Elvis Costello’s follow-up to My Aim is True, 1978’s This Year’s Model, was his first album with The Attractions. Steve Nieve, Bruce Thomas and Pete Thomas would go on to play (in various combinations) with Costello for the rest of his career to date.
Perhaps it was the influence of these new bandmates that unleashed a very different Costello on This Year’s Model than the one on his debut. The album is fast and ferocious, the angriest album by a very angry young man. Its 12 songs clock in at barely 35 minutes. This is the record that earned Costello his reputation as a punk artist, the Bacharach stuff be damned.
This Year’s Model lacks the polish of much of his later work, but it ranks up there as one of his best. It’s a great rock and roll album, the sort that sounds like it was pounded out in a few hours in a garage. Of course it doesn’t hurt that Costello’s peerless songcraft and brain-teasing lyrics remain in place.
Album opener ‘No Action’ is one of This Year’s Model‘s best tracks. In just two minutes, it sets the tone musically for what’s to come, lays down a nifty metaphor for communication between the sexes and drops a catchy-as-hell chorus.
I don’t wanna see you ’cause I don’t miss you that much.
I’m not a telephone junkie.
I told you that we were just good friends.
But when I hold you like I hold that bakelite in my hands,
there’s no action,
there’s no action,
there’s no action.
Every time I phone you, I just wanna put you down.
He’s got the keys to the car.
They are the keys to the kingdom.
He’s got everything you need.
It’s a shame that he didn’t bring them.
I’m not a telephone junkie.
If I’m inserting my coin I’m doing just fine.
And the things in my head start hurting my mind.
And I think about the way things used to be,
knowing you with him is driving me crazy.
Sometimes I phone you when I know you’re not lonely,
but I always disconnect it in time.
Meet Me In Montauk 
Well, as I have said before, this is not one of my favorite EC albums–just too punk for my taste overall. In fact, I suspect that if EC had never expanded beyond this sound, I would not have given him much notice, and he certainly would never have ranked as my favorite songwriter.
Having said that, to paraphrase Woody Allen, even my least favorite EC albums are pretty much right on the money. There are great songs on this album, even if they rub against my general dislike of punk. My favorites have always been “(I Don’t Want To Go to) Chelsea” and, even more so, “Night Rally”