Blessed are the geeks, for we shall inherit the earth. Who knew
\nin 1977 that a skinny young Brit would give the industry a swift
\nkick in the ass?<\/p>\n
Elvis Costello looked on the cover of his debut album
\nMy Aim Is True<\/i> to be the kid that got the shit beat out of
\nhim in gym class – thin, scrawny, kind of geeky-looking.<\/p>\n
But the album showed hints of genius, and
\nMy Aim Is True<\/i> still contains some of Costello’s best music
\never. (Rykodisc re-released the album, along with a good portion of
\nhis early catalog, some years back. This review is frrom the
\noriginal Columbia release.)<\/p>\n
Costello seems to have learned a valuable lesson before he
\nentered the studio – say what you have to, then get out. Several
\ntracks, including the opener “Welcome To The Working Week,” are
\nunder two minutes in length. When he performs longer, the message
\nhe’s trying to get across is a little more complex.<\/p>\n
The rawness of the performance is what makes this album still
\nsound fresh two decades after its release. Cuts like “Alison” and
\n“Blame It On Cain” have not aged a bit, and Costello’s vocals are
\nas raw and fluent as they would be later in his career. He was
\nsetting a tough standard to follow, but Costello seemed like he
\nwanted to make his first effort count. Chalk one up for raw emotion
\n– it works.<\/p>\n
The reggae feel of “Watching The Detectives” works well, as does
\nthe dance beat of “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes.” Costello
\ntends to jump from musical style to musical style on
\nMy Aim Is True<\/i>, but unlike many other artists who have done
\nthis, Costello pulls it off with great success. He also seems to
\ntry to shake off the “angry young man” label that he would wear for
\nsome time on the cut “I’m Not Angry.” You may be the judge whether
\nhe is or not.<\/p>\n
\nMy Aim Is True<\/i> is a great primer for those who are
\ninterested in getting into Costello’s music (besides buying one of
\nthe two greatest hits packages out there), and stands as one of, if
\nnot
\nthe<\/i>, best album he ever recorded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24334,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5662],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-35538","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-elvis-costello","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35538"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35538"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}