Following the double dip in 1986, Costello waited three years to put out his next album. During that time he signed with Warner Brothers and, as he tells it in the liner notes of Spike, was given a boatload of cash to make his next album. As a result, Costello writes, he took the five potential albums swimming around in his head and put them all out as one.
Indeed, Spike suffers a bit from schizophrenia. Though it is no longer than Get Happy!, Imperial Bedroom or King of America, it lacks those records’ thematic and musical cohesion and as a result feels about twice as lengthy as it is.
In a move that’s pretty much unheard of these days, Costello followed up King of America the same year with another stellar album, Blood & Chocolate.
If Punch the Clock and Goodbye Cruel World were steps back, the album that followed them, King of America is a huge leap forward. And that’s an understatement.
In the liner notes of a reissued CD of Goodbye Cruel World, Elvis Costello starts off with this encouraging sentiment: “Congratulations! You just bought the worst album of my career.”
Punch the Clock is the first Elvis Costello album that feels like a step back. As a followup to Imperial Bedroom, this collection of mostly lightweight pop songs was rather anticlimactic. 
Meet Me In Montauk 