When Elvis Costello spit out This Year’s Model in 1978 he managed to combine a range of things that hadn’t been put together that way before. With his Buddy Holly-on-Benzedrine looks and an ability to toss off memorable tunes like a crossroads-enhanced demon, Costello and his crack new band The Attractions played the album with the in-your-face ferocity of seventies punk but with much better musical technique. Boiled right down though, it was the intelligence that stood out. Costello made being smart cool. Going forward, rock and roll’s angry young men (or women) could no longer just strike the pose, they had to have something to say. Today’s artists pay tribute to that legacy and add to it.
Toby Tantrum is the musical vehicle of Ben Simon. He’s got a load of singles and EPs up on Bandcamp though it’s hard map his career as most appear to be released in 2018 or 2021 and the artwork looks remarkably consistent throughout. In fact, he appears to be wearing the same 1965 jacket and tie in every pic. Musically Simon oscillates between an early Beatles Merseybeat and a ramshackle Velvet Underground strut. Lyrically, he splits his focus between mocking the pretentions/self-absorption of the musically famous and more obvious political themes. Songs like “One Take Wonder” and “One Chord” employ an unreliable narrator technique to tell us more than the protagonist realizes while “I Found Someone And It’s Me” speaks to the irresponsibility and shallowness of those in the spotlight. Politically “A City Is Not a Dormitory” from the EP Community for Those That Can Afford It is a scathing indictment of developers and local housing policy. And they all work as songs, which makes this whole affair more than a conceptual art project. Picking and choosing from his varied catalogue I’d draw your attention to at least three really hooky tunes. “People Are People” bursts with great guitar lines that ripple on repeat like a trickling stream while stylistically the song sounds like a rockier 1970s Roxy Music. “Hold Me Down” clocked me with its spot-on early 1960s vocal harmonies, very much in the early 1960s folk rock/country register. And listen to what Simon does on “So Many Times.” The vibe reminds me of those early Zombies records where they cover a load of American R&B 45s. Simon’s vocal even matches the delightful whine of Colin Blunstone in places. Alas, it appears Simon may have forsaken music for a more direct approach to politics, running for Cambridge City Council in 2019 as a Marxist socialist. My kind of guy.
Owen Adamcik loves The Nerves and The Plimsouls and you only have to tune in briefly to his recent long player Owen Adamcik’s Power Pop Paradise to get that message. But there’s more going on too. On his Bandcamp page you can find a raft of releases that chart his progress – from DIY teen-with-guitar to proto-punk to his more recent polished performances – and the pace of change has been meteoric. The new LP has oh so Plimsouls numbers like “Don’t Call Me on the Phone” and “When She Finds Out.” Then things branch out, drawing from a variety of sixties and late seventies new wave motifs. “She Kissed Me First” is built around some really nice lead guitar work that leads the vocal melody. Both “Her Eyes Made A Million Boys Cry” and “Maybe You Like Me” explore different song structures and put some interesting twists into their melodies. Really the Costello comparison here is more about intensity. Adamcik manages to squeeze maximum vocal anguish into every song, without over-reaching. On the other hand “Mixed Signals” definitely has a Costello punch to the chorus, run through a CCR filter. There are lighter moments too, caught in the more sixties boppy numbers like “You’ll Tell Your Friends” and “She’s My Girlfriend.”
Role models are important. Today’s acts show how to balance being ‘intense’ while still having a good time. Elvis would be proud.
Photo ‘That’s The Way Love Goes’ courtesy Thomas Hawk Flikr collection.
A lot of words have been written about Elvis Costello (the artist himself added a few hundred thousand in his recent autobiography 
Things changed dramatically with album number two, now backed by Costello’s defiant new band, the Attractions. This Year’s Model charges out of the gate, its stripped-down, in your face rock and roll delivered with a crisp ferocity unmatched by any of Costello’s other recordings. This is the critics’ favourite album for a reason. I like it less than the debut but still love it, particularly the catchy lead guitar line on “You Belong to Me.” Elvis dials back some of the attack on his third album, Armed Forces, letting the listener in on some impressive aural landscapes that illustrate his talent for arranging his music. This is captured nicely on the single, “Accidents Will Happen.”You Belong to Me
Get Happy!! and Taking Liberties were both released in 1980, the latter a compilation of B-sides (released as Ten Bloody Marys & Ten How’s Your Fathers in the UK). With each record topping out at 20 songs, together they represented a cornucopia of poprock. What is striking here is the restraint, the subtle hooks of “B Movie,” “New Amsterdam” and “Secondary Modern” on Get Happy!! or “Radio Sweetheart” and “Hoover Factory” on Taking Liberties. One almost gets a sense that the songs were chiseled into shape, worked over until every detail reflected the light just so. Of course, there were also more raucous examples like “Possession” or “Crawling to the U.S.A.”
Poprock Record 