This Year's Model: Deluxe Edition to be released March 4

[johnfoyle]

Newbury Comics don't have a glass this time ; their listing does mention this -

http://www.newburycomics.com/rel/v2_vie ... 0251760631


Includes liner notes by Elvis Costello.

Will they be new notes or a re-jig of the Rhino ones?

[The Gentleman]

It looks to me that Newbury just recycled the Rhino credits (note the producer credit for Gary Stewart, among other things). So I don't think we can take this to indicate there will be EC liners, new or old. Ironically, they didn't include the Rhino credit which will presumably carry through to the TYM: DE (Dan Hersch, whose did the Rhino remastering has been used for all Universal's EC reissues so far).

[johnfoyle]

http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/alb ... ition_2008

Rolling Stone

ROB SHEFFIELD

(Posted: Mar 6, 2008)


More than a decade ago, Elvis Costello announced plans to stop selling his early albums. "People must have them by now if they want them," he reasoned. "What I'd really like to do is delete them and destroy them so they could never come out again. That would be kind of cool. I'm sure I'll change my mind about it."

Guess he changed his mind. In fact, the old git cranks out expanded editions of his early work as fast as he releases new music. That's fine — everyone should have a copy of This Year's Model, especially if you're a prematurely embittered teen romantic or would like to become one. "No Action," "Hand in Hand," "Lip Service" — these are some of the snarliest love-is-hell songs ever written.

The pain in these songs is as clearly visible as the wedding ring Costello wears on the album cover. He might play the jaded rake in "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea," but these are the plaints of a kid who fell too hard too fast, who took romantic promises way too seriously and believed more fiercely as he kept getting burned. The music is surprisingly lush and pretty — the watery acoustic guitar of "Lip Service," the high harmonies in the chorus of "No Action." Yet it's all punk rage, thanks to Pete Thomas' drums and Steve Nieve's cranky organ. (Funny how the most popular song, "Pump It Up," is the one where the vocal is a blur and the drum hook takes the spotlight.)

This year's model of This Year's Model has basically the same bonus tracks as the last reissue. The only new bait is on Disc Two, a rowdy February 1978 live show from Washington, D.C. With rants against the media ("Radio Radio"), the church ("The Beat") and the right wing ("Night Rally"), This Year's Model is the angriest album Costello ever made, yet the songs remain brutally funny, sung with moments of unexpected tenderness ("I told you that we were just good frieeeends," he sings on "No Action") that taught a host of tortured-Irish-guy vocal tropes to the Hold Steady and LCD Soundsystem — and those moments make the album unforgettable.

[bambooneedle]

Most boots I've heard from the period sounds more or less the same but this performance by EC & TAs, at a radio station in Minneapolis on Valentines Day '78, I found interesting because EC has a problem with his guitar early on (broken guitar string I think, but, even when he tries to fill the sound out a bit with a few limited embellishments, the guitar sounds seem very low in the mix), causing Steve and Bruce to improvise unusually. WTD sounds very cool this way, and it's weird to not hear it with the famous riff dominating. Less Than Zero is the Dallas version, too, predating El Mocambo by a couple of months.

http://www.captainsdead.com/2008/02/18/ ... -buddhist/

[Otis Westinghouse]

Those files seem to have been removed, annoyingly.

[bambooneedle]

I just checked and you can still download them.

[Otis Westinghouse]

Weird. Last night they didn't seem to play or download. Tonight they're playing, but when I right-click to 'download linked file' in the usual way, it tells me file doesn't exist. Sounds good, anyway.

[FAVEHOUR]

The Minneapolis show is up on Dime.

[johnfoyle]

http://tinyurl.com/2r5ze5
Verve Music Group page for this re-issue.

(extract)

Early issues of the album have an apparently misprinted sleeve, which cuts the 'E' from 'Elvis' off the front cover and shows a printers' color bar along the right side. This was a deliberate mistake (a favourite technique of cover designer Barney Bubbles), as was pressing "Special pressing No. 003. Ring 434 32 32. Ask for Moira for your prize" between the holding spirals on Side A.

[johnfoyle]

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/mar/0 ... -of-story/

Knoxville News Sentinel, TN

Wayne Bledsoe
Sunday, March 2, 2008

(extract)

"This Year's Model (Deluxe Edition)," Elvis Costello (Hip-O)

Elvis Costello's first three albums are rock essentials, pure and simple. The question with any deluxe reissue of the early Costello catalog is it worth buying it again? The last time "This Year's Model," Costello's sophomore disc, was released was a two-CD set in 2001. This year's model of "This Year's Model" includes most of the tracks from the 2001 Rhino Records edition (notably missing are the bonus track "Tiny Steps" and "The Price of Love") and adds a 17-song 1978 concert performance recorded at the Warner Theater in Washington, D.C. The live disc is terrific and the packaging is pretty. However, music nerds will note that the new set doesn't have liner notes written by Costello (he wrote notes for all the Rhino reissues) and lacks a shot of the cover of the original American edition of album, making it hard to call it the "definitive" edition of a classic album. Still, if it's your first date with Elvis, this is a great place to start.

[johnfoyle]

http://blog.masslive.com/playback/2008/ ... eless.html

The Republican - MassLive.com, MA
March 2 '08


Kevin O'Hare

Elvis Costello, "This Year's Model (Deluxe Edition)" (Hip-O/Ume) 5 stars.

Elvis Costello's 1978 sophomore album "This Year's Model," remains one of the best recordings by anyone from the "New Wave" era, a scintillating, urgent and explosive blast of raw energy, anger and torment, wrapped up into songs like "The Beat," "Pump It Up," "(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea," "Lipstick Vogue," and "Radio, Radio."

Produced by Nick Lowe, the songs sound just as good 30 years later and this deluxe double CD features an additional 10 rarities, demos and alternate takes, as well as a second scorcher of a CD culled from Costello and The Attractions' fevered performance at the Warner Theater in Washington., D.C. on Feb. 28, 1978.

That live set is worth owning all on its own. Recorded one night before an infamous concert during which Costello left the stage in shambles after a raucous outing at the University of Massachusetts, this Washington show finds Costello very much in his "angry young man" mode. Originally broadcast on radio station WHFS in Maryland, it finds the songwriter and the Attractions buzzing through 17 songs, most from "This Year's Model," but also with several from its predecessor "My Aim is True," including "Watching the Detectives," and "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes."

Recorded one night before an infamous concert during which Costello left the stage in shambles after a raucous outing at the University of Massachusetts,

http://homepage.mac.com/stevegarfield/book.html

Steve Garfield wrote about , I presume , this show-
(extract)

New Wave was just hitting the US at this time. I was playing all the new music. I especially liked Elvis Costello's 'My Aim Is True' album.

His first concert tour of America included a stop at UMass!

The show was scheduled for the Student Union Ballroom. It wasn't the biggest venue on campus. We lined up in the hallway outside the main doors to get in.

The concert was supposed to start at 8:00 PM. It got to be 8:00 and the doors were still not open. Then it became 8:30 and then 8:45. We were finally let into the ballroom. Chairs were all set up facing the stage.

We all took our seats. All of a sudden Elvis Costello came out with his band and launched into all the songs off the 'My Aim Is True' album. The atmosphere was electric.

After about 30 minutes, Costello started yelling at us. He was asking us to get up and dance. Unfortunately, the way the chairs were set up, there was no room for anyone to get up.

He played for another 15 minutes and then yelled something else about 'you Americans' and then proceeded to smash his guitar on the floor. We were shocked. Next, he took his guitar and smashed it into the drum kit and stormed off the stage. The drummer followed suit and kicked over the drums and the band walked off.

There was a moment of stunned silence, then a roar, then cheering and screaming for an encore. People lit lighters and were yelling 'Elvis, Elvis' for about 15 minutes.

He never came back.

Best concert ever.

[johnfoyle]

http://www.pastemagazine.com/action/art ... xe_edition

Paste

Elvis Costello
This Year's Model (Deluxe Edition)
[Hip-O/UMe Records]

Writer: Andy Whitman
Review, Published online on 03 Mar 2008

Elvis Costello once released an album called King of America. These days, he could more appropriately be called King of Reissues. This is the third time his early masterpiece, This Year’s Model, has received the reissue treatment, and if the previously unreleased tracks and B-sides didn’t tempt you on Rykodisc’s or Rhino’s repackages, Hip-O/UMe is here to up the ante.

The original album has now been tricked out to a two-disc Deluxe Edition set, and the 11 lean original tracks have been bulked up to include an additional 11 B-sides and 17 live tracks. That’s a bounty of vintage Costello, and at slightly more than two and a half hours, it offers as complete a view of the Angry Young Man, circa 1978, as you could possibly want.

The original This Year’s Model, included here on the first half of Disc 1, is brilliant, a snarky and raging slab of intemperate rock 'n' roll, and it sounds as fresh and vital today as it did 30 years ago. Nobody had delivered caustic one-liners like this since Dylan, and, with the debut of The Attractions, Costello had found the manic band to propel his claustrophobic, paranoid screeds. “I don’t want to kiss you/ I don’t want to touch,” he almost whispers at the start of the album, and when The Attractions detonate in all their ragged glory behind him we’re already miles removed from the polite country rock of Clover, Costello’s backing band on his 1977 debut My Aim Is True.

It’s the moment when New Wave found its frontman. And it lurches along that way for 35 minutes, barely in control, the irresistible propulsion of Steve Nieve’s careening keyboards matched by Costello’s acerbic wit. If the Angry Young Man isn’t angry about everything, his vision is still broad enough to draw within his crosshairs the advertising industry, “It” girls, fascism, George Orwell, radio narrowcasting and his own withering self. “Sometimes I almost feel just like a human being,” he snarls, and alienation never sounded so bracing. It’s a wonderful record.

The B-sides have been released in various configurations over the years, but there isn’t much of a drop off in quality between “(I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea” and “Big Tears” and the official album tracks. In 1978, Costello was writing great songs at a furious pace, and the brilliance is marred only by a couple of unnecessary demos that would appear as finished songs on Costello’s next album, Armed Forces. The live disc, taken from a Feb. 1978 show at Washington D.C.’s Warner Theater, is good, but not as good as the widely available El Macombo show from the same period.

And therein lies the dilemma. Longtime Costello fans, the target audience for these reissue projects, probably already own most of this music. But curious newcomers, who typically won’t shell out for a 2-disc set, could hardly do better. Elvis Costello has produced a lot of great music over a lot of different years, but the 1978 model was a particularly spectacular one.

see also-

http://andywhitman.blogspot.com/2008/03 ... model.html

[wardo68]

From Allmusic.com:

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

For those keeping score, Universal's 2008 Deluxe Edition of This Year's Model is the third expanded reissue of Elvis Costello's classic 1978 album. Like its 2002 predecessor from Rhino, Universal's expanded edition is a double-disc set, sharing many, but not all, of the same bonus material from that previously released set. Rhino shuffled off all the bonus tracks to a separate second disc running 12 tracks, whereas Universal adds 10 tracks to the 13-track album on the first disc then presents a full concert - recorded on February 28, 1978 at the Warner Theater in Washington DC -- on the second disc. Of those 12 tracks from the '02 edition, three of them have been excised -- excellent Capital Radio versions of "You Belong to Me" and "Radio, Radio" plus a BBC version of "Stranger in the House" - while "Tiny Steps," which was included on the '02 Rhino expansion of Armed Forces, was added. All in all, a fair trade - quite frankly, the three songs aren't missed as much as Costello's terrific liner notes; without them, the packaging of this Deluxe Edition feels a bit bare bones - and the concert on the second disc, while not as memorably unhinged as the legendary Live At the El Mocambo recorded less than a week after this gig, is still invigorating and worthwhile listening for hardcore Costello fans. Of course, the question is whether those hardcore fans are willing to purchase this album for the fourth or fifth time just to hear a good concert, as all the really essential bonus material was on both the Rhino disc and the previous Ryko/Demon reissue of the '90s. Those that have the budget and inclination will surely be pleased by this set, but any fan that decides to sit this out either on matters of budget or principal can rest assured that they're not missing something monumental.

[Otis Westinghouse]

That's a relief!

[Deportee]

According to Amazon UK, this release has now been put back to April 7.

[wardo68]

It's out here in the US. The discs have "COSTELLO" repeated around the circumference, in a nod to the LP. No liner notes, just lyrics and some photos I hadn't seen before. They could have easily put a few more tracks on the first disc. "LTZ" is the Dallas version.

[johnfoyle]

What with all the new reviews of TYM, it's interesting to read some of the reactions to the album's first release -

http://www.elviscostello.info/articles/ ... 0629a.html

Review of This Year's Model
Rolling Stone, 1978-06-29
- Kit Rachis

http://www.elviscostello.info/articles/ ... 0311a.html

Review of This Year's Model
NME, 1978-03-11
- Nick Kent

[sweetest punch]

30 second audio clips here:
http://www.amazon.com/This-Years-Model- ... 59&sr=1-21

[Dr. Luther]

I guess this didn't really sink in until I was holding the re-issue in my hands, but:

Tiny Steps should not be on this compilation -- no way -- no how.
It's a travesty. I just don't understand how someone in an artistic director position pulled the trigger on this.

Tiny Steps was recorded in the sessions for the subsequent album, at least 8 months after TYM was completed.
When the Radio Radio 45 was released, hearing the fruits of the new recording sessions as the B-side was a BIG DEAL. It was the first evidence that the public had of the next wave of Costello & the Attractions.
That it is quite similar to the TYM sound and approach matters not.
(That's like putting "Yes it Is" on an earlier Beatles album compilation because it's similar to "This Boy".)

Just plain wrong.

[wardo68]

Tiny Steps should not be on this compilation -- no way -- no how. It's a travesty. I just don't understand how someone in an artistic director position pulled the trigger on this.
Just plain wrong.

Well, there's that. Truth be told, I'll be spending more time with the second disc of this, my 4th copy of the album on CD. I just don't know how much time.

[Otis Westinghouse]

Sound quality on those 30 second clips of CD2 sounds pretty good. I'm going to hold out till it's going for a fiver in my beloved Fopp store!

[mood swung]

johnfoyle, you do trawl the deepest parts of the internet, don't you? digging up a review from the News Sentinel. And I read their music reviews usually, but somehow missed that one.

[johnfoyle]

j

ohnfoyle, you do trawl the deepest parts of the internet, don't you?

Kind of you to say so , but Google News does all the hard work.

http://news.google.ie/nwshp?client=fire ... &scoring=n

[johnfoyle]

Google blog search -

http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch ... &scoring=d

-gets this -

http://swaggernotstyle.wordpress.com/20 ... ars-model/




March 5, 2008...8:03 am

Chris Pearson blogs -



At the Warner, Elvis was That Year’s Model


On February 28, 1978, Elvis Costello was 23 years old and convinced of his own magnificence. His second album — but crucially, his first with the Attractions, the three musicians with whom he’d make his most celebrated records — the furious, paranoid, Aftermath-styled This Year’s Model, would be released the following week, and would top the Village Voice and Rolling Stone critics’ polls at year’s end. At the close of his first U.S. tour, only two months earlier, he’d been thrown out of 30 Rock for aborting his Saturday Night Live performance of “Less than Zero” mid-song to play the broadcast-industry indictment “Radio Radio” instead, a stunt that got him banned from SNL for 11 years. (He was invited back decades later to recreate the moment with the Beastie Boys.)

Stepping onstage at the Warner Theatre for his first Washington, DC gig, aired on the radio radio by WHFS, the once-and-future Declan Patrick MacManus was full of ambition, swagger, impatience, and, probably, amphetamines. Opening with the apocalyptic stomp of “Pump It Up” and winding things down with the simmering “Chemistry Class” an hour later, the feral, compressed, too-clever-to-be punk rock he conjured up that night solidified his fan base in Our Nation’s Capitol, even though he’d soon start doing everything he could to sabotage his growing popularity and acclaim.

You can hear the 1978 Warner Theatre show in its breathless 62-minute entirety on the new 30th anniversary edition of This Year’s Model, which Hip-O Records is releasing today. Elvis’s first 11 albums, originally issued here in the States on Columbia Records, has been repackaged more times than the Smiths’ greatest hits, each time with a new(ish) side dish of bonus material. This year’s, um, version of This Year’s Model includes most of the same B-sides, demos, and outtakes featured on the 2002 Rhino Records edition; “Big Tears,” featuring The Clash’s Mick Jones on guitar, and a great, live cover of The Damned’s “Neat Neat Neat” from 1977 remain highlights. And yet its inclusion on a second disc of the previously unreleased Warner Theatre gig makes this an essential purchase for any Elvis geek, not just obsessive completists. This re-re-reissue loses points, however, for omitting the candid, often hilarious liner notes Elvis penned for the prior edition. (We need hardly tell you that on the merits of the 12 songs that comprised the original release, This Year’s Model is a must-own in any version.)

The sound mix of the Warner concert is stellar, proving once again that while Elvis and the Attractions radiated as much kinetic force onstage as any punk outfit, they simply played too skillfully to embody the form’s DIY ethos. Each Attraction has equal presence — bassist Bruce Thomas is the only member who doesn’t still play with Elvis in the Imposters, and to hear his bouncy, fluid anchor lines here is too miss him — but the crowd is a crucial character in the scene, too. Despite Elvis’s typically combative orders to them to get out of their seats (”You in the beard. What’s the matter with you? Stop trying to be unimpressed; I don’t believe ya “), they’re plenty involved, from the guy who can be heard near the end of the show shouting “You’re fucking brilliant!” again and again to the dude who implores Elvis during the hushed bridge of “(I Don’t Want to Go To) Chelsea” to “Play some fucking rock and roll!” (How did WHFS handle these improptu contributions to their radio show, I wonder.)

Hearing the show also invites you to consider the legacy of the Warner Theatre, one of the oldest and most storied performance venues in the region. Opened in 1924 (as the Earle Theatre) and operating almost continuously since (it was closed for repairs from 1989 to 1992) — as a vaudeville club, cinema, concert venue, and even, briefly, as a porno theatre — the Warner was around for decades before Blues Alley or The Bayou, which closed in 1998. Two concert venues on U Street, the Lincoln Theatre and Bohemian Caverns, both opened around the same time as the Warner, though the Warner wouldn’t be used primarily for concerts until much later.

The Warner is home to the District’s modest Walk of Fame, featuring the signatures of luminaries who’ve played there since its 1992 reopening, from Frank Sinatra to Chris Rock. These days it’s part of the Live Nation megalith. Though Live Nation is supposedly getting out of the theatre business to focus on the concert trade,the industry juggernaut chose to hold onto the Warner even as it sold off many of its mixed-use venues in January. This would seem to reflect the Warner’s continuing renown as a concert venue, a rep bolstered by the fact that 1,800-seat Warner has occasionally been a venue-of-choice for “secret” shows by artists who easily fill much larger rooms: The Rolling Stones played a gig there in 1978 on their tour for Some Girls, their last great album; two days later they played Philadelphia’s massive, now-demolished John F. Kennedy Stadium. The Artist Formerly and Now, Thankfully, Once Again Known as Prince performed there on several occasions between 1983 and 2002.

The Warner’s slate for the coming months is a typically mixed bag of musicals, plays, stand-up comedy, awards shows, and of course, rock and roll. In that regard, it’s well, the DC performance venue most like Elvis Costello.

Now in his mid-fifties, Elvis remains a workaholic of near-freakishly eclectic interests who’s just as likely to turn up crooning ballads in front of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra as he is to play a rowdy 2.5-hour rock and roll show at the 9:30 Club. His recorded output in the latter half of his career has been even harder to categorize, encompassing ballet commissions, jazz, and collaborations with everyone from pop masters like Allen Toussaint, Burt Bacharach, and Paul McCartney to avant-garde musicians like Anne Sofie von Otter or the Brodsky Quartet.

Elvis and the Imposters — essentially the Attractions, with Davey Farragher replacing Bruce Thomas on bass — are opening for their contemporariesThe Police on the latter band’s supposedly-final tour this summer. The Police couldn’t pretend they were punks for very long, either. Compared to the seething jealousy dripping from every note of This Year’s Model, “Every Breath You Take” sounds like the sweet little love ballad that many always believed it was.

[Otis Westinghouse]

I hope Elvis sticks that review up in Sting's dressing room!