Elvis Costello - This Year's Model (2CD, Remastered 2002)

Only months after his initial conquest with My Aim Is True, Elvis Costello delivered an even fiercer diatribe. His first record with the long-running Attractions, 1978's This Year's Model remains one of that blistering rock year's most indelible albums. Orwellian even when not directly alluding to the great man (a sly nod to 1984 on "Living in Paradise"), the 22-year-old and band crashed through the raging anti-party of "Pump It Up" ("When you don't really need it"), the perverted Spectorisms of "Hand in Hand," the punk manifesto "Radio, Radio," and the stylishly anti-fashion "This Year's Girl" (in the season of Suzanne Somers, no less) with no less force than the Clash. Probably his greatest, most elegantly imagined and rendered long-player. The bonus tracks on Rhino's 2002 edition include an "Alison"-style take on Costello's country ballad "Stranger in the House" and a cover of the Damned's "Neat Neat Neat," both early proof of the new king's adeptness at outfitting his sets with conceptually brilliant surprises. --Rickey Wright