Musically, Armed Forces is Elvis Costello’s first truly “modern” record, packed with synths and oddball sound loops. It’s the New Wave-iest of Costello’s New Wave period. And if the record is a bit dated, it’s wonderfully so.
Production aside, Armed Forces boasts a fine collection of tunes. One of my favorite Costello tracks, ‘Two Little Hitlers,’ already found a home on the blog in early 2009. I rank that little-known song (to casual fans, anyway) right up there with Costello’s best.
In 1979, Elvis Costello released his third album in as many years. Armed Forces was his second album recorded with The Attractions (who were credited on the sleeve for the first time) and a step up from My Aim is True and This Year’s Model in terms of production values.
I’ve underrated Armed Forces over the years because it pales in comparison to its surrounding albums — not just the two it followed, but the two that followed it. I’m quick to dismiss this album as a qualified success.
It’s appropriate that I’m featuring an Elvis Costello song on Halloween, as I first saw the man in concert in Sunrise, Florida, with my brother-in-law on Halloween night, 1999.
That was his first time in Florida in many years and my first opportunity to see him during the decade I’d been a fan. I’ve since seen him four or five more times but that first one remains the most special (and not just because he went “off mic” to sing his closing number).
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.
In 1976, a 22-year-old Elvis Costello took a sick day from his job as a computer operator and holed up in a London studio with a band called Clover to record one of the great debut albums in rock history, My Aim is True.
The album wasn’t a huge commercial hit, but it was a critical smash. This weird-looking guy with Buddy Holly glasses and a pigeon-toed punk stance could jump from New Wave pop to Bacharach-style ballads in the course of a few songs. Right off the bat he was hard to peg.
Meet Me In Montauk 