My Aim Is True by Elvis Costello

My Aim Is True, Elvis Costello's first album, came out on Stiff on 22 July 1977, and it's a sneering bolt from the blue. Nick Lowe produced it in six four-hour sessions at Pathway Studios in Islington between late 1976 and early 1977, with the California country rock band Clover playing behind him, left off the credits because of contract trouble. It was Stiff's idea to swap the name D.P. Costello for Elvis, after Presley himself, and to toughen up the image for the punk era.

The music, though, is sharper than any pose. There's punk bile and pub rock grit here, but also old-school rock and roll, R&B and rockabilly, all played tight and bright, with Costello spitting out songs about revenge and guilt, bad romances, dodgy politics and some thoroughly unpleasant characters. "Alison" is the heartbreaker, aching and bitter at once; "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes" is pure jangling pop; "Mystery Dance" is a frantic rockabilly sprint and "Welcome to the Working Week" barrels in at full tilt.

The first three singles missed the charts, but by August the album was at number 14 in Britain, with Costello already fronting his new band, the Attractions. The American edition on Columbia in November added "Watching the Detectives" and reached number 32, by which time it had become the biggest-selling import album in American history. The critics raved then, and they still rank it among the great debuts.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.