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Smart, snide lyrics seem out of vogue now (let's blame it on September 11 — it's taken the rap for everything else), but Costello's back catalogue proves the text of a piece of music is as crucial to its longevity as the sound. Score one to content over style, perhaps. He was the bitter bard of the punk era, with 1978's ''This Year's Model'', his second album, articulating a generation's ire every bit as caustically as the Pistols' gigantic guitars. Others smashed things up; he sneered with a sarcasm just as damning to its targets. | Smart, snide lyrics seem out of vogue now (let's blame it on September 11 — it's taken the rap for everything else), but Costello's back catalogue proves the text of a piece of music is as crucial to its longevity as the sound. Score one to content over style, perhaps. He was the bitter bard of the punk era, with 1978's ''This Year's Model'', his second album, articulating a generation's ire every bit as caustically as the Pistols' gigantic guitars. Others smashed things up; he sneered with a sarcasm just as damning to its targets. | ||
That album, his first with The Attractions, boasted many of the career-breaking hits. "Pump It Up" exploited a visceral stomp, "I Don't Want To Go To Chelsea" revelled in intricate, flashy word games, and "Radio Radio" (which wasn't on the original vinyl release), a piss-take of the airwaves, naturally, given the transatlantic irony lag, brought him lots of US airplay. The subversive stabs of "Lipstick Vogue" and underlying soul colouring "Little Triggers" and "Big Tears" have also survived as spleen-venting standards. Writing in Melody Maker that year, Allan Jones recognised the record as "so comprehensive, so inspired, that it exhausts superlatives". Even if some of us couldn't at first, see past the wilfully nerdy persona, the cutting couplets were planting demon seeds. | That album, his first with The Attractions, boasted many of the career-breaking hits. "Pump It Up" exploited a visceral stomp, "I Don't Want To Go To Chelsea" revelled in intricate, flashy word games, and "Radio Radio" (which wasn't on the original vinyl release), a piss-take of the airwaves, naturally, given the transatlantic irony lag, brought him lots of US airplay. The subversive stabs of "Lipstick Vogue" and underlying soul colouring "Little Triggers" and "Big Tears" have also survived as spleen-venting standards. Writing in [[Melody Maker, December 30, 1978|Melody Maker]] that year, Allan Jones recognised the record as "so comprehensive, so inspired, that it exhausts superlatives". Even if some of us couldn't at first, see past the wilfully nerdy persona, the cutting couplets were planting demon seeds. | ||
Like all these reissues, ''This Year's Model'' appears as a double, the second set gathering live versions, demos, B-sides and so on. A "Green Shirt" demo is clammily intense, and, in the 28-page booklet, Costello documents this breakthrough period. "I never understood the accusations of misogyny. Clearly [the lyrics] contained more sense of disappointment than disgust." | Like all these reissues, ''This Year's Model'' appears as a double, the second set gathering live versions, demos, B-sides and so on. A "Green Shirt" demo is clammily intense, and, in the 28-page booklet, Costello documents this breakthrough period. "I never understood the accusations of misogyny. Clearly [the lyrics] contained more sense of disappointment than disgust." |
Revision as of 20:41, 31 October 2014
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