This year's Angry Young Man of rock, Elvis Costello, tollows up his first album, My Aim Is True (a veritable 1957 Thunderbird in the garage of music) with This Year's Model. And, like all new, improved cars, the 1978 Elvis is smoother and sleeker. Much of the bare-bones rock of Costello's first album is assimilated into more sophisticated production, so much that at times the music is reminiscent of late Elton John. The shotgun precision of Costello's earlier tunes,"I'm Not Angry" and "Mystery Dance," do not show up as vibrantly in the cuts on This Year's Model. But, he's still the Elvis we all know and love, the misguided grown-up teenager. "No Action" captures the essence of hard-driving Fifties rock and "This Year's Girl" offers Costello's degrading comments on the fickle Hollywood star-gazers. "The Beat" features a bouncing calypso, and "Pump It Up" is a masterful take-off on Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues." Elvis is as threatening as ever, and This Year's Model should aim high in the charts.
|