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In case you've been on another planet, we've got sixteen months left in the Seventies, and a handful of decent musicians are trying desperately to save tho music of this decade. An equally small group has given up and started playing the music of the Eighties. I am referring, of course, to the "New Wave" bands such as Television, Talking Heads, The Clash, The Tom Robinson Band, Ian Drury, Patti Smith, and the self-proclaimed King of it all, Elvis Costello.
Costello was a computer programmer until a short while ago, when he formed a band, released two critically-acclaimed singles and then stunned listeners on both sides of the Atlantic with his debut album, My Aim Is True. The quickly released follow-up album, This Year's Model, appears to be the best album so far released in the musical desert that is 1978.
Costello has no friends. Looking like a bizarre cross between Buddy Holly and Terry the Tiger from American Graffiti, his songs are riddled with slashing hooks and barbs delivered in a nasal, sneering voice. The music is relentless, sophisticated punk, coming at you from all directions, an aural form of the stripped-down paranoia worthy of the ten years ahead.
My Aim Is True was raw and unsettling, partly because it was recorded on an eight track console. This Year's Model raises its sights a little: the enemy is now fashion, finance, and romance on a more cerebral level. There are two instant classics on this album: "This Year's Girl," a contemptuous putdown of beauty contests, and "Radio Radio," a scathing denunciation which is making many FM play lists despite its complaints about "the fools and jerks trying to anaesthetize the way that we feel." The rest of the album holds to a consistently excellent level.
The sound has been upgraded somewhat, the sinister organ of Steve Naive expanding to cover Costello's shoppy riffs, the Thomas brothers continuing their primeval work on drums and bass. But make no mistake; stardom hasn't affected Costello any. These are refinements, like the concealment of the C&W roots in his work. His new-found fame (and that of Stiff Records) merely places technological tools at his call, and he uses them mercilessly. If you're getting tired of the gradual slide of the mainstream into the Fleetwood Mac / Peter Frampton / Steve Miller mould, pick up this album. It'll serve as a barometer to tell you how much spirit you've got left.
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