Elvis Costello - The Best Of The First 10 Years / Rock & Roll Music

This year’s remodels

Endless repackaging of past glories is a practice we normally associate with the other Elvis, but these two new compilations herald the third time Costello’s opening decade’s worth of albums have been spruced up for fresh consumption. From 1977’s My Aim Is True to 1986’s Blood & Chocolate, the latest editions are shorn of previous reissues’ extra tracks and bonus discs, although further themed collections with the occasional rarity are promised for the future.

The First 10 Years sticks fairly rigidly to the hit singles and live favourites, and could feasibly have been put together by a computer program packed with data from the Guinness books. No surprises, but there’s no denying the potency of these songs, all from a period before Costello’s wayward spirit sought out off-the-wall collaborators such as the Brodsky Quartet or Burt Bacharach.

Rock & Roll Music concentrates on the more upbeat items, hand-picked by Elvis himself and especially heavy on the early days; half of the 22 tracks originate from 1978’s This Year’s Model and related sessions. Previously unheard versions of Welcome To The Working Week and Honey Are You Straight Or Are You Blind? may interest the more avid collectors, although these are mostly boxes that have already been ticked several times over.

Hip-O/Universal | B 000864002 / B 000864102

Reviewed by Terry Staunton
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