Elvis Costello

Declan Patrick Aloysius MacManus (born August 25, 1954), better known by his stage name, Elvis Costello, is a popular British musician, singer, and songwriter of Irish ancestry. He was an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s, and later became associated with the punk rock and new wave musical genres, before establishing himself as a unique and original voice in the 1980s. His output has been wildly diverse: One critic has written that "Costello, the pop encyclopedia, can reinvent the past in his own image."http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:ly09kect7q70~T1

Discography

Albums

• 1977 - My Aim Is True (UK #14, US #32)
• 1978 - This Year's Model (UK #4, US #30)
• 1979 - Armed Forces (UK #2, US #10)
• 1980 - Get Happy!! (UK #2, US #11)
• 1981 - Trust (UK #9, US #28)
• 1981 - Almost Blue (UK #7, US #50)
• 1982 - Imperial Bedroom (UK #6, US #30)
• 1983 - Punch the Clock (UK #3, US #24)
• 1984 - Goodbye Cruel World (UK #10, US #35)
• 1986 - King of America (UK #11, US #39)
• 1986 - Blood and Chocolate (UK #16, US #84)
• 1989 - Spike (UK #5, US #32)
• 1991 - Mighty Like a Rose (UK #5, US #55)
• 1993 - The Juliet Letters (UK #18)
• 1994 - Brutal Youth (UK #2, US #34)
• 1995 - Kojak Variety (UK #21)
• 1996 - All This Useless Beauty (UK #28, US #53)
• 1996 - Costello & Nieve
• 1998 - Painted from Memory, with Burt Bacharach (UK #32, US #78)
• 2002 - When I Was Cruel (US #20)
• 2002 - Cruel Smile
• 2003 - North (UK #44, US #57, US Traditional Jazz #1)
• 2004 - The Delivery Man (US #40)
• 2004 - Il Sogno

Collections

• 1980 - Taking Liberties
• 1980 - Ten Bloody Marys & Ten How's Your Fathers
• 1987 - Out of Our Idiot
• 1993 - 2½ Years
• 1999 - The Very Best Of Elvis Costello (2-CD) (UK #4)
• 2003 - Singles, Volume 1
• 2003 - Singles, Volume 2
• 2003 - Singles, Volume 3

This section is incomplete.

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Rhino Reissues

All Costello's studio albums up until 1996 (with the exception, as of this writing, of The Juliet Letters) were reissued from 2001 to 2005 by Rhino Records (which constituted the second set of re-releases after Ryko (US) and Demon (UK) had done so from 1993 to 1995), under the guidance of Mr. Costello himself and featuring, in each case, a bonus disc of b-sides, outtakes, live tracks, alternate versions and/or demos of songs. The sound was remastered for each album and Costello wrote new liner notes about his thoughts on the music and anecdotes from the period when it was recorded.

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The Almost Blue and Kojak Variety bonus discs were particularly notable as each contained, essentially, an entire new album's worth of material also performed but either not issued, or released as b-sides on singles originally.

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The Get Happy bonus disc was also of note, with 30 additional tracks, bringing the total for the 2-disc set to 50 songs.

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Tribute Albums

• 1998 - Bespoke Songs, Lost Dogs, Detours & Rendezvous - (various artists)
• 2002 - Almost You: The Songs of Elvis Costello - (various artists)
• 2003 - The Elvis Costello Songbook - Bonnie Brett
• 2004 - A Tribute to Elvis Costello - Patrik Tanner