Album · Elvis Costello & the Attractions
Imperial Bedroom by Elvis Costello & the Attractions
Imperial Bedroom is an album by Elvis Costello & the Attractions, released in 1982. 5 songs from it have charted on rock radio countdowns, with 36 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “Beyond Belief”, on 20 lists with a best position of #319.
Imperial Bedroom, Elvis Costello's seventh album and his sixth with the Attractions, came out on 2 July 1982, on F-Beat in Britain and Columbia in America, and it's where he turned studio obsessive. Holed up at AIR Studios in London from late 1981 into 1982 with Geoff Emerick at the desk, Costello kept rewriting songs and piling on overdubs, while Steve Nieve dressed them in harpsichord, accordion and his own string arrangements, with Bruce Thomas and Pete Thomas (no relation) anchoring it all.
The result is lush and ornate, closer to the Beatles and Phil Spector than to anything in his back pages, and the songs pick at love and the private damage people do to each other; Squeeze's Chris Difford co-wrote the words to "Boy With a Problem". Barney Bubbles painted the sleeve as a riff on Picasso's Three Musicians. Critics swooned, but sales were modest enough that Costello changed course for Punch the Clock.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from Imperial Bedroom on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Beyond Belief | 20 | #319 | – | 1999–2026 | |
| 2 | Man out of Time | 11 | #670 | – | 2003–2021 | |
| 3 | Shabby Doll | 3 | #481 | – | 1988–2003 | |
| 4 | The Loved Ones | 1 | #90 | – | 1982 | |
| 5 | Almost Blue | 1 | #1905 | – | 2003 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.