This Year's Model

I hate that I actually liked this. No more Elvis, please. 3.75/5

There's a lot of Elvis Costello that I like, and some of it's here. In fact, maybe there's not a lot, just some bits here and there that I know. And like. I should work on discovery, and learn to like more. This fells like a common mantra.

Not on Apple Music. Rating based on other album.

Just a solid albam

Elvis Costello: a great album if you want to listen to the same song 14 times. I really did not find anything interesting about this album. Maybe some good background music for Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. 3.5/10.

7/10 Ha! Another Elvis Costello album - my third in little over a week. I think this has been my favourite, although generally they score a bit higher than Id like, but I'm 500+ albums in and this is way better than my 2 stars, and I would listen to it again. I just thought my 4 star albums would be better

Elvis was hugely prolific in these early years. It's one thing to be prolific but it's quite another to be prolific at such high quality. There's absolutely no filler on this album same as the album before it same as the album after it. Is personal jazz leanings mean that the musical direction is always interesting and he has a real ear for a catchy melody. The bass and drums in particular are worthy of mentioned the former being melodic the latter being punchy.

Elvis ASStello

Monday, 12 October, 2026 Loved it. Side one is stronger, but great album.

Angry smart pop songs, and the band is killer - sneering, punchy, nimble, loud. Excellent record.

Snarky, bitter, funny, astute are words that come to mind here, plus of course great songwriting chops. Punk pop avant la lettre. No Green Day without him? Arguably the 80s would have sounded very different without him either.

Number: 281 Familiarity: Extremely (5) Rating: 5 Before: ======= This will be my 2nd Elvis Costello album so far in this challenge. I expect it will get a 4, maybe 5 from me. It's not my absolute favorite one from him, but probably in the top 3. After : ======= A pretty solid 5. I don't get all the negative reviews but to each his own. I suppose it helps my appreciation for his music that I was in my late teens/early twenties during his heyday. Yeah, he has too many albums on this list but this is one I would probably keep.

A few decent songs in a sea of songs. He likes the sound of his own voice, he doesn't stop. There's no breaks.

this is fine. sure. i guess. idk. i'm just so tired of listening to another quaint little british white guy as if i have to listen to this before i die. hand-in-hand--is my record [spotify] skipping? is this more worth listening to before i die than czech disco? nope. although i think the spanish version would've been. at least it was peppy

Ikke noe for meg

Déjà écouté avant. Fermement planté à l'intersection de l'énergie adolescente du punk et des ambitions mélodiques de la new wave, Elvis Costello signe avec This Year's Model ce qui est probablement son meilleur album. Un album sans véritable tube, mais dont chaque morceau ou presque est une pépite du genre, des textes qui conjuguent frustration libidineuse et exigence "littéraire", et un backing band remarquable, The Attractions, qui suivra Costello pendant un paquet d'années, et on comprend pourquoi. Beaucoup moins connu par chez nous que de nombreux contemporains, Elvis Costello prouve sur This Year's Model qu'il est pourtant un artiste essentiel de la période la plus décisive de l'histoire du rock, celle de l'immédiat après-punk. Top : Lipstick Vogue Flop : You Belong to Me

I recognize a few of these songs by title, but otherwise have never listened to this album start-to-finish. This is good, but not great.

fever dream

Not for me

100% better than the last one they made us listen to.

It was better than the other one I suppose.

Why would a British man sing like this?

Average rock. I’ve never been to impressed with him.

favourite song: the beat

3/5

I do not know why such albums appear out there - in general it is fine, and sounds good, but nothing special honestly, one million other artists perform like this.

Don’t hate, don’t love it, it’s just pretty meh all around. The record retains a similar sound throughout that made the listening to it feel more like a chore than anything else sadly.

Objectively good songs but I got a bit tired of his voice/the vibe pretty quick and was craving something different after a few songs

Pump it up was one of my top song queues at parties some years back. Been a while since I’ve listened to the full album but i love it. Mix so dry I had to drink a glass of water. Favorite tracks: No Action, Pump it up, Lip Service

Love it. Very strong 3 or weak 4 imo. Can't believe I've never given Elvis Costello a chance before

this rocked, aside from hearing some songs in the background somewhere i hadnt really listened to it before i love dry drums!!

This kind of 70’s production is right up my alley. Good happy energy - 3,5

Enjoyed and pump it up is obviously and all time bop but felt like a lot of the song came and went without leaving much of an impression - i might revisit this album at some point and i can def hear its influence

Off the bat, I'm really not a fan of his voice. This whole album is really not my thing to be honest. I just feel that's overly loud, and I don't find myself being engaged at any point. And I mean, the lyrics are just God awful. It's really not a very interesting album. Well, so I don't really get the choice to add the rat sound effects on that one track, who decided that was the correct decision. Fav Track: Lip Service

This Elvis sucks

This album is from 1978?? Gah!! Still sounds fresh and new-wavey. It's obvious how influential Elcis Costello was to bands that followed.

Never someone I had listed to in detail before. Had always enjoyed his singles and he has a great voice but it's not an album that really grabbed me.

Elvis Costello was my first concert. I loved it, and yet I never really explored his catalog. This album was phenomenal from start to finish. The 70's protopunk sound gets honed on this record. Costello's vocals shine with emotion, while his lyrics are brutally honest. I love the sound captured on this album.

This is the first Elvis Costello album I've gotten and it's pretty good, it's like what if Mick Jagger was a hipster who discovered the synth. That's Elvis Costello folks. It's very funny that Radio Radio was the song that pissed off Lorne Michaels so much that he was banned from SNL for years.

Does there need to be 5+ Costello albums?

Elvis Costello ain't exactly a musician I'm particularly fond of, but I respect what he tries to do. This album, albeit not as remarkable as his debut, is slightly better than My Aim is True, and I personally prefer his Power-Pop/ Punk Rock direction

An EXTREMELY 3/5 album, Hand in Hand & Radio Radio probably the highlights. Good music without being top tier

this is the closest thing to an Elvis Costello album that actually belongs on this list, and it's still got this kind of nerdcore misogyny grease to it that prevents me from putting in the effort to enjoy his weak (but interesting) vocals. I'd have a more positive opinion if this wasn't one of something like six Elvis Costello albums we have to sit through because even at his peak he's just ok.

Why are there so many of this dude's album on this list holy balls. His voice is annoying and every song sounds the same.

Favorite Track: Radio Radio

It was aight

Nothing good or bad here, which I guess is pretty good for Elvis Costello

3.5

nun ja, nix für mich

Some songs I love, some I hate, and I can learn to ignore what I hate.

*This Year’s Model* makes *My Aim Is True* feel tentative. Not bad, not half-formed, not a false start. The songs, intelligence and irritation were already there. But the debut now feels like Costello discovering what he could say, whereas this is the record on which he discovers exactly how he wants the saying of it to sound. The Attractions do not merely accompany the persona; they authenticate it. The sneer is no longer confined to Costello’s voice. It gets into the drums, the bass, Steve Nieve’s cheap-sounding organ, the arrangements, the production and even the way the record seems determined to occupy the least luxurious part of the frequency spectrum. It is a brilliantly impolite album. That quality is there immediately in “No Action”. The thing is almost over before there has been time to settle into it. A burst of frustration, bile and impatience, delivered with no interest in making grievance attractive. What struck me first was the sound: hard upper mids, treble, very little warmth, almost as though the whole band had been pushed through a cheap chorus pedal. Given that the lyric itself is frustrated by telephone communication, the record even has the peculiar effect of sounding as though it is coming down the very line that is causing the problem. That cheapness is important because it is obviously not simply what recording sounded like in 1978. Records could sound enormous by then. This feels chosen. It is not lo-fi through lack of means; it is de-glamourised by intent. The Attractions repeatedly make cheap materials sound magnificent. Steve Nieve sometimes appears to be playing a Bontempi organ someone bought him for Christmas. The guitar can sound wiry and tinny. The drums are often more attack than bloom. Yet the playing itself is frighteningly controlled. Cheap materials, expensive judgement. That becomes one of the record’s great pleasures. Costello is allowed to sound breathless, splenetic and permanently close to being overtaken by his own thoughts because the band beneath him is so secure. Their trick is tightness masquerading as loss of control. “This Year’s Girl” immediately alters the gait. After the clipped aggression of the opener, it lopes. The song is still barbed, but more observationally so. What interested me was the title itself: “this year’s girl” already contains the expiry date. The woman is converted into an image, looked at, desired, imaginatively possessed, culturally packaged and therefore made replaceable. She is intensely visible and barely seen. That idea of people becoming models, versions and commodities turns out to matter beyond that one song. “The Beat” begins by vandalising wholesome British pop memory with “We’re all going on a summer holiday”, then immediately drops us into the mind of a narrator who appears to regard himself as Public Enemy Number One. Authority, sex, masculinity, judgement and social expectation all seem to be pressing in on him. But the bravado feels unstable. Underneath it is adolescent uncertainty: not knowing quite what the rules are, while insisting loudly that the rules are absurd anyway. That instability is important. Costello’s narrators are not simply confident cynics dispensing epigrams. They often sound like people using verbal aggression to get ahead of uncertainty. “Pump It Up” is the clearest version of that. It is a gorgeous verbose delight, with the torrent of language sitting over something much more brutally economical underneath. The debt to “Subterranean Homesick Blues” is obvious enough to be beside the point. The attraction is what happens when that model is redirected into nightlife nihilism: drink, noise, sex, bodies, stimulus, repetition, more stimulus, as though stopping for a second might expose the emptiness at the centre. I remembered it as a song that stomped out of the radio, and hearing it again made that memory entirely plausible. The hard, mid-heavy production, blunt bass, sharp snare and plasticky organ all survive a small speaker beautifully. Nieve’s organ is almost comic in isolation, like a toy instrument with malicious intent. In context it is perfect. “Little Triggers” changes the emotional temperature. What mattered to me here was understanding the title not as provocations but as tiny cues of affection. The little involuntary signs that appear when people are first together and that are small enough to be almost beneath notice until they stop happening. That is the sadness of the song. Nothing theatrical necessarily has to have occurred. There need not be a betrayal. She is simply no longer trying in the same way. The narrator notices the absence of the small proofs that once arrived without effort. That introduces another thread running through the album: signals and whether they can be trusted. Telephone communication. Public images. Sexual cues. Little private gestures. Words. Broadcast signals. Eventually political speech. “You Belong to Me” throws itself backwards into the mid-Sixties, pure Stones in spirit, but with an even more gorgeously shitty little garage-rock sound: tinny, nasty, immediate. The title sounds possessive, yet what I heard was closer to a plea for sexual freedom in a buttoned-up situation. Stop letting convention tell you what you are allowed to want. Stop pretending you do not want what you clearly want. The musical ugliness helps. Desire is not presented as noble liberation. It is grubby, impatient and physical. Side two begins by knocking the record slightly out of alignment. “Hand in Hand” arrives through feedback, drone, something almost didgeridoo-like, and backwards vocal material. More importantly, the emotional posture shifts. After so much accusation and suspicion, the narrator suddenly seems to be telling the person he loves that whatever has happened, they are going to face it together. That feels unusually generous for this record. The abrasiveness remains, but for once it is protective rather than attacking. Then “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea” arrives with Pete Thomas producing a wonderful fill that feels like backwards ska drumming, and the whole track slips into this clipped, syncopated, slightly off-axis groove. What I ended up hearing in it was the nightmare contained inside success. If you have something you want to say, you need an audience. But an audience does not arrive alone. It brings fashion, scenes, photographers, expectations, industry, packaging and image. That brings “This Year’s Girl” back in from another direction. Costello is not only observing the way women become this year’s consumable model. He is becoming aware that he can be processed by the same machine. He is the replacement for last year’s model. New face, new sound, new product. Temporarily desirable because he is new. The nightmare is not simply celebrity. It is becoming legible to the market. His delivery is perfect for that: breathless, splenetic, lips practically curled around the words. He does not sound like somebody calmly theorising about commodification. He sounds like somebody objecting while the machinery is already trying to move him along. “Lip Service” then turns the Attractions into the Rutles. Costello becomes Ron Nasty. The song has the bright mid-Sixties British beat-group bounce, the pleasant chassis, the sense that everyone ought to be smiling for the camera. Except Ron Nasty is on the run, surrounded by insincerity and demanding commitment from the object of his affections. Words are being offered, but he does not trust them. That makes it another song about unreliable signals. “Little Triggers” mourns the disappearance of genuine cues. “Lip Service” suspects that the cues still being offered may be counterfeit. And then it ends on a sixth chord. Fab gear. “Living in Paradise” continues the album’s habit of poisoning familiar musical forms from within. Bright, skippy pub-rock reggae, but the narrator does not trust the comfort for a second. Paradise is not fulfilment here. It is anaesthetic. The comfortable life will rot you in the end. The music skips; the mind twitches. Then “Lipstick Vogue” seems to detonate. Pete Thomas sounds as though he is chasing the song down the road with a stick. Costello has to spit the words fast enough simply to remain attached to it. The band is hellishly good. The emotional content is less triumphant than the playing. What I heard was imperfection in love, compromise, settling for second best and the frustration of discovering that second best feels exactly like second best. Love does not arrive as fulfilment but as accommodation, disappointment, projection and resentment. Again, the Attractions keep the emotional instability from becoming musical instability. They are completely in control while the narrator sounds as if he is not. And then “Night Rally” changes the scale of the whole record. For almost everything before it, the album has been caught up in the personal: sex, love, jealousy, sincerity, image, fame, comfort, possession. “Night Rally” slows down, becomes portentous, and suddenly the paranoia is political. The song is about the prospect of totalitarianism, but what interested me most was not simply the warning about fascism. It was the transition from appetite to obligation. You start by wanting the rhetoric. You start by wanting to say the thing. You start by wanting to attend the rally. How long before you have to run to it? That produced the thought which, for me, became the centre of the song: Totalitarianism is when what you think you want to say becomes what you have to say. The most frightening form of control is not simply censorship. It is the capture of expression itself. The system does not merely stop you speaking. It recruits your voice. The ending makes that idea physical. After an album of extraordinary control, “Night Rally” begins to blur. Voices and instruments smear. The shape becomes confused and dreamlike. It feels like a nightmare losing definition. Then it simply stops. No resolution. No aftermath. No reassuring return to ordinary life. The nightmare is not solved; the projector is switched off. That makes it a remarkable ending, and it also throws light back across the rest of the album. All those earlier concerns with signals, ownership, images, models, sincerity and control no longer seem entirely separate from the political conclusion. Who defines you? Who owns the image? Who decides whether a signal is genuine? Who gets to tell you what the words mean? Who controls what can be said? The album begins with private grievance and ends with the possibility of public coercion. What I still cannot decide is whether the lyricism or the sneer matters more. Costello’s writing is dense, funny, allusive and often deliberately slippery. But without the sneer, there is a risk that all that verbal dexterity becomes merely clever. Equally, without the writing, the sneer risks becoming attitude without enough behind it. Here they authenticate each other. The lyricism gives the sneer precision. The sneer gives the lyricism force. The Attractions make both of them bodily. That is why *My Aim Is True* now feels tentative beside it. The debut introduced the intelligence and persona. *This Year’s Model* is the first record on which the whole system speaks in the same voice. It is barbed, nasty, funny, insecure, paranoid, politically alert and enormously pleasurable. This is the first fully authenticated Elvis Costello sneer.

This Year's Model - Elvis Costello & The Attractions (1978) So today I get my first Elvis Costello album (and I heard there were a good lot of them on this list). I had never listened to him very seriously before, so this is kinda new to me, though I already knew Pump It Up, the hit of this album. So far I enjoyed it very much. I loved the groove, the overall New Wave touch on it, carried by that keyboard (which is also a nice reminder of 60s Rock). Favorite tracks: This Year's Girl, The Beat, You Belong To Me, Night Rally. Least favorite track: Lip Service (too classic). The only thing that is kind of a damper to me is Costello's delivery at times. On the full lenght of a song it starts becoming very annoying, but it was no major turn off to me either. Listening to this a second time it's already less bothering. Maybe this guy will grow on me and soon I'll be wondering why I had been listening to Phil Collins for years instead of him lol. See you the next time I get him I guess. Meanwhile I'll listen to this one again. 8.5/10 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ P.S: I also liked the two bonus tracks ;)

I liked it! Was a little distracted during listening, unfortunately.

Not my thing

Goodness we’ve had a lot of EC on this list. I mean a lot. Is there more to come? 😬 Can’t say I’m a huge fan. I think other albums were 3ish and maybe one 2. With that said, I must give credit where it’s due. First few songs were quite good and fairly consistent throughout the album. I thought Lip Service sounded a lot like This Year’s girl but whatever. Fun songs. Good pace. 3.75

I know two songs on here: Pump It Up & Radio Radio. Pump is probably Costello's most popular song. I think it sounds timeless, like you can't quite place the year. It could be late 80s or early 90s. No, late 70s!? Radio, Radio I know because it got Elvis banned from Saturday Night Live. Costello was the third choice to replace the Sex Pistols on the show. Elvis agreed to play two songs. He didn't agree with playing Less Than Zero. He played the first two bars & said he couldn't play it. Played Radio Radio instead. With angry Lorne Michaels, SNL producer, giving him the finger throughout the entire performance. Note: somehow Spotify mixed the Spanish version of some songs for some reason. lol. There is a Spanish Model album. I swear I clicked the English version. Pump it Up & Radio Radio en Espanol. 3

Interesante, pero no sé qué le ven a Elvis Costelo

Bra och trevligt album som inte har några överraskningar åt något håll.

Hey, my first Elvis Costello of the project! This one, at least, belongs here. I love Pump it Up, obviously. It reminds me of PCU. And the rest of the album is great, too.

this is not really my type of music but once i opened my heart to it it wasn't bad! i'm not even being funny but i genuinely feel like i would like this vibe better if i was a man. not bad tho. 3.25/5?

3.7 idk. i really cant push it to 4 though

I liked it and hated it at the same time. Rounding up from a 2.5/5.

Elvis Costello showed up again surprisingly quickly after My Aim Is True, but This Year’s Model immediately showed me why both albums made the list. The biggest difference for me was the Attractions. From “No Action” onward, the music felt fuller and more energetic than Costello’s debut. The band also kept things interesting throughout the album. The backing vocals on “The Beat,” the change of pace with “Little Triggers,” the quirky sound of “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea,” and the bass and drums getting their moments on “Lipstick Vogue” all helped give the songs their own identities. “Pump It Up” was especially fun because I immediately heard similarities to the Escape Club’s “Wild, Wild West,” particularly in the rhythm and vocal cadence. I had no idea that comparison had been made before, so discovering that connection during a blind listen was a fun surprise. What impressed me most was the album’s consistency without becoming repetitive. Songs like “Living in Paradise” could get quirky while still sounding unmistakably like Elvis Costello. Even late in the album, “Night Rally,” “Big Tears,” and “Radio, Radio” kept things moving, with “Radio, Radio” providing a great finish. I gave My Aim Is True 3½ stars, and this is clearly the stronger album for me. But This Year’s Model didn’t get four stars simply because I liked it better than the debut. It earned them on its own.

No es mi estilo para nada pump it up canta en español pero los lyrics son en ingles? muy loco todo

Mid

I don't understand Dimery's infatuation with Elvis Costello. It feels like this album has a narrow appeal to a dislikeable subset of people. The songwriting is decent, and the music is also listenable, if a bit repetetive. However, Costello's singing is snarky and arrogant, both in inflection and content. That nasal drawl is like nails on a chalkboard. The use of the combo organ is way overdone too, and the quasi-quirky instrumentation bullshit drove me insane. 2 Costello's down, 4 more to go. I no longer fear death. 4/10 Favorites: - The Beat - Pump It Up Dishonorable mention: - Living in Paradise

Better than the last Elvis Costello album we had but still not great. This had a bit more influence on the music world and the song writing was more consistent and concise, but I just don’t find Elvis that interesting even if he makes listenable music. Favorite songs: -The Beat -Pump it Up -Lipstick Vogue Rating 6/10

A voz dele não me prende nada

The album wasn’t as good as my other Elvis Costello album I had There’s a handful of standout tracks but nothing is crazy impressive here Favorites: pump it up, you belong to me, lip service, I don’t want to go to Chelsea 2.5 or 3/5

I uhhh,,, don't like this

Some are okay but didn’t enjoy as a whole

Pump it up

One of the best at what it is; pop music from an era before pure vapidness. Back when the bass got it's own runs instead of just following the guitar. There's no better Elvis in music.

I always loved Elvis Costello. He had a unique vocal style and quirky songwriting that I enjoyed.

I’m glad this project is making me revisit a bunch of albums I’ve already heard, because wow, I appreciate this a lot more now. Oozes cool from every pore. Costello isn’t a traditionally good singer, but when has that ever mattered? Awesome.

This is corny AF. Sounds like the music your parents throw at a party when they were young ,and not the good kind . 2.5/5.

Favorite Song: (I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea Least Favorite: Big Tears

In Library

Outro trabalho bem nichado.. parece um pop wave de jornalista/escritorio. Por algum motivo eu consigo ver esse tipo de música tocando em trilha sonora de um The Office da vida, mesmo sem fazer muito sentido. Não é algo pra mim.. musicalmente e esteticamente falando tá bem longe de algo que me atrai. Parece um tipo de música que dá pra sentir o cheiro de mofo de tão velho e datado.

Ok

Можливо після того як прочитав в книзі про 2 tone, що Костелло зпродюсував видатний дебютний альбом The Specials в мене думка про нього десь на підсвідомості змінилася на краще. Або цей альбом просто кращий порівняно з тим, де слони на обкладинці. Вистачає хороший пісень, цікава гітара багато де, досить хітові шматки є. Мені все ще не дуже імпонує його подача в багатьох місцях, але й вже так вухо сильно не ріже. Такий приємний павер-поп/рок альбомчик

"Елвіс Костелло це загадка для мене. Багато разів я намагався слухати, але так і не зміг зрозуміти прикол цієї музики. Звісно ж це не є поганий альбом або щось таке, але і зрозуміти в чому суть я не можу." [3] Але тут мені сподобалась пісня Lipstick Vogue

I can see how it influenced alt rock, but personally not my vibe

Just not the vibe

It would be hard for me to justify four Elvis Costello albums on a list of a mere 1001 that I MUST hear before I die (especially when that list includes ZERO albums by his equally eclectic fellow Rock and Roll Hall of Famer contemporary Warren Zevon!), but I would absolutely include THIS album. This is Elvis at his lyrically sharpest and musically most straightforward. If you've never heard a Costello album, you're in for a treat. If you're not new to the E.C. game, you pretty much already know what to expect here. Enjoy!

2,5

Can't deny that there are some fantastic catchy hooks on this record, and for the most part it's a fun listen. Pump It Up is the obvious highlight, but there are 3-4 other tracks that feel memorable & very well put together. The record just feels like it's missing something for me though - almost like it needs a little more variety or a bit more soul in the delivery. I'll go for a 7/10 - a good listen, really fun in parts, but somehow still lacking for a higher score.

“What a loss to spend that much time with someone, only to find out that she's a stranger.” Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Elvis Costello just isn’t for me, but of all his albums from 1001, this is probably the one I’d pick as the one I disliked the least. Doesn’t overstay its welcome, enjoyed the music itself, just don’t care for Costello’s voice

Standouts Pump It Up Lipstick Vogue

Elvis’s 2nd album and a rapid crystallization of the Attractions’ chainsaws-on-springs guitar sound. EC’s lyrics sharpen into Pump It Up and …Chelsea, along with Night Rally, an underrated number that predicts ICE, and how not taking fascism seriously led to their normalization.

i really liked little triggers, giving it a high score just for that

What a unique artist with unique style. Also great lyrics.

Couldn’t get through the whole thing

Costello's wordplay and delivery are always great but love the frantic nervous energy The Attractions bring. Lot of classic rock and roll, new wave, two-tone, and only a distortion pedal away from being pop punk.

It's 3.5

Costello just keeps growing on me. This album is really cool. Was impartial to it on my first listen but the almost laiz e fair instrumentals complement the lyrics so well.

Elvis takes the funk to the punks and writes better songs than Bowie

Great album

When New Wave was created, there was great rejoicing. And from the Beginning, Elvis Costello was there… singing, playing, throwing his punches. This is the second of his first two excellent, energetic albums. Just a lot of fun, with attitude. Costello would go on to widen his sound and deepen his lyrics on future albums, but the origins here are tremendous. Actually a round up to 5, since there’s a slight fade near the end.