To my ears, Armed Forces is Elvis Costello's last perfect record, the final moment when his ambition doesn't quite begin to outstrip his talent and charm. There are many genius moments on 1980's Get Happy!, some of which match or even exceed the best moments here, but creeping in with the gold are the first signs of Costello's desperate and bothersome need to telegraph sophistication, manifesting itself in the lyrical equivalent of dropping lines from a Waugh novel into a pop song. Maybe this is your cup of tea (are you English?), but when I'm listening to pop music so propulsive and bright I want to lose myself in the lyrics, to find the instant identifier. On Get Happy! Costello is kicking your shin to point out his cleverness so often that I lose focus: It's the moment where the lyrics go from "very literate" to "so literate I no longer give a shit." By Imperial Bedroom, when we get to "Long Honeymoon":
All the bedroom lights go out
As the neighbourhood gets quiet
Everything in heaven and earth is almost right
But there's a wife who's wondering where her husband could be tonight
And when the phone rang only once she took a dreadful fright
But damn if Armed Forces isn't a juggernaut. In fact, since Costello is the kind of artist that makes one slip all too easily into High Fidelity mode, let's just go ahead and say that this is probably a top five Side 1 record. All six songs are faultless and substantial. Nobody doesn't like "Alison" but "Party Girl" is probably my favorite Costello ballad. And my college girlfriend told me when we broke up that she listened to "Big Boys" on repeat as a kind of revenge. Ouch.
Still, as much as I love this record, it's not something I've dug for on vinyl. Too often his early platters are banged up, and the art on the American sleeve is kinda stupid; why mess with elephants? But this German pressing was too sweet to pass up. Check the specs: Four-way fold out cover with fantastic inner art (except for the center, which is the American cover art), a bonus 7" EP, and thick-stock cards with pictures of Costello and the band. And the record's in great shape, too. Cheers to Amoeba in San Francisco for pricing it like bin record.
And just because Nick Lowe never gets enough credit for his production on the first six Costello records: Great work, Nick!
