POLL For Tender - the Elvis Costello- Get Happy!! Poll

best fukken album. i could vote for anything from side one, so i'll have to think on it...

i've always had a soft spot for 'opportunity,' but i've been loving the manic vibe of 'the imposter' lately. steve nieve is really a madman on this whole album.

there's no need to be evasive/money talks and it's persuasive

probably going for clowntime is over. WHO'S MAKING LOVERS' LANE SAFE AGAIN FOR LOVERS??

this album has the best great songs to bad songs ratio in his discography which is amazing considering how long it is.

Going with "New Amsterdam," but there are an amazing number of plausible choices for a 20 song album.

you lack lust
you're so lackluster

dammmmmn this is impossible between Opportunity and New Amsterdam

"you can total up the balance sheet
and never know if i'm a counterfeit"

is one of the all-time great forced rhymes

might be the only vote for "Black & White World" but damn does that song run through my head a lot

"Everything you say now sounds like it was ghostwritten"

!!!

yeah, New Amsterdam is perfect. would have been cool to hear an entire album from that era where he plays all the instruments, à la that track and Hoover Factory

I didn't know he played the bass on that - pretty fuckin good bassist!

“King Horse” or maybe “Riot Act.”

That was exactly my dilemma. Went with King Horse having already selected Riot Act!

when the heat gets sub-tropical
and the talk gets so topical

when i said that i was lying, i might have been lying

Riot Act

seems unfair to just pick one here. Such a consistent album.
but yeah, King Horse.

I'm also seeing him in two weeks. I'm going for Blondie but Elvis will be a nice bonus.

Listening for the first time in many years. Man this album is really coke-y

Probably "Possession," though this whole album is such a rush.

Riot Act

Very underrated & under-seen music video. the mix on this has almost no bass

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfK1_FBTMtA

"Motel Matches" is one of his best early vocals.

This album hits some sort of sweet spot. Word play can get quite clotted but still seems to get the point across pretty effectively, plus there continues to be plenty of unhinged Attractions action mixed with the deep R&B influences/tributes/covers/copycat grooves.

I knew that song so long before we met
That it means much more than it
[beat]
might
[ching-a-ling!]

But probably Motel Matches for me — peak Costello chainsaw-thru-dictionary wordplay with Stax feels.

Went with my instinctual first choice--"Possession"--but "Opportunity" and "The Imposter" were right up there.

who is voting for New Amsterdam? who is voting for Opportunity? I will not let either of these songs go down with zero votes

I already voted for Opportunity

Those are both good so I applaud your efforts

I rarely want to listen to EC these days, but I'd always make an exception for Motel Matches

I heard some of his latest album in a record shop in Edinburgh, and did think it sounded like prime old-skool EC&Attr, but then did feel like I didn’t want to go back..

Voted for King Horse which has been my favourite song of his since I really got into him about 20 years ago.

Brilliant album. Probably my third favourite of his after This Year's Model and Trust.

I rarely want to listen to EC these days, but I'd always make an exception for Motel Matches

I don't listen to too much EC these days, but when I do I always wonder why I don't do it more. Def. an example of an act whose last three decades of competence undermines an initial decade (more or less) of mostly brilliance.

Yeah, it's amazing to think that in his first decade he put out My Aim Is True, This Year's Model, Armed Forces, Get Happy, Trust, Imperial Bedroom and Blood & Chocolate which are all so strong. Such a shame his quality dropped so drastically after that.

Why a shame? Most artists don't get more than a decade of good work. Look at the astonishments this man put out, and he was already repeating himself on Armed Forces.

It is a bit jarring to spend time listening to his angry young man stuff then see him in concert today and he’s kinda an aw shucks entertainer. He and the band still sounded awesome though, especially Pete

Don’t sleep on Steve.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I would never sleep on Steve! He’s amazing, especially on this album

voted man called uncle, always had a soft spot for it

+1 to frogbs, I think Black and White World, it’s such a refreshing step-up stylistically amidst the feel of the album— it may be rhythmically? I think there’s a dif version on 10 Bloody Mary’s that I may like more but i am far adrift from elvis listenership right now.

For some reason I thought that was the one released as a single on 2-Tone, but that was "I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down."

According to Record Collector (No 91): " Costello had been signed to Radar in 1978, via a licensing deal from Riviera Global Productions. Radar collapsed towards the end of 1979, and so Elvis's manager Jake Riviera alighted upon the Specials' 2-Tone label as an ideal venue for a holding operation - a one-off single - until Elvis sorted out a deal for the Get Happy!! album. WEA, who had distributed Radar, were less than delighted: they felt they had a stake in Costello's career by virtue of the success of the records they had distributed for him, and so they obtained a court injunction to stop the 2-Tone single being sold.

By March '80, the situation was clarified: F-Beat was set up by Riviera as an independent company, but WEA continued to distribute their records. In the meantime, there were several thousand 2-Tone singles to dispose of. These were handed out free to the audience at a London's Rainbow Theatre gig. Several months later, Riviera pressed up a few thousand more of the 2-Tone singles, and these were given away at London and US gigs".

Jerry Dammers offers a slightly different take on the story behind this single: “Jake Riviera cheekily printed up a few thousand Elvis Costello singles on the 2 tone label, obviously thinking that I would be delighted to have such a major star on the label, but I was having none of it, 2 Tone being a strictly ska at that time. So Elvis was forced to give these singles away free at his gigs (now collector’s items, of course). (Record Collector magazine No 363)

The label print does look a bit different on that one. Plus, I've not seen a copy that didn't have both catalogue numbers on the deadwax.

according to wikipedia, ten bloody marys had song side 2, number 7-

7. "Black and White World" (Demo version) (previously unreleased) – 1:51

heh also trust unsurprisingly

bleah taking liberties sorry

It’s spelled “Blecch”

Haven’t even finished that long post about Jake Riviera but wouldn’t be surprised by almost anything I might read about him

Steve was great when I saw them in 2016. Loved it when he interpolated the keyboard hook from “Je t’aime.... moi non plus.” Then I shortly found out that his wife was French and that was the first record he ever bought.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

pour one out for the imposter :(

B-Movie wuz robbed.

i had a playlist where 'b-movie' followed 'uh-oh love comes to town,' it flowed nicely

I applaud those who voted for "Clowntime Is Over." I for one have paid for the privilege of hearing him singing the title phrase over and over again one too many times.

Fuggen album is so good, I could have voted for any of the 0-vote songs except B-Movie, and I even like that one. Poll for worst?

b movie was my second choice

Revive because of recent reinterest sparked by another EC thread. The slightly demented and brutalized take on Motown Stax/Volt just keeps on going, vaguely reminiscent of an earlier British Invasion.

criminal that "secondary modern" and "the imposter" got zero votes! there was plenty of secondary modern discussion in the other thread, but i love steve nieve's mad organ on "the imposter." it might be the fastest song on an album full of uptempo tracks?

Is there a bad track at all on this one? Guess I have to listen again to find out. "Riot Act" is a helluva closer, although in my past life it was merely the end of Side 1.

I said on the other thread that "I Stand Accused" and "Human Touch" are marginal.