Taking Liberties

This 1980 set of B-sides and previously unreleased songs is packed with melodic lift and lyrical power, revealing how Elvis Costello could produce quantity *with* quality. The tunes work together as a whole—a beautifully crooned Rodgers/Hart standard (“My Funny Valentine”) sidles up pretty smoothly next to power-poppers (“Girls Talk,” “Dr. Luther’s Assistant”), spiky rockers (“Wednesday Week,” “Clean Money”), and rollicking country throwbacks (“Radio Sweetheart” and “A Stranger in the House,” a silky duet with George Jones).

Elvis Costello's early productivity was a bit more than most American rock fans were used to in the one-album-every-18-months 1970s; not only had Costello released four studio albums between 1977 and 1980, there were a number of compilation tracks, EPs, and non-LP B-sides that had found release in Europe but not the United States, while the U.K. editions of This Year's Model and Armed Forces both featured tunes that were stripped from American releases.