1978 Pazz + Jop Album Poll

Elvis Costello + the Attractions : This Year's Girl

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The Village Voice's contemporaneous poll of American rock and jazz critics in 1978 is interesting mostly because we get to see what they missed. The Clash's 1977 debut album wouldn't be released in the US until mid-1979 so Americans were late to certain parties, even if they eventually discovered The Clash, Ian Dury, and Wire in '78. So what did Americans miss by late '78? The Buzzcocks, The Jam, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Magazine, Public Image, The Only Ones, Dire Straits and The Saints, to name a few. And as the years passed Kraftwerk's Man Machine, Steve Reich's Music For 18 Musicians , Marvin Gaye's Here My Dear, Big Star's Third would all be considered classics.

1. Elvis Costello: This Year's Model (Columbia) 783 (58)
2. The Rolling Stones: Some Girls (Rolling Stones) 616 (52)
3. Nick Lowe: Pure Pop for Power People (Columbia) 328 (32)
4. The Clash: Give 'Em Enough Rope (Epic) 328 (28) 
5. Talking Heads: More Songs About Buildings and Food (Sire) 317 (28)

6. Bruce Springsteen: Darkness at the Edge of Town (Columbia) 284 (25)
7. Ramones: Road to Ruin (Sire) 262 (24)
8. Neil Young: Comes a Time (Reprise) 250 (25)
9. The Cars: The Cars (Elektra) 223 (24)
10. David Johansen: David Johansen (Blue Sky) 186 (17)
11. Warren Zevon: Excitable Boy (Asylum) 182 (16)

12. Brian Eno: Before and After Science (Island) 171 (16)
13. Ian Dury: New Boots and Panties! (Stiff) 146 (15)
14. Patti Smith Group: Easter (Arista) 144 (18)
15. Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band: Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) (Warner Bros.) 137 (14)
16. Dave Edmunds: Tracks on Wax 4 (Swan Song) 111 (13)
17. The Who: Who Are You (MCA) 110 (8)
18. Television: Adventure (Elektra) 109 (13)
19. Willie Nelson: Stardust (Columbia) 108 (11)
20. Devo: Are We Not Men? We Are Devo! (Warner Bros.) 107 (12)

21. Bob Dylan: Street Legal (Columbia) 101 (8)
22. Cheap Trick: Heaven Tonight (Epic) 92 (11)
23. Van Morrison: Wavelength (Warner Bros.) 90 (11)
24. Lou Reed: Street Hassle (Arista) 89 (10)
25. Blondie: Parallel Lines (Chrysalis) 88 (11)
26. Pere Ubu: The Modern Dance (Blank) 81 (10)

27. Funkadelic: One Nation Under a Groove (Warner Bros.) 73 (7)
28. Wire: Pink Flag (Harvest) 70 (6)
29. Generation X: Generation X (Chrysalis) 66 (7)
30. Al Green : Truth n Time (Hi) 65 (9)



From Robert Christgau:

 Elvis Costello's This Year's Model is the biggest winner in Pazz + Jop history. Except in 1974, when there were a mere 28 voters, only The Basement Tapes has ever made over half the ballots, and Costello's point spread--huge over the runner-up Stones and absolutely staggering over everyone else--is unprecedented and then some. But what's even more remarkable is the rest of the chart. Last year, eight of the 30 finishers were directly associated with new wave; this year--not counting Brian Eno, the Cars or Cheap Trick--the figure is 16. And now consider the non-new wavers in the top 20, where the poll is most reliable statistically. Eno produced No New York and Talking Heads and is referred to in a recent issue of Punk as "God"; the Cars may share a producer with Queen, but they share a&r, not to mention key musical ideas, with Television and the Dictators. Bruce Springsteen was a punk before there were punks--a "real" punk, as they say. Singer-songwriter Neil Young encored at the Garden with a reprise of his paean to Johnny Rotten, and singer-songwriter Warren Zevon is an excitable boy who has done Neil one better by encoring with "God Save the Queen." Hard rock perennials Stones and Who both responded more or less explicitly to the punk challenge with their toughest records in years. The best album since 1971 (if not 4004 B.C.) by the venerable rock vanguardist Captain Beefheart responds to nothing except the weather, but the Captain was his own kind of new waver before there was an ocean, or a flag. And finally there's Willie Nelson, the great exception, described by ace ballot annotator Tom Smucker as follows: "Nelson takes the crossover spirit of 1978 Country Music and crosses so far over with it he misses the mainstream entirely and ends up with an album that takes risks and gains integrity."

Photographs of Fancy Tricks

Elvis Costello and the Attractions : ( I Don't Want to go to) Chelsea

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On April 9, Elvis Costello's first single from This Year's Model, "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea",  peaked at UK #16.

Costello has worked as a white coated computer technician at Elizabeth Arden, next door to the cosmetics factory when he wrote the song taking a contrary view on fashion. He writes about the song in Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink:

Early one morning, I snuck my guitar into the office, as I knew I’d be working late into the night. Once everyone else had gone home and I was alone in the otherwise darkened building, with just the hum and chatter of the computer terminal and the far-off light of a coffee machine next to the stairwell where murderers lurked, I wrote “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea.” My initial guitar riff was one I borrowed from The Who’s “I Can’t Explain,” but I was glad that Pete Thomas and Bruce Thomas later came up with a more syncopated way to play it, especially after I found out that The Clash had pinched the same riff for “Clash City Rockers.

Two To Tumble

Elvis Costello : The Beat

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On March 17, 1978 Elvis Costello released his second album, This Year's Model. It would be selected as the best album of the year by the Village Voice Pazz and Jop Critics Poll, topping releases by Nick Lowe, The Rolling Stones, Talking Heads and the Clash.

To these ears, This Year's Model is a dramatic departure from the straight ahead pub rock of My Aim Is True. And I'm frankly surprised that Costello doesn't share songwriting credit with the musicians who helped him invent this sound, The Attractions. Listen to Steve Nieve's keyboards  on "The Beat", Bruce Thomas's bass on "Pump It Up" and Pete Thomas's drums on "Lipstick Vogue".  Could Costello have really brought this much life to songs with a guitar and a cassette player?

This is a tight, punchy band who brought road tested into London's Eden Studios where they bashed out the album in eleven days. Costello is snarling. His lyrics are bitter takes on romantic angst. If you had to pick one Elvis Costello album to own, this would be it.

A few other takes.

Robert Christgau :

Anyone who thinks it's uninfluenced ( by punk)  should compare the bite and drive of the backup here to the well-played studio pub-rock of his debut and ask themselves how come he now sounds as angry as he says he feels. I find his snarl more attractively musically and verbally than all his melodic and lyrical tricks, and while I still wish he liked girls more, at least I'm ready to believe he's had some bad luck.

From Rolling Stone:

This Year's Model is the most "punk" of Costello's records -- not in any I-hate-the-cops sense but in his emotionally explosive writing ("No Action," "Lipstick Vogue," "Pump It Up") and the Attractions' vicious gallop (particularly the psycho-circus organ playing of Steve Nieve). Many of the songs rattle with sexual paranoia, but the broadside against vanilla-pop broadcasting, "Radio, Radio" (a U.K. single added to the original U.S. vinyl LP), better reflects the general, righteous indignation of the album: Costello vs. the world. And Costello wins.

From  Paul Stokes's 1001Albums You Must Hear Before You Die:

Uncompromising and vicious, This Year's Model is no meaningless rant. It cuts deeply, and tellingly, straight to the bone. Revenge and guilt might scare off other songwriters, but among the anger and disgust Costello finds his truth.