11. Elvis CostelloThis Year’s Model
I chose the second Elvis Costello record because it had the whole band and I saw those guys so many times in that period. The band was so excellent and the songwriting and the lyrics were so excellent, Elvis Costello was a singular talent in that period.
Both Elvis and David Byrne were coming across with these songs that were so amazing – they were nodding backwards towards classic pop and yet they were doing new and innovative things with it, and the lyrics were so inspiring.
They were both such inspiring lyric writers. In different ways both writing about alienation in modern society: Elvis is this vitriolic way and David Byrne in this meek Clark Kent kind of thing, but they were both railing against what society was becoming and what it was trying to make of its citizens and they were both of their ways very punk.
