Elvis Costello & The Attractions Trust

Elvis Costello’s fifth album helped establish him as a kind of modern-day Cole Porter. He effortlessly lobs stunning couplets (“Sheep to the slaughter/Oh, this must be love”) and deceptively simple-yet-tense themes (distrust, love gone cynical) while tattooing the listener’s brain with weighty hooks on pretty much every song here. The musical detours reward too, from the Squeeze-like “Fish N’ Chip Paper” to the R&B-pop of “Luxembourg” to the blue-eyed soul of “You’ll Never Be a Man”.