Elvis Costello – Spanish Model: a classic revisited

Elvis Costello reworks his 1978 classic, This Year’s Model. Released at the time of the punk and new wave explosion in the UK the original version was his second album and the first to feature The Attractions as his band. The combination of Pete Thomas’ powerful drums, Bruce Thomas’ melodic bass lines and Steve Nieve’s inventive keyboard playing enhanced Costello’s jagged guitar work, snarling vocals and cynical wordplay. This combination continued across a defining run of great albums that followed in the next three years, Armed Forces, Get Happy and Imperial Bedroom.

This Year’s Model set out Costello’s classic themes of desire, in particular of men for women, power and control. The Attractions provided music that drew from the classic UK bands of the 60s such as Rolling Stones, The Who and Small Faces. Costello has subsequently diversified in style, including recording country and western, classical and rap works and collaborators including The Kronos Quartet, Burt Bacharach and Paul McCartney.

The key collaborator on Spanish Model is the producer Sebastian Krys who has won multiple Grammys. One of his awards was for his work on Costello’s 2019 Look Now album but most are for work with Latin artists. He draws on his contacts in Latin music to bring together an eclectic mix of artists and the result is sixteen new vocal performances in Spanish by nineteen artists from ten different countries.

For the music Krys has retained the original recordings of the instruments but makes subtle changes to the mix. The track list he uses is based on the 1993 Ryko Disks reissue, which is the original UK version plus four outtakes from the same sessions.

Spanish Model opens with No Action, which has the vocals delivered with punky energy by Nina Diaz, formally of San Antonio’s Girl in a Coma. Her singing is complemented by Pete Thomas attack on the drum kit. Thomas’ playing does not fade out at the end of the song, as it did in the original, but is kept loud to provide a segue into Raquel Sofia and Fuego singing (Yo No Quiero Ir A) Chelsea ((I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea) as if this was a live set by the Attractions. The breathy Spanish vocals draw attention to the distorted crazy fairground organ sounds created by Nieve to complete a strong opening for the album.

Across the album the words are not the literal translations of Costello’s lyrics into Spanish. For example the translation of Mentira (Lip Service) means Lies, Detonantes (Little Triggers) means Explosions and La Turba (Night Rally) means Mob. These titles lose the allusions or word play of Costello’s original titles whilst retaining their intention and meaning.

Mentira (Lip Service) is sung smoothly by Pablo López and Detonates (Little Triggers), rolls along on the bass with the dramatic vocals of La Marisoul which intensify the tone of passion and regret. There is some lovely piano work at the start and end of the song which help make it a powerful torch song. La Turba (Night Rally) is slowly sung by Jorge Drexler which deepens the ominous feelings created by the drums. 

The female vocals of Jesse and Joy on Viviendo En El Paraiso (Living In Paradise) make this song sound much more seductive than when delivered with Costello’s original sneer, and the track highlights Bruce Thomas’s rhythmic bass playing.

The most radical reworking of the lyrics is the version of Radio Radio by Fito Páez. Páez’s version sounds exactly like the well known single until you realise you have just heard the line “Eschundo A Elvis Costello Sonar.” Fortunately, you can resolve this confusion by watching the song video. This video has subtitles that translate the new lyrics back to English. The video rushes through a story of Páez listening to the original This Year’s Model album and deciding to travel across the world to London to visit a record store in Chelsea. The video captures the energy and humour of the song and ends with Páez screaming “I want to hear this song on the fucking radio man.”

One of the album’s singles Pump It Up was advertised as featuring Mick Jones of The Clash but it was hard to hear his influence. The remixed version on this album enable us hear Jones’ rhythm  guitar. For example, Krys has kept the sound loud on the outro to Pump It Up as Jones’ guitar duels with Costello’s frantic downstrokes and urgent repetition of the title.

Jones also features on Llorar (Big Tears) which was the B side of the Pump it Up single. Llorar (Big Tears) is sung by Miami based, Columbian born Sebastián Yatra who typically sings romantic ballads. It is a significant change to hear him sing a pop-rock song about a sniper turning “wives into widows.” There is a video to accompany this track in which Yatra and band appear initially as mannequins in a shop window and later seem to be hugely enjoying themselves playing the song. It is great that this much underrated Costello track is given such prominence on this release.

There is also a video for the track La Chica Hoy (This Year’s Girl) sung by Chilean artist Cami. On this track the use of a female voice cleverly flips the point of view of Costello’s lyrics about male lust. Whereas Costello’s vocals sounded like he was furious Cami sings as if bored. In the video she looks less and less interested as she flips over the lyrics written on signs before finally walking off the set.

Crawling to the USA and Se Esta Perdiendo La Inocencia (Running Out Of Angels) are the final two tracks on the album. Crawling To the USA is given upbeat vocals by Mexican father and daughter Gian Marco and Nicole Zignago. The lyrics take on additional layer of meaning in light of immigration to the US from Mexico. Se Esta Perdiendo La Inocencia (Running Out Of Angels) is sung by the Spanish singer songwriter Vega over a percussive, strummed acoustic guitar, which has been re-recorded for this album. The version faithfully includes the false start and restart from Costello’s original outtake.    

This is an inventive way of reissuing a 40 year old album, especially one which has had several different re-issues already. Spanish Model is a reminder that Costello takes a creative and collaborative approach to music.

There are lots of good reasons to listen to this album. There is the use of the Spanish language and female vocals which give the songs a different energy, the renewed focus on the music of the Attractions and the introduction to Latin artists. But ultimately as Costello says, “It’s fun – why not.”

John Bradbury

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