Welcome to the working week (Elvis Costello) (LP 2184 - 2186)

Elvis Costello  My Aim Is True (Vinyl, Universal Music Group, 1977) ***  

Elvis Costello  Armed Forces (Vinyl, Radar Records,   1979) ****  

Elvis Costello  Spike (Vinyl, Warner Bros., 1989) ***  

Genre: pop rock 

Places I remember: HMV; work-mate at Marbecks (Ness) gave me her copy of Armed Forces; Real Groovy Records for Spike.  

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Watching The Detectives (My Aim Is True)

Gear costume: Goon Squad (Armed Forces); Veronica (Spike)

Active compensatory factors: I backtracked and bought a new copy of My Aim Is True while living in Caterham at the end of 2017.

It's a tentative debut in some ways. So assured on Alison, Sneaky Feelings, Watching The Detectives (especially that one), yet there are some wobbles around those stellar songs.

Second album, This Year's Model, has been reviewed on my blog already. He hits his stride more consistently on that one.

And so, to Armed Forces - his third album, and a huge quantum leap in two short years. He sounds self-assured and mature - in full possession of his powers throughout the album.

Ten years later, and I wasn't too keen to track his further development. But then he got together with Macca to write some tunes (for the under-rated Flowers In The Dirt) and a few also appeared on Spike. Veronica being the stand-out hit.

It's a pleasant enough album with some nice moments but the eighties production on a couple of tracks lets it down a tad.

Where do they all belong? I'm not a huge fan outside of these albums, but I like to revisit them for various reasons and they trace his career trajectory nicely.