Going back in sonic history looking for memorable albums…

15 March 2018

ARTIST: ELVIS COSTELLO

ALBUM: THIS YEAR’S MODEL – his second LP – first with The Attractions

RELEASED: 17 March 1978 – 40 years ago

ROLLING STONE wrote: “Listening to Costello is like walking down a dark, empty street and hearing another set of heels. His music doesn’t make you dance, it makes you jump. It doesn’t matter that he’s stalking his obsessions and not you, because nobody ought to be this sure of his obsessions… ‘This Year’s Model’, his second album in less than a year, is Costello’s attempt to make certain those wounds stay open. ‘This Year’s Model’ has the triumph of an adrenalin kick: “The Beat” or “Pump It Up” are not titles chosen randomly. There’s bravado in the way his’ machine-gun mouth sprays out each image, but like all obsessives, he has to get the details right, connect them through the sheer force of his will. So he’s reeling and running, shooting from the hip but taking careful aim. He’s ready to challenge all comers, it doesn’t matter whether it’s the rock & roll industry (“Radio, Radio”) or the National Front (“Night Rally”). “Don’t you know I’m an animal,” he sings on “Hand in Hand.” But later, in “Lipstick Vogue,” he amends that: “Sometimes I almost feel just like a human being.” Taken together, these are the words of a brutally honest optimist.”

TURN UP THE VOLUME says: Virtuoso singer-songwriter and living legend Elvis Costello proved with his first two albums in under a year,’My Aim Is True‘ and this turbulent magnum opus that he intended to go a long way, a really long way paved with countless king-sized achievements…

THREE HIGHLIGHTS: Pump It Up / (I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea / This Year’s Girl

* PUMP IT UP – wham bloody bam…

* (I DON’T WANT TO GO TO) CHELSEA – funky punch…

*THIS YEAR’S GIRL – 1978 live rendition…

Full album …