A young man in a suit and horn-rimmed glasses - for all intents and purposes, a geek - cradles a Jagmaster; he's striking a semi-rebellious 'rawk' pose, lip fixed in a sneer, legs askew, but let's face it, he's wearing a suit and glasses and has a rather sizeable head and.... well, truth be told, he looks like something of a dork. Besides, his picture's on a drab black-and-white album cover, surrounded by checkers. Checkers, for pete's sake!

Of course, upon closer look, the checkers spell out "Elvis Is King," and somehow the whole thing strikes you as ironic, and, ultimately, pretty cool. Such is the essence of one Elvis Costello.

Before becoming a nerd-rock icon - nerd-rock's only big icon until Rivers Cuomo donned horn-rims and a cardigan for the "Buddy Holly" video - Elvis Costello's existence was hardly glamorous. An excerpt from his liner notes to My Aim Is True reads: "It was just as I had been warned. If the lights went off, the rats came out. Feeling for my shoes, I edged to the light switch and illuminated the drinking party passed out on another ragged sofa. I tried to get back to sleep with the lights on. I was going to make a record the next day."

That record would be My Aim Is True. And it would be a watershed. For, though it would not be Costello's best album, My Aim Is True was certainly something different - not punk, not rock, just.... Elvis. He had a spirited, unremittingly angry punk way about him, but differed from punks in a crucial manner: punk rock was angry, and just didn't care anymore; Elvis rock was angry, but not only did it care, it made a conscious effort to reform that which angered it through volatile, literate, and often quite scathing lyrical jabs. To equate, Elvis Costello was to the late seventies what Public Enemy were to the late eighties - a musical force too talented to not bother with, too rabble-rousing to let you rest on your laurels, and too intelligent to be ignored.

That said, this isn't Elvis Costello's best album, nor is it his angriest. But it did kick off a long career of prolific, vitriolic Elvis-rock, consistent in high quality, and it is a neat harbinger of things to come, and it does work well on its own.

As E.C. historians well know, My Aim Is True did *not* feature Elvis' legendary backing band, the Attractions. No, the beat this go-round was provided by Clover (Huey Lewis's backing band), and while they're great musicians, there's a reason we're not listening to Elvis Costello and The News today - Clover doesn't mesh with Elvis nearly as well as the Attractions would, and those who hear My Aim Is True after hearing Elvis/Attractions collabos like Armed Forces and Get Happy!! are likely to balk at the difference. Essentially, Elvis Costello and Clover are a bar band, albeit a uniquely gifted and supremely intelligent one. It works, for an album, but Clover ultimately just aren't as tight with Elvis as the Attractions would be - I mean, the combination is better than, say, Neil Young and the Shocking Pinks, but Clover's loose, lazy shuffle doesn't befit Elvis Costello.

Fortunately, My Aim Is True loads up on classics. Elvis nabs his album title from bittersweet ballad "Alison"; the frantic "Mystery Dance" is welcome respite from shallow sexual egotism, Costello breaking it down with amusing anecdotes about his own clumsiness; the ultra-short "Welcome to the Working Week" waxes sarcastic for anyone trying to break into the 'big time'; "Pay It Back" actually benefits from Clover's pub-rock chugalug and sports an ultra-, ultra-catchy chorus; and "I'm Not Angry"'s vicious guitar acrobatics underscore Elvis's irony-centric songwriting - which just means that the protagonist of "I'm Not Angry" is really quite p*ssed. Of course, My Aim Is True closes with vicious satire in the form of "Watching the Detectives," and I don't want to quote "I don't know how much more of this I can take/ she's filing her nails while they're dragging the lake" again, but I suppose I just did. What can I say? This creepy, mean little raga begs for crucial quotations.

Elsewhere, though, My Aim Is True doesn't pull through. "Miracle Man," "No Dancing," "Blame It On Cain," "Sneaky Feelings" - Elvis slips too much generic barroom rock in here for my tastes. Oh, E.C.'s songwriting is impeccable. It's sneaky and mean and literate and pointed, just like good Elvis Costello songs should be. I'm not sure if this is Clover's influence or Costello's composition, but the music doesn't sit well. Oh, I understand Elvis's musical agenda perfectly - he disguises vitriolic, angry, and sometimes downright nasty lyrics with upbeat, rollicking tunes. That's why Armed Forces was such immaculately produced pop, and why Get Happy!!'s soul-rock was so bouncy and catchy. Thing is, for some of these songs on My Aim Is True, the music's not even very good. The melodies aren't catchy. The result makes some of the songs sound disjointed, because they combine Costello's barbed lyricism with faceless, listless pub-rock. Though My Aim Is True is certainly worth a listen - and essential as a landmark pop album - in retrospect, it's probably not as indictative of Elvis's prodigious talent and potential as it should've been.

True to form, Rhino has tethered this reissue with a nifty bonus disc. This one's awful nice to have around, if only because it collects great b-sides and rarities like "Radio Sweetheart" and "Stranger in the House" - two marvelous country numbers that should have made it on the record. ("Stranger in the House"'s definitive performance is on the Armed Forces bonus disc, in this reviewer's humble opinion.) Elsewhere, we're treated to a wealth of demos, some of which don't fare so well - "No Action" and "Jump Up" are fairly lame by Costello standards, and there's a demo of "Blame It On Cain," one of my least favorite Costello songs, like, ever (terrible melody!). BUT these demos yield us a sweet version of "Mystery Dance," not to mention a real gem in "Cheap Reward" - listen to these lyrics, indictative of Costello's sarcastic, whip-smart songwriting nature:

oh I feel so loose tonight I might fall to pieces
so be prepared to sweep me out the door
and I might be horizontal by the time the music ceases
so I think I'll get acquainted with the floor

oh I was trying to get away from the things that I always do
hello, floorboards, once again - how are you?

Some of this album's bonus material is quite slapdash, but when faced with such diamonds in the rough, it's hard to dismiss the reissue entirely.

Yeah, I'll bite, My Aim Is True is a classic. Unfortunately, it's unindictative of Elvis's musical style - and if his songwriting wasn't perfect right out the gate, half of these songs might be dead in the water. Luckily, Elvis makes up for some lackluster tunage with some downright incendiary songwriting, and a rock god for the miffed-but-socially-conscious was born. Cheers!







Recommended: Yes