He combined sneering punk cynicism with the sensibilities of a 50s Buddy Holly lookalike with killer tunes. Some of the lyrics don’t quite hold up in retrospect - he did have a habit of throwing in lines like ‘They call her Natasha when she looks like Elsie’ which come across as misogynistic and stop this from being a five star album for me. Pump it Up and Radio, Radio are the real bangers here with a special mention to the utterly thrilling keyboards of Steve Nieve.
Monday, June 01, 2026
This Year's Model by Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Elvis Costello’s debut album My Aim is True was a solid start, but it was on this one where he recruited The Attractions as a backing band that he really knocked it out of the park. This came out in 1978 at the tail end of punk in the UK and was one of the first examples of what would be termed New Wave, although most of the songs were written in 1977.
He combined sneering punk cynicism with the sensibilities of a 50s Buddy Holly lookalike with killer tunes. Some of the lyrics don’t quite hold up in retrospect - he did have a habit of throwing in lines like ‘They call her Natasha when she looks like Elsie’ which come across as misogynistic and stop this from being a five star album for me. Pump it Up and Radio, Radio are the real bangers here with a special mention to the utterly thrilling keyboards of Steve Nieve.
He combined sneering punk cynicism with the sensibilities of a 50s Buddy Holly lookalike with killer tunes. Some of the lyrics don’t quite hold up in retrospect - he did have a habit of throwing in lines like ‘They call her Natasha when she looks like Elsie’ which come across as misogynistic and stop this from being a five star album for me. Pump it Up and Radio, Radio are the real bangers here with a special mention to the utterly thrilling keyboards of Steve Nieve.
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