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Like it or not (and mostly he doesn’t) Elvis Costello will be forever linked with the intense burst of musical energy that blew out of the British Isles in 1976-77.
Costello's (real name Declan MacManus) new music credentials were impeccable. He was one of the original artists on Stiff Records and was produced by one of the godfather’s of the whole scene, Nick Lowe. Where the Clash were majestically angry and the Sex Pistols merely nihilistic, Costello was focused. He skewered everything from personal relationships to Britain’s National Front with razor sharp word play that had few antecedents in any era of rock music. All that verbiage was set against some of the biggest, most propulsive beats in rock and roll since Liverpool became known for something other than urban decay. That was in no small part thanks to Costello pairing with one of the best backing units in the world, The Attractions.
The big attraction (if you'll pardon the pun) of this release is that Elvis himself selected all the tracks. While The Very Best Of is hardly the Costello-fest of last year’s box set, it is certainly a spot-on overview of the artist's first decade, proving that Costello has a good handle on his own material. The Very Best Of... begins with two tracks from the groundbreaking 1977 -My Aim Is True release, (“Alison” and “Watching The Detectives”). While one might have hope for one or two more cuts from the extremely fertile period between '77 and '79 that gave us classic Costello albums like This year’s Model, Armed Forces and Get Happy!! (the biting ‘Miracle Man’ from Aim comes to mind) this release mostly lives up to its title.
Our man entered a more exploratory phase completing one more album with Nick Lowe (Trust) before journeying to Nashville and cutting an album with country vet Billy Sherrill (Almost Blue) here represented by the ace George Jones cover “Good Year For The Roses” (country before country was cool).
Through the '80s, he worked with a host of different producers (Geoff Emerick, the Abbey Road engineer, Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley and finally T Bone Burnett) honed his lyrics to surgical laser precision and finally dumped the Attractions in favour of a range of outside players (including jazz trumpeter Chet Baker who's heard here to beautiful effect on “Shipbuilding,” Costello’s song about the Falkland Islands war from the Punch The Clock album).
In terms of an effective primer on the first decade of one of rock’s most impressive (and underrated) songwriters and performers The Very Best Of Elvis Costello And The Attractions justifies its title. Hand-picked by the artist himself...all the chunky bits are here.
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