"This Year's Model" is an album I know front to back, top to bottom. It's been a part of my life for years. I'm still not burned out on it. It's Elvis Costello's second album and his first with The Attractions. The cover shows Costello behind a camera as a photographer that would make anyone feel uncomfortable as they were posing. There's plenty on the album to make you uncomfortable, as well. That's not really surprising, when you consider that one of the main things the album is about is masturbation. Not just your run-of-the-mill pocket pull, though. Costello uses jerking off almost as a political statement, as a way to keep all of the hurt and pain that the world and other people bring at bay.
Don't believe me? The first song is called "No Action" and the opening line (just Costello's voice, no music) is, "I don't want to kiss you. I don't wanna touch." Listen to the way he draws out the word "touch" until it's dripping with disgust and derision and the Attractions literally explode like an orgasm behind him. From that point on, Costello plays the part of the nerdy, intellectual asshole who only acts that way because of how badly he's been hurt in the past and that "I'm smarter than you and I don't give a shit about anything" attitude is the armor that protects him. (I know that guy REALLY well...maybe too well.) Another line from "No Action" is very telling, "...then the things in my HEAD start hurting my mind." An ordinary songwriter would probably say "heart" instead of "head" in that lyric. Not Elvis. "You might mess with my brain, but you'll NEVER touch my heart," he's saying. It's bullshit, of course, but image over substance is another great theme of "Model."
Next up is "This Year's Girl." It's one of the most disturbing songs ever written about the woman as sex symbol. Every year offers up another actress/super model/porn star that becomes the national object of desire and what do we use those women for, guys? Yep. We do. Costello lays bare, in brutal detail, the effects of dehumanizing another human being for selfish and sexual gratification. "You want her broken with her mouth wide open, 'cause she's this year's girl," is an ugly, but honest lyric. The song is totally against the objectification it portrays and holds up a mirror to all of us and says, "Those are real people underneath those media images."
Feeling guilty? Good! You're now ready for the first absolute masterpiece on the album, "The Beat." (masturbation, again? But of course!) It's a song about guilt, paranoia, oral sex, sexual panic, peer pressure, and, yes, masturbation. It captures all of this in three minutes and forty-five seconds. "On the beat, 'til a man comes along and he say's, 'Have you been a good boy, never played with your toy? Though you never enjoy, it's such a pleasure to employ.'" Is there anybody reading this who didn't feel guilty about playing with themselves when they were first starting out? No? Didn't think so. This song captures that feeling like none I've heard before or since. The Attractions provide the perfect soundscape for the words. Nice and relaxed on the verses and hard and driving on the chorus. Pete Thomas' drums and Bruce Thomas' bass gallop and chug through the choruses, while Steve Nieve's keyboards both carry and comment on the melody. The song reaches it's climax when Costello admits, "I don't wanna be your lover. I just wanna be your victim." He says "lover" the way some people would say "liver" and says "victim " like it's a synonym for "hero." We've all been there, whether we want to admit it or not. We all went through that adolescent stage where getting your heart broken was a brave and romantic thing to strive for, so we could wallow in all our misery and angst and write bad poetry. Some people carry it over into adulthood. Some people make a career out of it. Hello, Morrisey. Feeling down, today? (Let me state, for the record, that I am, in fact, a huge fan of The Smiths.) Anyway, "The Beat" perfectly encapsulates that feeling when authority tells you that you're too young for sex and, oh, by the way, touching yourself is a sin and you should be ashamed.
"Pump It Up" announces itself with a pumping drumbeat and bass riff, before launching into some kind of batshit organ/guitar figure that is the aural equivalent of the dance that Crispin Glover does in "Friday the 13th Part Four: The Final Chapter." It's one of Costello's most well-known and best songs and he still performs it live to this day. Best Line: "No use wishing now for any other sin." Foiled again. No action. Might as well go home and pump it up.
Next up is the almost-but-not-quite country song, "Little Triggers," followed by the headlong rush that is "You Belong To Me." The latter has one of the most disquieting images for oral sex in the history of songs that have words about blow jobs: "Your eyes are absent. You mouth is silent, pumping like a fire hydrant. The things you see are getting hard to swallow." The narrator of the song is, again, trying to make us think he's above all of this relationship stuff. "I don't want anybody saying, 'You belong to me.'" Hey, when they won't let you into the club, stand outside and make fun of the club.
"Hand in Hand" "(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea" "Lip Service" and "Living in Paradise" are all great songs, ("Chelsea's" guitar riff is one Costello's best and "Paradise's" drunk almost-reggae and lyrics about voyeuristic jealousy are highlights. "You think that I don't know the boy that you're touching, but I'll be at the video and I will be watching," from "Paradise" is both incredibly creepy and furthers the theme of watching life instead participating in it) but I want to move on to the second absolute masterpiece on the album and it's best song. "Lipstick Vogue" presents us with the same sensitive jerk from all of the preceding songs, but now he has actually fallen in love with a real person and she's breaking his heart. It reminds me of the lyrics from Costello's "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes." "I said, 'I'm so happy, I could die.' She said, 'Drop dead,' then left with another guy." "Lipstick Vogue" motors by like a freight train. The Attractions play like furious fucking demons. The song begins with Costello pleading with his partner, "Don't say you love if it's just a rumor. Don't say a word if there is any doubt." He has finally let someone into his heart and not just his head and that person is beginning to question their feelings for him. "Sometimes I think that love is just a tumor and you've got to cut it out," is the next line. You can avoid feelings all you want, but when you let your guard down and actually give in to those feelings and open yourself up to another person, instead of staying alone and fantasizing, it takes fucking surgery to let those feelings go and it always gets bloody and messy. The lyric, "Sometimes I almost feel just like a human being," sums up everything that is great about this album and Costello's songwriting. In the chorus he cries, "It's YOU! Not just another mouth in a lipstick vogue." I fell in love with YOU. I don't want any of those other girls, the real ones or the ones in the magazines. I just want YOU. "Maybe they told you you were only a girl in a million.You say I got no feelings, well this is a good way to kill them." The asshole who claimed to never have any feelings is paying the price for the choices he made. His past is biting him in the ass. He's feeling way too human, now. I suggest when you listen to this song, you turn it up LOUD.
The album closes with the purely political, "Night Rally." At first, it might seem that this fascist nightmare of a song is out of place on an album that is all about relationship politics. I think what Costello is saying, ultimately, is that the people who are dictatorial in their personal relationships are going to be dictatorial in their political views, as well. It's a warning. Let your lovers rule over and intimidate you and you'll let authority do the same thing. Also, even though the album was released in 1978, I can't listen to this song without picturing modern day Tea Party rallies. "Everybody's singing with their hands on their hearts about deeds done in the darkest hours" and "...the corporation logo is flashing on and off in the sky" and "You think they're so dumb, you think they're so funny, wait until they've got you running to the night rally." Politics and relationships are scary as hell. Do we take the chance and get involved with them? Or do we just stay home and...well, you know.
