{"id":7519,"date":"2026-03-05T11:08:53","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T11:08:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/?p=7519"},"modified":"2026-03-05T11:12:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T11:12:26","slug":"shindig-173-elvis-costello","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/?p=7519","title":{"rendered":"Shindig! #173 \u2013 Elvis Costello"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>HUW THOMAS pieces together the story of how genre-averse pop agitator ELVIS COSTELLO created a monster and, once The Attractions had joined him, how the burgeoning powerpop scene repaid them with lip service.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>\u201cI could never imagine a lot of people wanting this ugly geek in glasses ramming his songs down their throats. I&#8217;m in it to disrupt people&#8217;s lives\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Elvis Costello &amp; The Attractions - Pump It Up\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3Y71iDvCYXA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That band arrived in time to join Costello and Jake Riviera when they departed Stiff in favour of Radar Records. Pete Thomas, a drummer of formidable invention previously managed by Riviera in Chilli Willi &amp; The Red Hot Peppers, was the first to be hired. Bassist Bruce Thomas was next; once a member of psych loons Village and later part of Quiver and Keith West\u2019s project Moonrider, he had a melodic precision that clashed beautifully with Pete\u2019s bombast. Keyboard whizz Steve Nieve completed this new, muscular unit, and it really was a unit; Costello would refer to The Attractions as \u201cthe band I&#8217;m in&#8221; rather than his band.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He was by now the unwilling <em>enfant terrible<\/em> of new-wave (a label he later told <em>Record Collector <\/em>was invented by Polygram \u201cto sell a bunch of crap American records like The Runaways\u201d) and much of the material that would appear on the first Attractions album was limbered up on the landmark <em>Live Stiffs<\/em> tour of late 1977. Costello wrote \u2018Pump It Up&#8217;, a breathless rocker that would become a calling card, in response to the pandemonium he witnessed on the tour with Ian Dury, Wreckless Eric and others. \u201cEvery night the encore would be [Dury\u2019s] &#8216;Sex And Drugs&#8217; right? But it quickly reaches a point where the tour started to take on the manifestations of the song,\u201d he told Nick Kent in \u201979. \u201cI was compelled to write &#8216;Pump It Up&#8217; as, you know, well just how much can you fuck, how many drugs can you do before you get so numb you can&#8217;t really feel anything?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Costello\u2019s new songs were more intense than his last batch, more tactile. There were still vintage references behind them \u2013 \u2018You Belong To Me\u2019 was based on the Stones\u2019 \u2018The Last Time\u2019 and \u2018Pump It Up\u2019 borrowed its breathless meter from Dylan and Chuck Berry \u2013 but The Attractions scrambled the signal so effectively that few noticed the old wave disturbing the new. The reggae-inflected \u2019I Don&#8217;t Want To Go To Chelsea\u2019 \u201csounded like \u2018I Can&#8217;t Explain\u2019 when I first played it,\u201d Costello told <em>The Face<\/em> in \u201983. \u201cI had it in that Kinks stop-time rhythm, but Bruce&#8217;s bass line transformed it from a sort of pastiche to something quite unusual.\u201d Nieve\u2019s twitchy organ lines would be particularly distinctive; he told the <em>NME<\/em> in \u201979 that his favourite part of playing with The Attractions was \u201cwhen it gets weird and spooky. I really like those bits\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Elvis Costello &amp; The Attractions - (I Don&#039;t Want To Go To) Chelsea\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XvRQDsH0Yho?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The resultant album <em>This Year\u2019s Model<\/em> is ear-splitting in comparison to <em>My Aim Is True<\/em>. Now the band sounded as hostile as the singer. Opener \u2018No Action\u2019 (\u201cI don\u2019t want to kiss you, I don\u2019t want to touch \/ I don\u2019t want to see you because I don\u2019t miss you that much\u201d) alone is more alive than anything on the first album, with Pete\u2019s Moon-like fills, Bruce\u2019s thundering eighths and Steve\u2019s nutty organ competing for space. \u2018Lipstick Vogue\u2019 ups the stakes even higher with its breakneck, almost hypnotic rhythm and sputtered lyrics from the very bottom of romantic despair. Even the lighter \u2018Hand In Hand\u2019, a Brill Building take-off not dissimilar to \u2018No Dancing\u2019, is amped up, with Costello buttering up delicious lines like \u201cIf I\u2019m gonna go down, you\u2019re gonna come with me\u201d like a deviant Ronnie Spector. This style \u2013 sneering, subversive relationship studies wrapped up in bright, jerky arrangements \u2013 would be central to the third wave of powerpop.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/widget.qobuz.com\/album\/yxfgqor18keta?zone=GB-en\" width=\"378\" height=\"390\">Your browser does not support iframes.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>To read the full article order issue #173 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.silverbackpublishing.rocks\/product\/shindig_173\/\">here<\/a>, Subscribe <a href=\"https:\/\/www.silverbackpublishing.rocks\/product\/unlock-the-world-of-shindig-subscribe-today-and-access-every-issue-ever-published\/\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<span class=\"synved-social-container synved-social-container-share\"><a class=\"synved-social-button synved-social-button-share synved-social-size-24 synved-social-resolution-single synved-social-provider-facebook nolightbox\" data-provider=\"facebook\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" title=\"Share on Facebook\" href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fshindig-magazine.com%2Findex.php%3Frest_route%3D%252Fwp%252Fv2%252Fposts%252F7519&#038;t=Shindig%21%20%23173%20%E2%80%93%20Elvis%20Costello&#038;s=100&#038;p&#091;url&#093;=https%3A%2F%2Fshindig-magazine.com%2Findex.php%3Frest_route%3D%252Fwp%252Fv2%252Fposts%252F7519&#038;p&#091;images&#093;&#091;0&#093;=https%3A%2F%2Fshindig-magazine.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2026%2F03%2FScreenshot-2026-03-05-at-11.09.45.png&#038;p&#091;title&#093;=Shindig%21%20%23173%20%E2%80%93%20Elvis%20Costello\" style=\"font-size: 0px;width:24px;height:24px;margin:0;margin-bottom:5px;margin-right:5px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Facebook\" title=\"Share on Facebook\" class=\"synved-share-image synved-social-image synved-social-image-share\" width=\"24\" height=\"24\" style=\"display: inline;width:24px;height:24px;margin: 0;padding: 0;border: none;box-shadow: none\" src=\"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/48x48\/facebook.png\" \/><\/a><a class=\"synved-social-button synved-social-button-share synved-social-size-24 synved-social-resolution-single synved-social-provider-twitter nolightbox\" data-provider=\"twitter\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" title=\"Share on Twitter\" href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fshindig-magazine.com%2Findex.php%3Frest_route%3D%252Fwp%252Fv2%252Fposts%252F7519&#038;text=New%20post%20on%20our%20site\" style=\"font-size: 0px;width:24px;height:24px;margin:0;margin-bottom:5px;margin-right:5px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"twitter\" title=\"Share on Twitter\" class=\"synved-share-image synved-social-image synved-social-image-share\" width=\"24\" height=\"24\" style=\"display: inline;width:24px;height:24px;margin: 0;padding: 0;border: none;box-shadow: none\" src=\"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/48x48\/twitter.png\" \/><\/a><a class=\"synved-social-button synved-social-button-share synved-social-size-24 synved-social-resolution-single synved-social-provider-mail nolightbox\" data-provider=\"mail\" rel=\"nofollow\" title=\"Share by email\" href=\"mailto:?subject=Shindig%21%20%23173%20%E2%80%93%20Elvis%20Costello&#038;body=New%20post%20on%20our%20site:%20https%3A%2F%2Fshindig-magazine.com%2Findex.php%3Frest_route%3D%252Fwp%252Fv2%252Fposts%252F7519\" style=\"font-size: 0px;width:24px;height:24px;margin:0;margin-bottom:5px;margin-right:5px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"mail\" title=\"Share by email\" class=\"synved-share-image synved-social-image synved-social-image-share\" width=\"24\" height=\"24\" style=\"display: inline;width:24px;height:24px;margin: 0;padding: 0;border: none;box-shadow: none\" src=\"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/48x48\/mail.png\" \/><\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HUW THOMAS pieces together the story of how genre-averse pop agitator ELVIS COSTELLO created a monster and, once The Attractions had joined him, how the burgeoning powerpop scene repaid them with lip service. \u201cI could never imagine a lot of people wanting this ugly geek in glasses ramming his songs down their throats. I&#8217;m in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7522,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1009,7,1172],"tags":[1237],"class_list":["post-7519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-magazine","category-music-videos","category-qobuz","tag-elvis-costello","post_format-post-format-video"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7519"}],"version-history":[{"count":-3,"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}