Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Punch the Clock

THE REVIEW

I have always had a controversial relationship with Elvis Costello, I've loved all his contemporaries (Joe Jackson, Graham Parker, Andy Partridge, for example) or at least I was able to form a more or less definitive opinion about them... but not about him.
For days I've been re-listening to many of his albums, appreciable, varied, and well-played but... but they're missing the songs! In most cases, they're nice but nothing more, such criticism does not touch the lyrics, often admirable, as Paul McCartney says Costello is "wordy," a stream of words...
A partial exception for "My Aim is True" or "Imperial Bedroom," complete instead for "Punch the Clock"... which I find truly spot on. A small POP masterpiece, unique in its genre, although for some it recalls similarities with the Madness of the period, especially for the use of horns.
Costello has never sung better than on this record, he even makes a simple "la la la la" enjoyable, but everything fits here.
Many songs are little classics, the horns, the piano, the bass, the drums all top, the production... even the vintage cover!
Many classics, certainly "Shipbuilding" perhaps his best track ever but also the two singles and "Pills and Soap."
This album was my first approach with Costello, after delving deeper I never managed to fully appreciate him again, also because I bought a compilation and this is often the wrong way to deepen the knowledge.
It always leaves me with a sense of incompleteness or rather you appreciate the tracks when you listen to them, but afterward, you don't remember them anymore.
Not Punch the Clock! It remains one of my favorite albums of all time.