Here’s a nifty little New Wave cut from Elvis Costello’s second album, 1978’s This Year’s Model.
Costello has spent the last two decades or so in elder statesman mode, releasing chamber orchestra and country folk albums, so it’s easy to forget what a scrappy, literate punk rocker he was back in the day.
How funny to see this video a couple of days after that clip of Elvis Costello in full elder statesman mode playing folk ballads alongside Mumford & Sons.
The pigeon-toed dancing and fuck-the-world sneer seem to belong to another artist than the man we’ve come to know in the 35 years since. Forget Springsteen and Dylan, perhaps Elvis Costello has had the most extraordinary career.
My Random Weekends have turned up a lot of bonus tracks from Elvis Costello’s many reissues, so it’s nice to see an actual album cut pop up today.
This Year’s Model, Costello’s second album, is a fast and furious collection of brainy punk pop, world’s away from the material he would go on to release in the decades to come.
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.
Meet Me In Montauk 