peppered with photographs and ephemera from the times; it often seems like Collins must have saved everything possible from those ‘70s and ‘80s days, and it’s thrilling to see.

The whole story is laid bare here, and despite Collins never truly hitting the big time, his enthusiasm for his craft leaps from the page throughout I Don’t Fit In. If you’re already a Paul Collins fan, you’ll thank your lucky stars you can read his story from the man himself. If you’re not, pick the book up anyway, get swept away, and finally dig into Paul Collins’ work. You’ll thank me later.

(www.hozacrecords.com)

Author rating: 8/10