Costello’s debut, My Aim Is True, had been brilliant enough, suffering only slightly from the impersonal and occasionally perfunctory work of his for-hire backing band. For his second album, he set out to solve that problem and put together the Attractions, which more than did the trick. From the muscular opening of the brilliant “No Action” it is apparent that we are in the presence of a true musical powerhouse, every bit the equal of their contemporaries the Clash. The result is a blitzkrieg of biting, flawless rock and roll, veritably spilling over with biting putdowns, harassing come-ons, and a kind of clear-eyed paranoia about the truth and consequences of impending stardom. This is Costello as both fearful talent and tactless bully: “If I’m going to go down/ You’re gonna go with me,” he taunts on “Hand In Hand” – and that is arguably one of the record’s love songs. On the cruelly baiting “This Year’s Girl,” he mocks the vapidity of the fashion industry, even while confessing his desire to have a pin-up model all to himself: “broken/ with her mouth wide open.” One of the rock tradition’s most bitter heel turns, This Year’s Model is an incredible display of focused talent and the unique capacity for a genius to make unpalatable vulgarities go down like so much poisoned sugar.