My Top 20 albums from 1978 Number 2

THIS YEAR'S MODEL
Year Of Release: 1978
Pretty sure poor Elvis did give a damn about the whole punk thing at this point...

Track listing: 1) No Action; 2) This Year's Girl; 3) The Beat; 4) Pump It Up; 5) Little Triggers; 6) You Belong To Me; 7) Hand In Hand; 8) (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea; 9) Lip Service; 10) Living In Paradise; 11) Lipstick Vogue; 12) Night Rally;
[BONUS TRACKS:] 13) Radio, Radio; 14) Big Tears; 15) Crawling To The USA; 16) Running Out Of Angels; 17) Greenshirt; 18) Big Boys.

Elvis' second album is a real treat and one of his finest hours, maybe even the finest hour. For This Year's Model, he had finally managed to assemble a stable backing band - the Attractions, dominated primarily by Steve Nieve on keyboards (oh, and Elvis Costello on vocals, guitar and songwriting, of course). They, however, had nothing to do with rockabilly, sticking to a far more modernistic, slightly paranoid brand of... err... 'soft punk', should we call it, with New Wave elements such as poppy hi-tech synthesizers thrown in, and so This Year's Model sees Elvis relinquishing the role of Buddy Holly for the new generation and climbing on the Clash pedestal instead (by the way, Mick Jones is featured as a guest player on one of the bonus tracks).
Does it work? Definitely. Now I wouldn't agree with diehards that claim there ain't no filler on the album. There certainly is, and mind you, Costello was never a Beatles-quality songwriter - most of his material sounds rushed and hurried in comparison with the elaborate, meticulous work of the Fab Four and certain other superior bands. I'm pretty sure, for instance, that at least half of these songs could have worked better with more thought-out arrangements. And is it just me or do Costello's acoustic demos sound just as good as the later band arrangements? Because his early demos of 'Greenshirt' and 'Big Boys', also present as bonus tracks, sound just as good to me as the later so-called "polished" versions on Armed Forces (and, by the way, we will disregard the fact that the main riff and vocal melody of 'Greenshirt' are ripped off from the Kinks' 'Powerman', because that's another story altogether).

Anyway, that's just me whining. Another - very minor this time - complaint is that it takes a bit of time to get used to Elvis singing this stuff; his voice obviously worked better on the rockabilly material of My Aim, but for a bouncy pop record you'd expect something, eh, nicer than his nasty whine which really annoys me at times. Off-key, overemoted singing on catchy pop songs? Hmm... Then again, sometimes it does work out to his advantage, particularly when the song needs some complaintive, depressed intonation, like 'The Beat', for instance.

But generally, this is an excellent record. Some people also complain about the lack of diversity, claiming that on this record Elvis and the Attractions simply burned the house down with their speed, anger, and paranoia, and never give us a chance to truly soak in everything. Well - the same accusation can be thrown at The Clash, but I think that for TYM this is but half-true. Sure there are speedy angry rockers, but there are also moderate, mid-tempo gloomy pop songs like 'The Beat' and 'This Year's Girl', and that bit of silly soul in 'Little Triggers', and the album never really comes across as monotonous.

The first five songs, in fact, could all qualify as patented Costello classics. 'No Action' greets us with a two-minute fury of catchy vocal melodies and pretty backing vocals set to a truly punkish rhythm (but remember that Elvis never sets his guitar tone too low or overabuses distortion, so don't expect any Ramones buzz on here). 'This Year's Girl' is Elvis' vicious attack on... no, not on girls, rather on the "commercial decline" of the modern world, replete with a groovy drum pattern, courtesy of the trusty Pete Thomas, and directly influenced by the Stones' 'Stupid Girl', but different. But I far prefer 'The Beat' and its wonderful end-of-the-world atmosphere, like a 'straightened out' Police, but with a deep human touch. The 'just the beat, just the beat' coda is simply wonderful. 'Pump It Up' with nasty sexual hints is the album's most gruff and menacing track - don't you love that gruesome cynical rap that Elvis is 'pumping out', heavily accentuated by Pete Thomas' smashing beat? Throw in an ultra-catchy riff in between the verses, and you get the album's most memorable track. And 'Little Triggers' is a groovy, but at the same time deeply emotional attempt at doing something more soulful, this record's 'Alison'.

The album loses a wee bit steam after that, with a couple of misplaced hooks - 'You Belong To Me' and 'Hand In Hand' don't seem to be so distinctive, but still, the former bops along nicely with infectious synthesizer bleeps and the latter... the latter bops along nicely with... with... whatever, I'm not good at describing this kind of stuff. But then another smash in the form of '(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea', this time directed at the excesses of film industry, and again, the rambling, 'broken' melody is ideally fit for Elvis' voice here, as the strain he demonstrates only helps to accentuate the tension and suffering of the 'protagonist'. Plus, it features a wonderful 'tension release' with that synth/guitar interplay letting out steam after each of Elvis' hyper-strained '...I don't w-anna g-go to Chelsea-ea-ea...'. And then there's the infectious, gracefully upbeat 'Lip Service', the corny, but hilarious reggae send-up 'Living In Paradise', and another unabashed, spiteful rocker in 'Lipstick Vogue' - all three at the top of Costello's game in each of the three genres (pop, reggae, rock). Unfortunately, the album ends in the dull and pointless 'Night Rally', one of Elvis' first songs dealing with Nazism (that theme would flourish on the subsequent record), but if you're smart and you got the Rykodisc reissue like me, this will definitely be not the end, because there are bonus tracks. 'Radio Radio' is the best of these, but like I said, I also enjoy the heck of Elvis' acoustic demos and I suppose you probably will, too.

The Court's Decision: this is definitely worthy. A 'justified purchase', as some advisors might say. Getting past Elvis' raspiness and the Attractions' paranoia, there is no return - you'll be forced to love this. With a few reservations, probably, but as far as pure, unadulterated, unhindered songwriting goes, this is Mr Costello's moment of true stellar glory; melodically, he would hardly ever top this.