My Aim Is True

iTunes Review

Looking like Buddy Holly on methamphetamine and sounding like a pub-punk rocker capable of reading novels and newspapers, Elvis Costello displayed immense talent from inception. My Aim Is True, his 1977 debut album, sounds every bit as smart and vibrant thirty years later. With the inspired if not spectacular backing of Clover (Huey Lewis’ backing group), Costello tears through angry, pointed material. The opening cut, in less than a minute and a half, delivers a sneering, celebratory look at the daily grind (“Welcome to the Working Week”). He then belittles the impossible standards of others (“Miracle Man”), accepts a shot at immortality with a delicious chiming guitar lick (“(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes”) and slightly mellows for the signature ballad that’s tough, tender, ambivalent and eventually sincere (“Alison”). Costello’s lyrics are pure virtuoso, while his encyclopedic musical knowledge is only partly displayed. He was still saving aces up his sleeves. But the gunshot rim shots that punctuate the silences of “Watching the Detectives,” the manic psychobilly charge of “Mystery Dance” and the political anger behind “Less Than Zero” show an artist with much to say and many ways to say it.