Marking
45 years on the shelves today is the debut album from Elvis Costello,
My Aim Is True, which was released by Stiff Records in the UK on July
22nd, 1977. Though it was recorded before his band, The Attractions,
were assembled, and the production is a bit on the brittle side, it is
still considered one of the strongest debuts to come from the late ‘70s
punk/new-wave movement.
Before he was Elvis Costello, he was
Declan Patrick MacManus and he’d been slugging around the clubs of
Liverpool and London trying to get his career off the ground since 1970.
By the time his demo tape caught the attention of Stiff founders, Dave
Robinson and Jake Riviera, he was performing under the name of D.P.
Costello, a name chosen to honor his great-grandmother. He was also
paying his bills by working a day job as a data entry clerk for
Elizabeth Arden.
Though Costello was the first artist to sign
to the newly minted record label, he did not release its first title.
Robinson & Riviera felt they needed to work on his image to get him
into a position which would leverage the burgeoning punk scene that was
taking the country by storm. Costello’s performances were considered
lackluster and without a sense of edginess or anger and he basically
looked like a mild mannered computer geek. To remedy this, they decided
to exaggerate his appearance and got him some heavy Buddy Holly style
glasses, tight blazers and turned up strove-pipe jeans. The
transformation was completed with the D.P. dropped and replaced by
“Elvis”, a move most considered insane given its connection to the
legendary Presley. But Costello was into it and the method of the
madness would prove itself sound as it gave record buyers pause when
encountering him in the record bins.
When it came to putting
together a band for the album, Costello had no money to support
musicians, so the label recruited a San Francisco country-rock band
named Clover who’d managed to gain something of cult following in the UK
and had moved there to take advantage. They were based in Headley
Grange, where Costello would travel for rehearsals before coming back to
London to record. While the band were competent and Costello would
later praise them for their skills, creatively, they didn’t always see
eye to eye and, ultimately, their association with Costello would end
after the sessions for the LP were completed. They were not credited on
the album either due to contractual disputes with another label.
Interestingly, the lead singer for Clover at that time was none other
than “The News” future front-man, Huey Lewis, who didn’t take part in
the LP sessions, taking a vacation while the rest of the band worked on
the album. Besides the creative frictions, Clover didn’t fit in with
the “punk” aesthetic the label were courting, looking like American West
Coast hippies, so they were replaced by what would become The
Attractions before Costello began performing in support of the album and
its singles.
The album was recorded during a series of six
four hour sessions booked from late 1976 through the beginning of 1977
with the band often cutting the bed tracks live and in one take.
Costello continued to work his data entry day job during the sessions,
but would call in sick when he needed to rehearse with the band. The
songs for the album were written by Costello over the course of a couple
of weeks. The album was produced by Nick Lowe, who also contributed
musically to the album on bass and some backing vocals. The LP was
recorded at Pathway Studios, which Costello described as a “phone booth”
due to its cramped size. It must have been a pretty basic facility
because the album does suffer slightly from underproduction and shrill
sound, especially compared to the crisp, full bite of This Years Model
the next year.
Despite weak production, the quality of
Costello’s songs and the energy of his performances won over critics,
though the fans took a little longer to catch on. The death of Elvis
Presley in August of that year, less than a month after the release of
Costello’s album, gave sales an unexpected boost and suddenly record
buyers were getting converted to the spindly bespectacled troubadour
with anger issues. That name change started to pay off with the record
buying public getting curious about this fellow with the audacity to use
that sacred name!
Personally, it’s not my favorite of his early
albums, those being This Year’s Model and Armed Forces, but it does have
a clutch of really great songs, especially the back half of the record
and the bonus single of Watching the Detectives, which was not
originally on the album, but came as a single that was later included in
reissues. It still showcases Costello’s raw power at it’s beginning
and many continue to appreciate and praise it as one of his best albums.
It certainly made a great statement for the times as an important
young artist first making his mark on the world.
