Even the Who's John Entwhistle, the darkest lyricist in that particular band, might've balked at "Marie Provost," though. Inspired by a chapter in Kenneth Anger's notorious catalog of movieland scandals, Hollywood Babylon, the jaunty track retells the story of a faded silent movie actress whose overdosed corpse became food for her "hungry little dachshund." With its chiming guitar and energetic Steve Goulding drumwork, the song features Lowe at both his most lyrically sardonic and chirpily tuneful - a masterful piece of impure pop.

Which pretty much characterizes all of Cool. The sound is honest and respectful, filled with sly musical quotes, but the lyrics are something else again. Whether sweetly singing about the sound of breaking glass or the castration of Fidel Castro, Lowe refused to spoil things by cracking up at his own jokes. If the results were occasionally too twisted for mainstream '70s radio, subsequent generations of alt-poppers were clearly paying attention.

Most of the bonus tracks - with the possible exception of a Brinsley Schwartz-recorded soul-inflected demo of "Cruel to Be Kind" - will likely be familiar to Brit pop aficionados. (They all appear on the Demon Records import CD, The Wilderness Years.) But with the possible exception of the acoustic "Endless Sleep," a precursor to the slower, more contemplative Lowe sound of recent years, they all maintain the same cheeky crispiness. I'm particularly fond of the Duane Eddy-styled instrumental "Shake That Rat," the proto-feminist cover "Born A Woman" (take that, PC rock critic!) and Bobby Fuller tribute "I Don't Want the Night to End." But, really, it's all great.

"They always ask for lots of songs/Of no more than two-fifty long/So I write some," Lowe sings in his amusing paean to Stiff Records, "I Love My Label." Back then, no one wrote 'em better.