Product Description

This definitive collection offers the most penetrating overview available of Costello's work with the Attractions. Costello's early albums changed the face of pop music by harnessing punk's energy to a leaner, more incisive aesthetic that included pop hooks, virtually inventing new wave in the process. While the Attractions didn't appear until Costello's second album, his debut's moving, unsentimental ballad "Alison" nevertheless remains one of his most loved songs. The sound tightened up when the Attractions appeared, as evidenced by the angular, reggae-influenced "(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea" and the Dylan-meets-Johnny-Rotten anthem of the disillusioned, "Pump It Up".
Elvis moved further afield in thefollowing years, from the lush, almost baroque pop of ARMEDFORCES' "Accidents Will Happen" to the heartbreaking ballad"Good Year For The Roses", from EC's C&W album ALMOST BLUE."Everyday I Write the Book" is as close as any mere mortal will ever come to writing a Smokey Robinson tune. True to Costello's jittery, neurotic image, things close out on an obsessive note with "I Want You", an unsettling tale of uncontrolled desire. The depth of Costello's oeuvre is too vast to be captured on one disc, but this one comes mighty close.

Track Listing

1. Alison
2. Watching The Detectives
3. I Don't Want To Go To Chelsea
4. Pump It Up
5. Radio Radio
6. Peace Love And Understanding
7. Oliver's Army
8. Accidents Will Happen
9. I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down
10. New Amsterdam
11. High Fidelity
12. Clubland
13. Watch Your Step
14. Good Year For The Roses
15. Beyond Belief
16. Man Out Of Time
17. Everyday I Write The Book
18. Shipbuilding
19. Love Field
20. Brilliant Mistake
21. Indoor Fireworks
22. I Want You

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7112 in Music
• Released on: 2006-03-27
• Number of discs: 1

From Amazon.com
In 1977, Elvis burst out of the gate with a series of poison pen letters set to music. It was wordy, angry, and as catchy as a cold. And the man was prolific; he kept writing and recording like a man possessed, bringing forth a stream of great songs that showed not only an encyclopedic knowledge of music, but also a passion for it. From "Alison" to "Everyday I Write the Book" it was almost impossible to fault what he was doing, and even harder to select a few songs as better than the others. This best-of, which cuts off in 1986 with the Blood and Chocolate album, attempts that impossibility, and does a very good job of it. As good an introduction as there'll ever be. --Chris Nickson

Customer Reviews

Top Stuff
He looks like Buddy Holly but sounds like Robert Zimmerman...A brilliant Greatest Hits collection with no duds or b-sides.
Olivers Army, I WANT YOU, My Aim Is True are all worthy of being called classic pop songs.

The English Elvis
The American Elvis had a better voice but it is the Irish Cockney Costello that has the songs.
Olivers Army, I Want You and My Aim Is True are the tracks that make this album a must for any pop fans collection.

The Noel Coward Of Punk
Track 22 of this CD is called I WANT YOU and the lyrics are better than anything written by Lennon & McCartney or Bob Dylan, that one song contains the emotion of a dozen plays by Shakespeare and more passiopn than a bookshelf of Jackie Collins novels.
Elvis Costello is a ugly bloke who writes beautiful love songs...