FEATURE:
Living in Paradise
Elvis Costello & The Attractions’ This Year’s Model at Forty-Five
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ON 17th March…
PHOTO CREDIT: The estate of Keith Morris/Redferns/Getty Images
one of the greatest albums of the 1970s turns forty-five Elvis Costello’s This Year’s Model. Following from his 1977 debut, My Aim Is True, This Year’s Model saw Costello form The Attractions – keyboardist Steve Nieve, bassist Bruce Thomas, and drummer Pete Thomas. One of the things that amazes me about the album is how quickly it all came together. Recording at London's Eden Studios in eleven days between late-1977 and early-1978, and produced by Nick Lowe, this masterpiece seemed to form and flow with ease! Most of the songs had been written prior to recording, and they had also been played live enough so that the band could get into the studio and lay them down without too many takes and issues. With elements of New Wave and Power Pop, you get embers of bands like The Rolling Stones coming through. There is melody and depth alongside attack and power. This Year’s Model was accused of employing some misogynistic ideas when it came to Costello singing about failing relationships. It does not tar and album that has many more positives than negatives – though it can be problematic and uncomfortable listening back to some of the lyrics today. Before getting to a couple of reviews for This Year’s Model, there is a 2018 feature from Consequence I want to bring in. They celebrated the album’s fortieth anniversary, and noticed how This Year’s Model has a bit more bite and venom than My Aim Is True. The seamless blend and balance of difference sounds is what makes This Year’s Model so deep, rich, and nuanced:
“That next thing was This Year’s Model, a whip-smart pop rock masterpiece that took its predecessor’s flare for cutting wit and tuneful guitar pop and injected it with a generous dash of punk rock venom. It might have been his second record overall, but This Year’s Model was Costello’s first with The Attractions, and that’s an important distinction. The band Clover might have supported Costello’s songs capably on My Aim Is True, but his debut was very much a solo record. This Year’s Model, on the other hand, was the work of a band. Costello now had what would quickly prove to be one of the best backing bands in rock history augmenting his literate lyrics and razor-sharp pop instincts, and the combination proved deadly. As such, This Year’s Model doesn’t just earn its claim as one of the best rock records of the ’70s 40 years on; it was the first in a murderer’s row of classics Costello would tear off with The Attractions during their influential eight-year run.
What makes This Year’s Model so great, even after 40 years, is the way it effortlessly balances out sound and mood. It’s a pretty-sounding pop record that’s actually anything but. The Attractions’ technical dexterity is something to marvel at, nowhere more so than on the record’s frenzied opening track “No Action”. But there’s a perfect give and take between Costello and his band that makes the record fly. While the band works its damndest to keep things musically upbeat, Costello’s lyrics are driven by a darker but equally volatile energy. “I don’t wanna kiss you/ I don’t wanna touch,” he whispers with near-palpable nervousness to start the track. “I don’t wanna see you ‘cause I don’t miss you that much.” Despite the efforts of keyboardist Steve Nieve, bassist Bruce Thomas, and drummer Pete Thomas, Costello can’t dig himself out of the mire of a toxic relationship where he’s doomed to come off as the jerk. “Every time I phone you, I just wanna put you down,” he sings with cold truth. When the band goes high, Costello more often than not goes low. But the two make perfect foils.
Nieve’s keyboard playing, in particular, gives the record a certain wistfulness, but it’s an effect designed to set listeners up only for Costello to knock them back down. More often than not, the subject of the singer’s angst is love on the rocks, and This Year’s Model is bursting at its seams with salty gems. Sometimes he’s not only comfortable, but oddly pleased being the bad guy (“No don’t ask me to apologize/ I won’t ask you to forgive me,” the singer spouts with unmistakable vengeance on “Hand in Hand”). Other times, as on the soulfully subdued “Little Triggers”, he’s equally upset to find the shoe on the other foot (“I don’t wanna be hung up, strung up, when you don’t call up”). Whether he’s playing the bully or the martyr, the end result is savagely cunning.
Costello sharpened his lyrical claws considerably from his first record to his second, but that shouldn’t overlook the leaps the singer also was making musically with The Attractions in tow. Produced and recorded in London by Costello’s early collaborator and mentor, Nick Lowe, This Year’s Model came to be in the thick of punk rock’s first wave. While it’s difficult to call the record “punk” in the classic sense, it’s undeniably informed by the genre’s angry, rebellious spirit. Costello doesn’t spit and mug it up here like Johnny Rotten or take pronounced sociopolitical stances like The Clash, but he’s just as fixated on the idea of breaking the rules in his own sophisticated way. On just his second record, Costello established himself as a musical maverick and shape-shifter. He’s not interested in committing whole-heartedly to punk, soul, or ’60s pop, but rather glomming onto the aspects of those genres that most appeal to him”.
With elegant and sharp songwriting, what makes This Year’s Model so timeless and strong is the backing of The Attractions. A remarkable musical force, it adds extra weight and brilliance to Elvis Costello’s obvious gifts. A huge influence on Punk and New Wave that followed, This Year’s Model was a commercial success around the world. Reaching number four in the U.K. upon its release, it is no wonder people still talk about this album. Often voted as one of the best ever, it must be up there with Costello’s best work. This is what AllMusic noted in their review of the phenomenal This Year’s Model:
“Where My Aim Is True implied punk rock with its lyrics and stripped-down production, This Year's Model sounds like punk. Not that Elvis Costello's songwriting has changed -- This Year's Model is comprised largely of leftovers from My Aim Is True and songs written on the road. It's the music that changed. After releasing My Aim Is True, Costello assembled a backing band called the Attractions, which were considerably tougher and wilder than Clover, who played on his debut.
The Attractions were a rock & roll band, which gives This Year's Model a reckless, careening feel. It's nervous, amphetamine-fueled, nearly paranoid music -- the group sounds like they're spinning out of control as soon as they crash in on the brief opener, "No Action," and they never get completely back on track, even on the slower numbers. Costello and the Attractions speed through This Year's Model at a blinding pace, which gives his songs -- which were already meaner than the set on My Aim Is True -- a nastier edge. "Lipstick Vogue," "Pump It Up," and "(I Don't Want to Go To) Chelsea" are all underscored with sexual menace, while "Night Rally" touches on a bizarre fascination with fascism that would blossom on his next album, Armed Forces. Even the songs that sound relatively lighthearted -- "Hand in Hand," "Little Triggers," "Lip Service," "Living in Paradise" -- are all edgy, thanks to Costello's breathless vocals, Steve Nieve's carnival-esque organ riffs, and Nick Lowe's bare-bones production. Of course, the songs on This Year's Model are typically catchy and help the vicious sentiments sink into your skin, but the most remarkable thing about the album is the sound -- Costello and the Attractions never rocked this hard, or this vengefully, ever again”.
I will finish off with a review from Pitchfork. It is not often they hand out a perfect ten for an album. That is what they awarded this classic back in 2002. There is something about the album that means it is timeless. I think we will be talking about This Year’s Model for decades to come:
“Anyone can whine. But as a seemingly infinite stream of cliché-obsessed singer/songwriters using misery as a thinly veiled ploy to get laid has proven, very few people can do it well. Drawing inspiration from banal personal miseries and girlfriend tragedies may indeed turn songwriting into some kind of a cleansing experience, but nobody wants to be sprayed in the face with someone else's emotional Lysol. And being preached to? That's nearly as bad. Screamy thugs recycling endless bullshit about the oppressive and destructive state of capitalism, and yet selling their records for profit-- where's the dignity in that?
Elvis Costello, more so than any other musician before or since, has managed to integrate the insight of personal music and the conviction of political music, while avoiding the self-indulgent pitfalls of both. To put it another way, Elvis Costello could sing a song about the oppressive and destructive state of his girlfriend and pull it off with wit and talent to spare.
With My Aim Is True, Costello immediately established himself as the world's foremost angry geek with something to prove. And while the songs on that album were absolutely stellar, Costello had yet to make his defining statement. Clover, who would later become the News and back up a lesser geek who never managed to prove much of anything, did a great job backing Costello's songs, but never really managed to sound like anything more than a backing band.
This, Elvis Costello's second album, marked the beginning of a long and illustrious collaboration with the Attractions, not to mention one of those glorious moments in which a musician discovers a sound that is all his own. While My Aim Is True was largely a guitar-centered album, the sonic core of This Year's Model consists almost entirely of drums, bass, and keyboards. As a result, it's not only a more complex and dynamic album, but also one that steers well clear of the retro guitar twang that marred the less interesting bits of his debut.
Indeed, songs like "Pump It Up" and "This Year's Girl" sound like they were essentially written from the rhythm section up. Pete Thomas' drumming is nothing short of perfect-- on these two songs in particular he keeps the beat deep and powerful, putting accents in all the right places without ever attempting to take the spotlight off the freak up front. With less rhythmically straightforward songs, such as the vaguely reggae-inflected "(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea," Thomas shifts accents faster than Miss Cleo, and with far more skill.
"(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea" is by far the most angular tune to be found on This Year's Model. But at the other end of the spectrum sits "Little Triggers," a piano-driven pseudo-ballad that plays host to some of Costello's best wordplay. "Thinking all about those censored sequences/ Worrying about the consequences/ Waiting until I come to my senses/ Better put it all in present tenses," is characteristic of Costello's finest lyrics-- eloquently constructed and uniquely insightful without ever being trite or obvious”.
Turning forty-five on 17th March, I wanted to salute and show appreciation for the magnificent This Year’s Model. The first album where Elvis Costello linked with The Attractions, classics like Pump It Up, This Year’s Girl and (I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea sit alongside some brilliant deeper cuts. There is no doubting the fact that This Year’s Model will…
ALWAYS be in vogue.