Elvis Costello & The Attractions: Get Happy!! - 1980

"You'll have noticed that there are ten (?) tracks on each side of this, Elvis' new LP, making it a real "long player". Elvis and I talked long and hard about the wisdom of taking this unusual step and are proud that we can now reassure hi-fi enthusiasts and/or people who never bought a record before 1967 that with the inclusion of this extra music time they will find no loss of sound quality due to "groove cramming" as the record nears the end of each face (i.e. the hole in the middle). Now get happy" - Nick Lowe - producer

  

What a great album this was. Released in 1980, following on from the success of Armed Forces and its hit single, Oliver's Army, Elvis Costello decided to turn his back somewhat on the "New Wave" and produce and twenty track album of Motown-Stax-Atlantic-Northern Soul sub-three minute pop-soul classics. 

Any hanging on to the coat-tails of punk, whether intentional or not was long gone now, and, as mentioned, even the new wave was now something to be left behind as different styles were dabbled in. Indeed, when the band first recorded some of the songs back in 1979, they weren't happy with them, feeling they were "too new wave" (already, only a few years into the genre's existence!). So, they duly re-recorded them in an Atlantic-Motown-Stax r 'n' b style and this is what you hear on the eventual album.      

Contrived it may be, but the songs are a delight. Only Sam & Dave's I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down (radically re-arranged here anyway) is a cover. The rest are Costello originals "in the style of". Even the cover had sixties-style artwork and a false imprint of the disc imaged on to the middle of the artwork, to make it look like a worn-out old sixties album. He has the ability, however, to reinvent and interpret the past around his own image, making this very much a current, Elvis Costello & the Attractions album, as opposed to a revivalist exercise, or a tribute album. 

The tracks feature Steve Nieve's organ to the fore and many have a Motown-style percussion. Costello's acerbic voice is strangely suited, however, and tracks like the soulful Opportunity, the frenetic The Impostor, the Motown-ish High Fidelity with its first line taken directly from Diana Ross & The Supremes' Some Things You Never Get Used To are a delight. 

Also up there are the atmospheric, staccato King Horse, the frenetic, punky Love For Tender, the beautifully bassy Temptation, the gloriously Stax-esque Beaten To The Punch and the lively contemporary ska of Human Touch. Only the final ballad Riot Act sounds like typical Elvis Costello. 

The vibrancy never lets up on all the album's twenty songs. Just check out songs like the bassy, insistent groove of Secondary Modern, the vaguely Booker T-ish organ-driven funk of Possession, the short, piano-led new wavers Clowntime Is Over and Man Called Uncle. They are all no more than three minutes long and form part of the absolutely frantic first eleven songs that simply career through your ears like a fairground ride. 

The pace and quality drifts off just a tiny bit after that, but even then, little gems like the smoky and beautifully bass-driven B Movie or the heart-rending country soul of Motel Matches turn up. Or how about the new wave funk of Black And White World, the evocative, swirling New Amsterdam, the new wave-ish cod-funk beat of the oddly-spelt 5ive Gears In Reverse or the once more Stax soul vibe of I Stand Accused. 

From beginning to end, Get Happy!! is an extremely enjoyable listen. In my top three or four Costello albums. Every time I put it on, it feels like the spring of 1980 again. I can't believe it is so long ago, because this album feels as vibrant now as it did then.