ALBUMS THAT SHOULD EXIST: Elvis Costello at the Aunty Beeb! 77-80

Elvis Costello - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1977-1980

Paul he say: British singer-songwriter Elvis Costello has performed for the BBC many times over his long music career, and nearly all of it is unreleased. I have long wanted to start posting his BBC albums, but there was a problem: many of his early BBC sessions sounded pretty bad. However, I did a little more digging recently, and I discovered that while my versions had poor sound, there were other versions out there that sounded much better. I've fixed this for nearly all of the songs that concerned me, and now I'm ready to post.

Costello burst onto the music scene in 1977 with his classic debut album "My Aim Is True." He followed that with three more classic albums in the next three years. That's the exact time frame for this album of BBC studio sessions. All the songs here are from BBC shows hosted by famous DJ John Peel. The first four are from a 1977 session. The next four are from an early 1978 session. Then there's four from a later 1978 session. The last four are from a 1980 session.

When I first put this album together, I included two songs that were from other TV or radio shows, but not the BBC. However, later on I decided to keep this strictly a BBC thing, so those two songs got the axe. But what the heck, I'm still including them here as bonus tracks. "Hoover Factory" is from a Capitol Radio studio session in 1977, and the acoustic version of "Watching the Detectives" is from a 1977 Swedish TV show.

01 [The Angels Wanna Wear My] Red Shoes (Elvis Costello)
02 Mystery Dance (Elvis Costello)
03 Blame It on Cain (Elvis Costello)
04 Less than Zero (Elvis Costello)
05 Pump It Up (Elvis Costello)
06 [I Don't Want to Go To] Chelsea (Elvis Costello)
07 You Belong to Me (Elvis Costello)
08 The Beat (Elvis Costello)
09 Radio, Radio (Elvis Costello)
10 Stranger in the House (Elvis Costello)
11 I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself (Elvis Costello)
12 Really Mystified (Elvis Costello)
13 Beaten to the Punch (Elvis Costello)
14 Possession (Elvis Costello)
15 B Movie (Elvis Costello)
16 High Fidelity (Elvis Costello)

Hoover Factory (Elvis Costello) 

Watching the Detectives (Elvis Costello)(Elvis Costello)

check that playlist! Everyone a stone Classic hit! Nary a one a dud . . . .not that he ever wrote one but ya get ma drift!