There was a Checkpoint Charlie - he didn't crack a smile

Continuing my trip back through the 1979 album charts.

22/04/79 : Armed Forces - Elvis Costello And The Attractions

Our fifth visit with Elvis C (a mere X visits behind Elvis P) and I didn't particularly like his '78 offering, but I've never listened to this and I know it's highly regarded, so I'm interested to see what I think of it.

And we're straight into "Accidents Will Happen" which somehow manages to start more abruptly than most tracks do, so the album already feels very "in your face". It also includes "Olivers Army" which is one of the few singles from the time that I remember loving - it's just so catchy. The only other track I recognised was "Green Shirt" but, on first listen, this sounded like a pretty decent album and well worth a few more listens with none of the tracks hanging around for too long (the longest is 3:33). It's somehow managed to have have clever lyrics without them being overly intricate and it's also got a lot more variety than I was expecting. "Goon Squad" sounds surprisingly Thin Lizzy, but better than most of their stuff that we've had to endure and "Sunday's Best" is a waltz, which I certainly wasn't expecting. All in all, this is a very decent offering which I liked and can imagine plenty of people absolutely loving it back in the day and still revisiting with very fond memories.

We're at #14 in the charts this week on its fifteenth week of a 27 week run, with it peaking at #2 in its first three weeks, kept off the top by a compilation called Don't Walk - Boogie. The top five this week were best-ofs from Leo Sayer and Barbra Streisand, the Country Life compilation, Chic and Bee Gees and the highest new entry was The Rezillos (#44) who were a Scottish new-wave/punk band who I don't remember in the slightest!

Wikipedia has loads on the album (328 milliPeppers) and it tells us it's his third album, their second and the first to namecheck The Attractions - until the last minute it was going to be called Emotional Fascism, but that feels a bit heavy to me. There's quite a lot on various aspects of the album, but the most fascinating thing for me was that Elvis was in an on-off relationship with Bebe Buell at the time - she's famous for her various "relationships" and they've generally been with much more famous US musicians. It also gives us a track-by-track breakdown of the album - both the album and the entry really have had a lot of effort put into them!

Critically, the album was very well received wtih Smash Hits giving it 8/10 and even our old mate Robert Christgau being nice about it - retrospectively, it's viewed as one of his most important albums. Commercially it did much better away from these shores than you might expect, getting to #8 in Canada, #9 in Australia and New Zealand and #10 in the US - it feels a very "English language" kind of album. However, the US tour to support the album did NOT go well - if you're not aware his comments to Stephen Stills then you've got quite the story to Google (it's amazing they ever let him back in the country). 

discogs.com tells us you can pick up a decent version for four quid but if you want the original pressing with the fold-out sleeve and the four postcards, then it'll set you back £150 - which actually doesn't seem that bad when you think how rare it must be that people held on to the postcards. I liked this album because it's got a load of good tracks on it with a decent amount of variety and feels perfectly of its time but hasn't dated - it's another one that deserves further listens.

15/04/79 - Much better than expected
29/04/79 - More than the sum of its parts