Costello followed Brutal Youth with Kojak Variety, a forgettable covers collection that felt more like a contractual obligation than a new Elvis Costello album. But a year later he was back with the strong All This Useless Beauty, an elegant collection of songs he’d mostly written for other people.

Some had been recorded by other artists, some had been turned down, some were written new for the album… the whole concept was kind of half-baked from the start. The important thing was that Costello was back with a new batch of original material, keeping up the enviable pace of one release per year that he’d maintained since his debut.

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