Swing Out Sister – It’s Better to Travel (1986):  Swing Out Sister is one of several sophisticated pop/rock bands and artists that arrived on the British music scene in the early to mid-1980’s.  Probably the best known is Sade; others include Simply Red, the Style Council, Basia, and Everything but the Girl.  I remember a review of one of Sade’s albums in the Village Voice years ago which said that the album sounds like music that you would have heard before, but you actually haven’t.  That remark would apply to It’s Better to Travel also.  This debut album is their only record that includes all three original members of Swing Out Sister:  Andy Connell (keyboards), Corrine Drewery (vocals), and Martin Jackson (drums).  Jackson had minimal contributions to their second album, Kaleidoscope World (1989), and the group has stayed together as a duo ever since.  It’s Better to Travel includes the band’s biggest hit, the delightful “Breakout”, plus their later hits “Twilight World” and “Surrender”, and also their first single, “Blue Mood” that did not chart in its initial release.