A Poll To Trust (or another Elvis Costello poll then....)

Not by any means as strong and cohesive as his previous albums, but "Clubland" is a classic worth voting for.

Dude this is like his only really good record! "Seconds of Pleasure" btw

I primarily listen to EC comps now, but when I go for a proper album it's usually either this one or This Year's Model. There's not really a bad song on it.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

"new lace sleeves" -- just like "imperial bedroom" except it's actually good!

"Strict Time"

Always had a special place in my heart for Nieve's performance on 'Lover's Walk' - that gets my vote. I'm slapping this wax on today during work.

His best record, even though it absolutely falls apart towards the end. But the first 75% is some of the greatest music ever made by anyone.

Yeah, this is certainly his best after This Year's Model; its diversity is its strength, even if I prefer the second to the first half ("Luxembourg" is an idea that doesn't come off). He's grown so much as a writer that a song like "White Knuckles" would have been a clever, hook-laden scorcher on TYM and here it's clever-sick, like Jimmy Stewart watching his neighbor Ms Lonelyheart getting beat up in Rear Window.

"New Lace Sleeves" and "Watch Your Step" are a great twosome.

I see this as the album where he tried to do what he succeeded doing on "Imperial Bedroom".

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

Um, that was quick.

"Big Sister's Clothes" rules.

Some days I think this might be his best record.

Asking myself why I don't listen to this record as much as the other early Attractions ones. It's bloody brilliant.

"Watch Your Step" > "Clubland" > everything else

I love "New Lace Sleeves" as well as the two listed above the most. The whole album has since grown on me, but it took a while - it's the one great album from his 'classic' era that I didn't warm to right away.

Strict Time is like my favorite type of Costello song, it's wonky and bouncy and overlays a bunch of parts that shouldn't really fit together. Beyond Belief is another one. wish he did more like it.

Yeah totally. I always thought that was pretty amazing about a lot of his records from this era - they model these disparate parts from records that have little relation from one another and then fuse them together into something that works. It really is the type of thing that would be conceived by a group of record connoisseurs, and it makes his eventual collaboration with the Roots decades later seem pretty logical. In this particular case, I think EC said they focused their reach to the New Wave groups of the day, though it was more like "this is our idea of a [fill-in-the-blank] song," etc.

Also the way this album came together seemed pretty haphazard - it sounded like they weren't in the best state and drinking way too much, and the results were such a mess that they had to regroup and start all over again from scratch.

I've listened to this album far more than any other EC album, and for the life of me, I can't remember any song on it named New Lace Sleeves.
For my money, "Big Sister's Clothes" is the standout, followed closely by Strict Time and Lover's Walk.
As a teenaged Squeeze fan, I wanted to love the Glenn Tilbrook duet far more than I ever did.

Update:
Listening now, and "New Lace Sleeves" still feels pretty unmemorable to me.

This is his first and best "grown-up" record.

Listening now, and "New Lace Sleeves" still feels pretty unmemorable to me.

I like the space -- that bass and organ recall "Ghost Town" -- and the mysterious lyric.