This Year's Model (1978)

Personnel:

Elvis Costello: vocals, guitar

Steve Nieve: keyboards

Pete Thomas: drums

Bruce Thomas: bass guitar

Recorded at Eden Studios London, November 1977-January 1978

Produced by Nick Lowe

UK release date: 17 March 1978

US release date: May 1978

Highest chart places: UK: 4, US: 30

Running time: 35:58

Almost as soon as My Aim Is True had been released, Elvis was both auditioning his new band and writing songs for his next album. Clover was unable - or unwilling - to become Elvis' backing band, and the idea to commandeer Graham Parker's rhythm section (Andrew Bodnar and Steve Goulding) was discussed but never acted upon. Elvis would still use Bodnar and Goulding to help audition prospective band members, though the drummer's stool wasn't vacant for long: Elvis had been impressed with drummer Pete Thomas, who first played with Chilli Willi and The Red Hot Peppers until 1975, and was filling time as the drummer in John Stewart's band in Los Angeles. Riviera had also been the manager of Chilli Willi and convinced Pete to return to England to work with Wilko Johnson, formerly of Dr Feelgood. It turned out to be a ruse: Riviera used Johnson as a way to get another record company to pay for Pete's transatlantic flight. Within a week of his return, Pete became the drummer in Elvis' new band.

For the other two vacancies, an ad was placed in Melody Maker on 4 June 1977: 'Stiff Records Require Organist/Synthesiser Player and Bass Player - both able to sing for rocking pop combo. Must be broad-minded. Young or old'. One of the first bassists to call up the offices to apply was Bruce Thomas, who had an impressive resume: he had first worked with Paul Rodgers in The Roadrunners in 1967, before moving on to such bands as Bodast (with Steve Howe) and Quiver (with Tim Renwick), even recording with Al Stewart. Elvis was hesitant but was eventually convinced by Stiff 's secretary to give Bruce a chance; with his first choice, Paul 'Bassman' Riley (Pete's fellow Chilli Willi bandmate), unavailable to join a band at the moment, Elvis conceded to an audition with Bruce, who purchased all of Elvis' singles and learned them note-for-note, but wasn't quite as sure-footed when he launched into two unrecorded songs, 'No Action' and 'Watching The Detectives'. Elvis recognised Bruce's 'fondness for venturing up the neck of his instrument to registers unfamiliar to other bass players', and hired him.

The only remaining position to fill was the keyboardist. Elvis was determined to only have one guitarist - himself - with the other musicians filling out the sound. After auditioning several keyboardists to no success, Steve Nason showed up and 'was easily the most impressive candidate at the auditions. He had asked to stay to hear the other players and later been discovered curled up asleep among the amplifiers, having quietly demolished a bottle of sweet cooking sherry'. Nason was quickly rechristened Steve Naïve but eventually evolved to Steve Nieve while on the Live Stiffs tour after he innocently asked what a groupie was.

The newly-formed quartet set about performing a handful of shows throughout the summer of 1977, though the band were still gaining their confidence, so the shows were largely haphazard. Elvis and his manager, Jake Riviera, were confident that success was just around the corner - but a little nudge to speed things up never hurt anyone: while UK sales of My Aim Is True were encouraging, Elvis desperately wanted a North American distributor to break into a wider market. It just so happened that a CBS Records convention was taking place at the Hilton Hotel in Mayfair on the night of The Attractions' London debut. It couldn't have been more perfect. Riviera convinced Elvis to play a solo gig outside the hotel, and so he plugged his guitar into a battery- powered amplifier and started into his repertoire, made up entirely of material from his new album. Though the CBS executives who walked out into the summer afternoon enjoyed themselves, the Hilton's staff weren't pleased with the disruption and called the police. Elvis was charged with busking, though he wouldn't go down without a fight: 'The senior inspector . stood directly between me and my bemused audience'. he later wrote. 'He cautioned me that I was obstructing the footpath, although the opposite was clearly the truth. I took a step to the left. He did likewise. I took a step to the right. He followed suit and said, 'Do that again and you're nicked'. I could see in his eyes that he did not believe that I was about to turn on my heel. So I was arrested while all the other 'protesters' got clean away.'

The arrest did little to quell his pre-show jitters: as soon as he was detained, he informed the officers that he was supposed to make his London debut that evening. 'Not if we keep you in, sonny', he later recalled one saying. While he waited in a jail cell, news had spread back to Stiff Records that their newest star had been arrested; Elvis's solicitor phoned the police and, 'I don't know what was said, but suddenly I was given a cup of tea, they completed the paperwork, and the desperado was released'. Elvis was charged with 'selling records in the street' and fined £5 (£28 in today's money), which he couldn't afford. For all his troubles, it was a huge consolation that the controversy worked: Elvis was eventually signed to Columbia Records in October, with the US release of My Aim Is True following five months later.

The Attractions embarked on a gruelling tour of England between August and October before setting off for the United States in November. It was during the Stateside tour that Elvis refined the material for his next album. Just as quickly as the songs were written, they were performed live; what better way to rehearse material for a new album than on the road? This level of preparation worked to the band's benefit: This Year's Model was recorded in eleven days that November.

It also spoke to a deeper problem: Stiff Records was running Elvis and The Attractions ragged. When they weren't on tour, they were recording BBC radio sessions, filming music videos, or being shuffled off to Top of the Pops or interviewed for a music rag. Elvis later admitted that the constant touring - especially of North America - was taxing, but it benefited The Attractions: before long, their early haphazard shows were just a memory, and Elvis was later proud to recall that the number of poor Attractions shows could be counted on one hand.

Elvis and The Attractions finished up the year with another tour of the United States, this time appearing on the still-fresh primetime TV sketch show, Saturday Night Live. Hastily replacing the Sex Pistols - who couldn't get working visas in time to appear on the show - Elvis was less than thrilled when he was told to perform 'Less Than Zero'. With its narrative about Oswald Mosley, the former leader of the British Union of Fascists, Elvis protested that the song would make little sense to American viewers. Columbia Records told him in no uncertain terms that he was to play the song and that was that. Obviously, this didn't sit well with Elvis, though he initially played along: he and the Attractions ran through both 'Watching The Detectives' and 'Less Than Zero' at rehearsals, and when it was time for their second appearance (after playing the former song earlier in the show), Elvis led the band through the song for nearly eight seconds before he turned around, flailed his arms and shouted, 'Stop! Stop!'. He then spun back around and looked dead into the camera and said, 'I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen. There's no reason to do this song here', turned back around and cued The Attractions for 'Radio, Radio': an as-yet-unreleased song he had written as a diatribe against the corporate world and biting the hand that feeds.

There was little choice but to let the stunt proceed. Elvis later explained he had seen the Jimi Hendrix Experience do something similar years earlier, when they appeared on the BBC show, A Lulu Happening. Scheduled to play 'Hey Joe', they obliged for a few seconds before Hendrix stopped the band and said, 'We'd like to stop playing this rubbish and dedicate a song to the Cream regardless of what kind of group they might be. I'd like to dedicate this to Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, and Jack Bruce' before launching into an instrumental rendition of 'Sunshine Of Your Love'. It was this kind of spontaneity that Elvis wanted to spring upon Saturday Night Live, later joking that, 'Evidently, it's not that live'.

Upon its release in March 1978, This Year's Model received almost universal praise. NME called it 'too dazzling, too powerful to be ignored', while Melody Maker said the album 'promotes its author to the foremost ranks of contemporary rock writers'. The album flew to number 4 in the UK and 30 in the US: an astonishing feat for an artist's second album. But Elvis and The Attractions had little time to celebrate: they would play nearly 200 concerts in 1978 alone and were somehow able to squeeze in sessions for their third album during all...