Spike by Elvis Costello

Spike, Elvis Costello's 12th album, came out in 1989 as his first record for Warner Bros., and it was the first time since My Aim Is True that the Attractions were nowhere to be heard. T Bone Burnett produced, and Costello uses the freedom to roam: this is a restless, stylistically sprawling set from a songwriter who had long been a magpie for everything from R&B and country to jazz and Tin Pan Alley.

"Veronica" was the hook that landed. It became his biggest American hit, reaching number 19 on the Hot 100 and number one on the Modern Rock chart, and it helped push the album to number 32 in the US and number five in the UK. Critics were on board, too: it finished number seven in the Pazz & Jop poll for the year.

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