Armed Forces
Elvis Costello and the Attractions
His Aim Was True Here, Too
Elvis Costello made one of rock's all-time great entrances. The songs of his debut, My Aim Is True (1977), established a curious new persona for rock, that of an "avenging geek" whose vocabulary gives his withering contempt a refined expression. Within months of its release, the album's cover photo and its songs—spastic ones like "Less than Zero," tender ones like "Alison"—became part of essential hipster discourse on both sides of the Atlantic. The follow-up, This Year's Model, showed Costello's considerable dexterity as a songwriter, and knack for pumping up innocent hooks into expressions of anger, if not outrage. Armed Forces, which followed less than a year later, lashes Costello's acerbic wit to slightly more elaborate production from pub rock kingpin Nick Lowe, author of the album's enduring anthem "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding?"
Armed Forces was written when Costello was twenty-four, after he and the Attractions had finished a long tour of the U.S. by van. It is the bridge between Costello the "punk singer-songwriter" and Costello the unabashed romantic of rock's New Wave. In the liner notes of the expanded edition, Costello recalls that while on the road, the band listened to cassettes of Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn, Cheap Trick, and ABBA. And it's possible to hear the influence of those polished productions in Armed Forces's specific details (the whomping piano-studded refrain of "Accidents Will Happen" and the nattily harmonized "Moods for Moderns"). This is the record where Costello realizes that the doors are wide open, and he can make any kind of snarly (or idealistic) noise he wants. So he makes all kinds of noise—songs that thrum with Springsteen-like idealism ("Peace, Love, and Understanding") or express disdain ("Goon Squad") or go to great lengths to draw parallels between cultural and personal upheavals ("Two Little Hitlers"), an idea underscored by Costello's original working title for the album, Emotional Fascism.
Since this awakening, of course, Costello has taken full advantage of those open doors, writing ambitious works for string ensemble and collaborating with Paul McCartney and Burt Bacharach on snappy tradition-minded pop songs. Virtually everything in his discography is smart, and though Costello has since disparaged some of his Armed Forces lyrics—he writes that "some of the highly charged language may now seem a little naive"—few records in rock nail the details, musical and emotional, the way Armed Forces does.
Genre: Rock
Released: 1979, Columbia
Key Tracks: "Accidents Will Happen," "Goon Squad," "Moods for Moderns," "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding?"
Catalog Choice: My Aim Is True; This Year's Model; King of America; The Delivery Man
Next Stop: Graham Parker: Squeezing Out Sparks
After That: Nick Lowe: Jesus of Cool
Book Pages: 190–191
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Comments:
#1 from dsl - 11/26/2008 12:53
If you are going to choose only one Elvis Costello album, Armed Forces is an odd choice. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great record, but imho This Year’s Model is phenomenal. It was the groundbreaking album in his early career and despite the differing UK and US releases, is a more consistent work. The polar opposite Imperial Bedroom, also a unique masterpiece, deserves mention.
