As for the sonic leaps and bounds from 1978's This Year’s Model, Costello, after stating that this textured progress seemed to be the case, demurs a bit, saying that “listening now there are very few production devices that sit between the listener and the songs. The confidence and cohesion of The Attractions’ playing is the product of 12 months of intense touring. The sessions were not without dissent and tension, but we probably never had quite this level of consistent musical agreement again.” You're fantastic, you're terrific...
...You're excellence is almost scientific. Not that we're going to get further past the post-1979 mark to find out, even with these particular 2002 liner notes. Who put those fingerprints on your imagination? No, you simply turn the page and come to some more words, some other words: “Oh I just don’t know where to begin…”
Seems like we’ve already made a good start, and covered a lot of ground...
Article comments
1 - Josh Hathaway
Fantastic work as always, Gordon.
2 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
Thanks Josh, appreciate it.
3 - Glen Boyd
I met Nick Lowe right around the time him and EC were recording this album, and Lowe told me at the time he was trying to make EC's "Abba" album. The density of the recording, along with the abundance of pop hooks on Armed Forces almost bares that out. Great read Gordon.
-Glen
4 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
Thanks Glen: I'd take that as gospel. There isn't anything in the way of pure pop that the jesus of cool doesn't know. GH
5 - JC Mosquito
I assumme we're working up to Get Happy! directly.
I was never a big fan of This Year's Model or Armed Forces. I allways felt there was something calculated about both of them, like EC was trying too hard to convince everyone he was both clever and angry. I preferred his outtakes from these sessions, maany of which ended up on Taking Liberties - his writing felt more natural to me. And Get Happy for me was exactly his most perfect moment - clever, funny, angry & sensitive all at the same time. Oh - and it rocked, too.
6 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
"Get Happy," JC? Got Happy almost a year ago in these pages. And as much as "Get Happy" is in my top 5 EC albums, your case of it being "clever" could almost be too much of a good thing, with Costello resorting to clever wordplay for the sake of resorting to clever wordplay:
"You lack lust, you're so lackluster..."
So fond of the fabric
So fond of fabrication...
"...she knows the kind of tip that she is gonna get
A lot of loose exchanges..."
7 - JC Mosquito
Ah, yes... I see Vern Halen's name amongst the comments - he must've forgot to mention that he read your article when he vacated his position here on bc and left it to me. In any case, on reflection, I think it's the unmistakeable British contexts that made TYM & AF hard for me to identify with, whereas the American r & b flavour of GH! made EC's English social landscapes easier to understand in context.
8 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
I know that EC intentionally went after a Motown and R&B sound for "Get Happy," but it seems forced to see a promotion of its "American r & b flavour" with a UK spelling. (Yes, I know "flavour" in this case is really Canadian, but still...)
9 - JC Mosquito
'Sfunny - I actually thought about that spelling as I was typing that. I decided to leave it in good ol' Canuckistani in honour of the NHL playoffs, where many products of Canada's junior hockey program get to compete for Lord Stanley's mug with some Americans and nowadays a whole schwack of Europeans, in mostly American centres for msotly American dollars.
Ah - who'm I kidding? I'm just irked that I couldn't say EC made a Canadian r&b album.