1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 399. Elvis Costello & The Attractions – This Year’s Model (1978)

 

I have to say, now that Costello has The Attractions behind him, the quality of the music really steps up a notch with this album. The debut album felt a bit perfunctory; here there’s a lot more going on, not least thanks to Steve Nieve on the keyboards. Bruce Thomas on bass and especially Pete Thomas (no relation) on drums also contribute strongly to the blend of rockabilly and punk.  

Usually with the albums on this list, the tracks that aren’t the well-known singles are often as good, if not better for their (to me) lack of familiarity. Sometimes, however, the singles are the best tracks and that’s pretty much the case on this album. In Pump It Up, the Thomases really give it some welly to support Costello’s Subterranean Homesick Blues style delivery of the lyrics; I Don’t Want To Go To Chelsea has a slightly reggae overtone. Radio Radio is, for my tastes, a little stop-start, but still a solid track that defies category. For me, the best non-single track is Lipstick Vogue, a kind of “punkabilly” rock where Thomas P gets some fun drum breaks.  

Costello’s bitterness towards women (or at least, that of his artistic persona) is on display again. This one is less incel, more akin to Philip K Dick after his divorce, where women are not to be trusted and basically use men as playthings; or at best are really annoying to be around – Little Triggers, for example, is all about the small things that spark arguments in relationships; although the triggers are in both directions it feels like it’s the woman’s fault for doing annoying things, and her fault for getting annoyed at little things.  

Which made me ponder the nature of misogyny in rock. Some of these lyrics feel different to, say, the endless murder ballads where men murder partners in jealous rages, or, having brought them up recently, Chas ‘n’ Dav songs like Rabbit or No Pleasing You which are about nagging spouses. I think perhaps because these are about specific individuals, they feel less sweeping. Hasty generalisation is a fallacy, but there must be a fallacy where the observer assumes that a general is inferred from a specific. The assumption that if you say that Lady Macbeth was power-hungry and pushy, you are somehow endorsing that opinion of *all* women. Whereas if you were to say “All women are like Lady Macbeth”, then you’re making a hasty generalisation. 

Anyway. The music. 

It was okay. Better musically than the last Costello album, but for the most part his music has never excited that part of my brain that makes me really feel and love a tune.