Elvis Costello released second album, This Year's Model, with the Attractions

This Year’s Model Elvis Costello

Released: March 17, 1978 Peak: 30 US, 4 UK, 26 CN, 21 AU Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 0.5 US, 0.1 UK, 0.6 world (includes US + UK) Genre: new wave

Tracks: Click on a song title for more details. No Action This Year’s Girl The Beat Pump It Up Little Triggers You Belong to Me Hand in Hand I Don’t Want to Go to Chelsea * Lip Service Living in Paradise Lipstick Vogue Night Rally * Radio Radio ** * U.K. version only ** U.S. version only Other Songs from This Era: Big Tears Tiny Steps Stranger in the House (with George Jones) The Players: Elvis Costello (vocals, guitar) Steve Nieve (keyboards) Bruce Thomas (bass) Pete Thomas (drums)

Rating: 4.428 out of 5.00 (average of 27 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

From Clovers to Attractions On his debut album, My Aim Is True, Elvis Costello employed the San Francisco-based band the Clovers, who worked with Huey Lewis. They gave the album an appropriately pub-band feel, but it took a new lineup – the Attractions – to provide Costello the “perfect creative foils” BL he needed. The Attractions were an “ad hoc band Costello had assembled for a tour.” BL They “were considerably tougher and wilder than Clover.” AM “Keyboard player Steve Nason aka Nieve was a teenage student at the Royal Academy of Music, while bassist Bruce Thomas and drummer Pete Thomas were unrelated jobbing musicians. It proved a devastatingly potent combination.” CM When he brought them into the studio, they gave Costello’s second album, This Year’s Model, “a reckless, careening feel. It’s nervous, amphetamine-fueled, nearly paranoid music.” AM The Attractions “sounds like they’re spinning out of control as soon as they crash in on the brief opener, No Action, and they never get completely back on track, even on the slower numbers.” AM “They made a New Wave breakthrough, propelled by the frothing skinny-tie attack of Steve Nieve’s organ.” BL “His use of organ here was the most non-cheezy utilization of that (admittedly often cheezy) instrument since Manzarek’s psych embroideries in the Doors.” JSH He was “the real key to the success…and what made it such a stark contrast betwixt it n’ its predecessor.” JSH This was what New Musical Express’ Nick Kent called “uneasy listening.” CM “Costello and the Attractions never rocked this hard, or this vengefully, ever again.” AM Recording The album was recorded at Eden studios in London RD “in a total of 11 days and was squeezed between constant touring across the UK and the US on a diet of alcohol and speed, while Costello’s marriage was crumbling around him.” CM Costello described the album as “a ghost version of [the Rolling Stones’] Aftermath, the album to which I listened to more than any other at this time.” CM More Punk Than His Debut With My Aim Is True, Costello “was anointed the premier lyricist of whatever-the-hell-was-happening-these-days. He appeared to be a punk rocker the music establishment could understand.” “Where My Aim Is True implied punk rock with its lyrics and stripped-down production, This Year’s Model sounds like punk. Not that Elvis Costello’s songwriting has changed – This Year’s Model is comprised largely of leftovers from My Aim Is True and songs written on the road. It’s the music that changed.” AM “Costello and the Attractions speed through This Year’s Model at a blinding pace, which gives his songs – which were already meaner than the set on My Aim Is True – a nastier edge.” AM The album offers “pumped-up ‘60s sounds from across the spectrum, performances slick and sharp as you like – but it’s all at the service of writing and singing that turn pop music into an acid bath.” MJ Seething Songs “Of course, the songs on This Year’s Model are typically catchy and help the vicious sentiments sink into your skin.” AM “The songs are terse, snarky disembowelments of romantic clichés – Costello described the record as ‘more vicious overall’ than My Aim Is True, which is saying something.” BL “Elvis found his acidic groove. This wasn’t acidic as in Randy Newman acidic or Zappa acidic or even Johnny Rotten acidic…it was more overtly sexual than any of them.” JSH Costello said, “I was rapidly becoming a not very nice person. I was losing track of what I was doing, why I was doing it, and my own control.” CM He said, “the only motivation points for me writing all these songs are revenge and guilt…Love? I dunno know what it means, really, and it doesn’t exist in my songs.” CM “The heart’s ugliness, all the hate and harm, the cruelty and betrayal, are fair game.” RD “Revenge and guilt might scare off other songwriters, but among the anger and disgust Costello finds his truth.” RD Lipstick Vogue , Pump It Up, and I Don’t Want to Go to Chelsea are all underscored with sexual menace.” AM There does seem to be a hint o’ misogyny…but it’s of the non-smarmy variety.” JSH Nearly “every track seethes with love unrealized, longing frustrated, decent human qualities twisted by rejection and jealousy. Whether the object of this pent-up humiliation is a distant beauty (This Year’s Girl and I Don’t Want to Go to Chelsea) or a former lover…Costello’s relentless consistency of tone enthralls like a snake.” MJ He delivers “venom-dipped darts that he projects at just about everybody—women, managers, other musical contemporaries, and music biz smoothies of every description.” JSH “Even the songs that sound relatively lighthearted – Hand in Hand, Little Triggers, Lip Service, Living in Paradise – are all edgy, thanks to Costello’s breathless vocals, Steve Nieve’s carnival-esque organ riffs, and Nick Lowe’s bare-bones production.” AM Notes “The 1993 CD reissue standardized the sequencing of This Year’s Model on both sides of the Atlantic, restoring the album to its original British running order and adding six bonus tracks. The first three tracks are singles and B-sides, including the classic rant ‘Radio, Radio,’ the organ-driven ‘60s pop of ‘Big Tears,’ and the frenetic ‘Crawling to the USA.’ The remaining three tracks – ‘Running Out of Angels,’ ‘Greenshirt,’ and ‘Big Boys’ — are all demos.” AM On the 2002 double-CD reissue, another seven songs were added – alternate versions of “You Belong to Me,” “Radio Radio,” “This Year’s Girl,” and “I Don’t Want to Go to Chelsea” as well as the song “Stranger in the House” and the live covers “Neat Neat Neat” and “Roadette Song.” The Songs Here’s a breakdown of each of the individual songs.

No Action Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: This Year’s Model (1978) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 3.21 streaming

This Year’s Girl Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: 3/17/1978 (single), This Year’s Model (1978), Girls Girls Girls (compilation, 1989) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 4.27 streaming

The Beat Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: This Year’s Model (1978) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 7.82 streaming About the Song: “The choppy ‘The Beat’ sees [Costello] wrestling with the guilt of a meaningless nightclub encounter.” RD

Pump It Up Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: 6/10/1978 (single), This Year’s Model (1978), Best of (compilation, 1985), Girls Girls Girls (compilation, 1989), Very Best (compilation, 1994), Best of the First 10 Years (compilation, 2007) Peak: 6 CL, 2 CO, 24 UK, 13 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 77.77 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: The last song written for This Year’s Model was “the monster beatfest ‘Pump It Up,’ which was cut in one take.” CM It is “a raucous crystallization of Costello’s new sound that’s driven by Steve Nieve’s monotonous organ and Pet Thomas’s snare-heavy backbeat.” TB In true Costello style, the punchy, catchy tune is topped by a barbed lyric about the perils of rock ‘n’ roll decadence, written in late 1977 while he was on tour with Stiff label-mates Ian Dury and the Damned.” TB According to Costello it questions ‘Just how much you can fuck, how many drugs can you do, before you get so numb you can’t really feel anything.’” CM The song’s “woozy stomp reflects the desperate and frantic rush of an evening of ‘assisted insomnia,’ as Costello euphemistically puts it.” RD Bob Dylan said, “It’s the song you sing when you’ve reached the boiling point. Tense and uneasy…The one-two punch, the uppercut, and the wallop.” This song “comes to you with a lowdown dirty look, exaggerates and amplifies itself until you can flesh it out and it suits your mood.” BD “Most of Costello’s singles, ‘Pump It Up,’ included, were not issued in the U.S.” TB but this has still become one of “the best-loved of his early new-wave hits.” TB It also says something about Costello’s appeal that despite the lack of success for singles in the U.S., “their parent albums invariably reached the Billboard Top 30 – no mean feat for such an idiosyncratically British artist.” TB

Little Triggers Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: This Year’s Model (1978) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 1.42 streaming

You Belong to Me Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: 3/3/1978 (B-side of “I Don’t Want to Go to Chelsea”), This Year’s Model (1978) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 1.42 streaming

Hand in Hand Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: This Year’s Model (1978) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 1.20 streaming

I Don’t Want to Go to Chelsea Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: 3/3/1978 (single), This Year’s Model (UK version, 1978), Taking Liberties (archives, 1980), Girls Girls Girls (compilation, 1989), Very Best (compilation, 1994), Best of the First 10 Years (compilation, 2007) Peak: 27 CL, 10 CO, 16 UK, 22 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 10.52 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: “The icily staccato ‘I Don’t Want to Go to Chelsea’ sees Costello tearing into self-indulgent posers.” RD It is “a miraculous mash of high fashion, low life, lunacy and lechery – just like Chelsea itself.” DT Costelo said the song “originally used the same stop-start guitar figure as the Who’s ‘I Can’t Explain (or for that matter the Clash’s ‘Clash City Rockers). Bruce and Pete came up with a more syncopated rhythm pattern and Steve found a part that sounded like sirens.” CM “Pete Thomas pounded up a storm on ‘Chelsea’ with its spastic reggae and staccato guitar as Costello spat out lyrics like ‘They call her Natasha when she looks like Elsie’ – a putdown worthy of Dylan.” CM

Lip Service Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: This Year’s Model (1978) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 1.41 streaming

Living in Paradise Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: This Year’s Model (1978) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 1.24 streaming

Lipstick Vogue Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: This Year’s Model (1978), Girls Girls Girls (compilation, 1989) Peak: 13 CO Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 2.13 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: “The raging ‘Lipstick Vogue’ is hypnotic, as Pete Thomas’ athletic drumming shakes the whole song like a voodoo maraca.” RD

Night Rally Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: This Year’s Model (UK version, 1978) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.92 streaming About the Song: “The anti-Nazi Night Rally” MJ “touches on a bizarre fascination with fascism that would blossom on his next album, Armed Forces.” AM

Radio Radio Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: 10/20/1978 (single), This Year’s Model (U.S. version, 1978), Ten Bloody Marys & Ten How’s Your Fathers? (archives, 1980), Best of (compilation, 1985), Very Best (compilation, 1994), Best of the First 10 Years (compilation, 2007) Peak: 7 CL, 1 CO, 29 UK, 10 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 17.98 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: “On the cusp of global stardom, Elvis Costello wrote a song attacking mainstream radio, announcing, ‘I want to bite the hand that feeds me.’ It was perhaps his finest moment.” TC It is “one of the most dismissive songs ever written about what was, in the pre-MTV era, the single most important marketing tool any artist could have – and an especially effective one as well, given the medium’s propensity for playing any song that mentioned its name in the chorus.” DT The song was originally titled “Radio Soul” and “was a sentimental celebration of late-night broadcasts.” TC “Music and the radio were subjects dear to his heart.” TC He said, “People used to live their lives by songs…They were like calendars or diaries. And they were pop songs. Not elaborate fucking pieces of music…That’s why I like and write short songs. It’s a discipline. There’s no disguise. You can’t cover up songs like that by dragging banks of fucking synthesizers and choirs of angels. They have to stand up on their own.” TC

Big Tears Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: 6/10/1978 (B-side of “Pump It Up”), Taking Liberties (archives, 1980), Ten Bloody Marys & Ten How’s Your Fathers? (archives, 1980), Girls Girls Girls (compilation, 1989) Peak: 39 CO Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.64 streaming

Tiny Steps Elvis Costello

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Released: 10/20/1978 (B-side of “Radio Radio”), Taking Liberties (archives, 1980), Ten Bloody Marys & Ten How’s Your Fathers? (archives, 1980), Girls Girls Girls (compilation, 1989) Peak: 39 CO Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.32 streaming

Stranger in the House Elvis Costello & George Jones

Writer(s): Elvis Costello Recorded: July 18, 1978 Released: Taking Liberties (archives, 1980), Ten Bloody Marys & Ten How’s Your Fathers? (archives, 1980) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.27 streaming

Resources/References: AM AllMusic.com review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine JSH Blastitude (2003). “A Loaded Proposition: Joe S. Harrington Picks the All-Time Top 100 Or…Who Pulled the Trigger?” by Joe S. Harrington BL Blender magazine (March 2005). By Douglas Wolk. Pages 156-8. RD Robert Dimery (2006). 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Quintet Publishing Limited: New York, NY. Page 401. MJ Mojo. (January 2006). By Phil Sutcliffe. Pages 170-1. TC Toby Creswell (2005). 1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time. Thunder’s Mouth Press: New York, NY. Pages 245-6. CM Toby Creswell & Craig Mathieson (2012). 100 Best Albums of All Time. Hardie Grant Books. Page 230. BD Bob Dylan (2022). The Philosophy of Modern Song. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. 7-8. DT Dave Thompson (2011). 1000 Songs That Rock Your World. Krause Publications: Iola, WI. Pages 160 and 197. TB Thunder Bay Press (2006). Singles: Six Decades of Hot Hits & Classic Cuts. Outline Press Ltd.: San Diego, CA. Page 180. Related DMDB Pages: First posted 2/15/2010; last updated 4/24/2026.