Elvis Costello
My Aim Is True (Ryko)
It's astonishing to think that Elvis Costello recorded My Aim
Is True in 24 stitched-together hours of downtime from his day
job as a computer programmer. Considered one of the best debuts
of all time, My Aim Is True introduced the erudite, bespectacled
singer-songwriter from Liverpool and established him as a new
talent with a literate, caustic voice and an ample musical vocabulary.
But Costello was more than a silver-tongued scalawag with a guitar.
His anti-establishment views and the sheer passion with which
he often delivered them led to his being labeled a punk, probably
due to this album's 1977 release date coinciding with the height
of the first punk movement. But Costello was a punk and still
is in the very broadest sense of the word -- he once said that
he aims to be a true irritant. And while his music could never
be compared to chalk screeching along a blackboard or a fork scraping
the surface of a plate, it does have a rousing uneasiness about
it.
An artist who didn't try to pretty up the finished product like
so many of the '70s singer-songwriters, Costello clearly had no
formal vocal training to flex on his debut. No matter -- the raw,
unhinged quality in his voice perfectly articulated the jagged
emotions running through the songs. This is deftly displayed on
the now-ubiquitous "Alison," which shows Costello already
settled into his role as the earnest, but unsentimental romantic.
He was also already humoring us with his sardonic wit on the modern,
tarty, pop classic "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes."
Recorded with the backing of the West Coast bar band Clover (which
also, improbably, backed Huey Lewis), My Aim Is True draws on
the sounds of Tin Pan Alley, Nashville, and most of the rock-and-roll
era. "No Dancing" owes its "Leader of the Pack"-style
beat to the Shangri-Las, and its retro feel to Brill Building
pop in general. And "Watching the Detectives" bravely
flaunts its reggae roots.
After the success of My Aim Is True, Costello lost the bar band
and assembled the Attractions for his follow-up, This Year's Model,
which captured the vigor, but not the rough spontaneity of his
debut.
Michelle Kleinsak