The "Armed Forces" Poll

Sort of tempted to go for "Sunday's Best", which is brilliantly Music Hall influenced. But it has to be one of those two brilliant pop singles, really.

"Oliver's Army".

it annoys me how this record has a bunch of two-word song titles that seem like costello just drew cards at random, pairing some adjective with some noun, over and over. don't much care for the songs either.

i mean, just shift the words around a bit and you'll get Green Boys, Party Shirt, Goon Girl, Busy Squad. all valid song titles as well. what was he thinking?

http://www.rshb.org.uk/dust/blondie_sundaygirl.jpg

I smiled.

it annoys me how this record has a bunch of two-word song titles that seem like costello just drew cards at random, pairing some adjective with some noun, over and over

Wow, that's a brilliant description. I like this album less as the years pass.

I find this album as, well, I like it, but while I would normally liked a "pop" album better than his previous two "rock" albums, I don't really.

On "Armed Forces", there is Elvis Costello trying to do what he would three years later do so brilliantly on "Imperial Bedroom". On "Armed Forces" he only partly succeeds: Some of the tracks are really great, like "Oliver's Army", "Accidents Will Happen", "Sunday's Best" and "Green Shirt", while others leave a bit more to be desired. The decision to "go pop" was a good one though, as proved on later albums such as "Imperial Bedroom" and the overlooked "Brutal Youth".

good album. "Party Girl" is and always has been the standout for me.

I went with "Oliver's Army," which actually, weirdly, meant a lot to me when I was going into the actual army in the early '80s. This was the very first Elvis Costello album I bought (in 1979 -- I bought his other first two within the next couple weeks after that), which means it was one of the very first albums I bought, period, once I started buying more than one or two albums a year. It's still either my second or third favorite EC album.

What's with the back cover being up there, though? (Wait, was that the front cover in the UK? I've never seen a British copy, I don't think. Same track listing as the U.S., I guess? And wasn't this LP gonna be called Emotional Fascism at first?)

That's the UK front cover. The back cover was a complex four way foldy-out thing, with fab graphics.

"(What's So Funny Bout) Peace Love And Understanding" wasn't on the original release, by the way.

one of those two brilliant pop singles

I gather, from Geir saying this up above, that "Accidents Will Happen" and "Oliver's Army" were singles (maybe even hits) in the UK/maybe Europe? In Detroit, "Accidents" and "What's So Funny" got played on the three rock stations a lot; I also think I heard "Oliver's Army" once or twice. They also played "Pump It Up" from Model, and maybe occasionally "Radio Radio" (not positive about that one), and I swear I heard "The Beat" once. But I'm not sure, even with "Pump It Up," whether they had already been playing it in 1978 (when I wasn't paying attention to the radio anywhere near as actively), or whether they'd just started playing it, in retrospect, after those two Armed Forces songs hit. Anyway, here's a question: Did rock (as in AOR) stations in the States play any Costello tracks regularly after Armed Forces?? I might be wrong, but I don't think any Get Happy cuts got that much airplay. And I know he had a couple sort-of-pop hits a few years later, but I'm guessing they didn't rock hard enough for hard rock radio? (Or for me, for that matter.) Anyway, I could be wrong; curious what other people might remember...

"Accidents Will Happen" and "Oliver's Army" were singles (maybe even hits) in the UK/maybe Europe?

yes. OlArm got to number 2.

you mean after the Ray Charles Affair?

I dunno about radio – I was too young – but MTV played "Clubland," "Everyday I Write The Book," "I Wanna Be Loved," and "The Only Flame in Town" a lot.

"Accidents Will Happen". But "Green Shirt" and "Moods For Moderns" are favourites too.

"(What's So Funny Bout) Peace Love And Understanding" wasn't on the original release, by the way.

I know. Included it because it was on the American edition, and has now also found its way to the shortened non-bonus-track CD version.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

"Goon Squad"

album is packed full of contenders but i'm gonna go for Party Girl, which is an all-time fave. would be a cracking karaoke tune, if it were the kind of thing karaoke places carried.

this is a great album overall, a top three Elvis C album for me. this is the album where he really over-extended himself on the wordplay though, and got much too clever for his own good. thankfully he seemed to realise that at the time because the puns were never so laboured or obtrusive again.

i can't tell if the 2nd and 3rd posts on this thread are some kind of ill-conceived gag or amongst the stupidest things i've ever read on ILM.

I voted "Green Shirt." This was the first Costello album I heard, sometime in 1980. As a kid who was used to Queen, ELO, Styx, etc., this album along with Fear Of Music and Pleasure Principle sounded pretty radical and changed my idea of what constitutes a "good song." Few songs on Armed Forces (much better title than the overly blunt Emotional Fascism) were directly catchy. To me it sounded to be more about wordplay and creative arrangements and production.

An excellent album (and so is "Pleasure Princible" and "Fear Of Music" as well), but Queen, ELO and even Styx deserved your love too ;)

"other albums are also available"

It has to be 'Accidents Will Happen'; I remember watching over and over a video of the video that was screened on BBC2 on election night 1987, with red and blue graphics flickering up on the screen. Not a good political memory du tout, but a memorable pop experience. Anyway I think the song is superb, wonderfully quotable - 'so many people to conject upon and add to your collection', etc.

"Sunday's Best"? I've never even heard of that song - was that left off American pressings or something?

yup:

The US release of Armed Forces (with the "dripping paint" sleeve) deleted "Sunday's Best" and substituted "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding" by Nick Lowe at the end of side two.

I remember EC's liner notes for the Ryko reish saying how the label thought the song was 'too British' or something.

"Big Boys", wow I love this song, esp. the demo on the reissues of This Years Model but even in this key-heavy arrangement it's still so bitter. It still cuts too close to home as to what it's like to go out looking for action and not do so well. But here's where the edge of the song comes in: he still ends up crossing her off his list, so if he didn't do well, it's because *she* wasn't that worthy a prize. She'll be the one when the party's over, because she didn't go home with someone else; so you're settling for someone no one else wanted. Or maybe she didn't want to go home with anyone else? After all, she'll be the one that you wish you'd held on to. Elvis leaves it unclear which way it is, and the end result is that her dignity remains unclear; the narrator's dignity is shot from the start, of course.

I love the "fitness/sickness" rhyme, that's top notch ("dead/red" not as much).

"Sunday's Best" is a very archetypically English Music Hall-influenced number that probably wouldn't have appealed much to American audiences.

"Oliver's Army."

The thing is, Geir, most of the Americans buying albums by British artists are such anglophiles that they wouldn't be scared off by something like that, even fans of someone whose influences are as heavily American as Costello's.

I think you may be right. But I guess their American label hoped for him to cross over to bigger American markets than the anglophiles only.

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

No votes for Moods For Moderns?

glad someone repped for Chemistry Class 'cos that is a top song, even if the laboured punnage is at its most egregious on that track in particular.

busy bodies pretty good too

Yeah Chemistry Class literally made me laugh out loud the first time I heard it, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.