 | |
List Price: $13.98 | | Label: Hip-O Records
Salesrank: 8306
Released: May 1, 2007 |
| Our Price: $9.58 |
| Used Price: $8.62 |
|
| Media: Audio CD |
|
Armed Forces Track Listing:
1. Accidents Will Happen
2. Senior Service
3. Oliver's Army
4. Big Boys
5. Green Shirt
6. Party Girl
7. Goon Squad
8. Busy Bodies
9. Sunday's Best
10. Moods For Moderns
11. Chemistry Class
12. Two Little Hitlers
13. (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding
Editorial Review:
Less hot under the collar than This Year's Model, Armed Forces was partly inspired by Elvis Costello and the Attractions' 1978 American tour. The songs are set to deceptively poppy arrangements that use plinky Abba keyboards ("Oliver's Army," a hit single about mercenaries), Beatles-ish devices (the fade on "Party Girl"), and whimsical waltz-time signatures ("Sunday's Best") to mask their core cynicism. "Goon Squad," "Busy Bodies," and "Accidents Will Happen" are among Costello's most melodically powerful songs to this point, leading the way to the masterful Get Happy!!. --Barney Hoskyns
Armed Forces Reviews:
Elvis' Wall of Sound 
2009-09-02 - Highly relevant to how one appreciates EC's third album is the quality of the production. While the quality of the songs and songwriting is as great as the other reviewers state, many were turned off by the 'Wall of Sound' production values introduced on this third album. I still feel that all of the reverb and track layering, although often suited to the thematic content, mars my experience of these great songs, decades later.
Armed Forces
2009-05-09 - Still sounds great after all these years. Along with 'My Aim is True', 'Armed Forces' is the other album you must have to understand the sound and fury that brought this huge talent to prominence.
Almost too catchy for its own good
2009-03-30 - Costello's signature airtight pop-rock is wrapped even tighter with his third, AF. Although a bit of over-effort takes away from a little memorability, the disc sounds about equal in quality with his previously two universally praised albums, if anything supplementing the raw energy with compositional agility.
Elvis's Third,The Attractions Second And A Lot Of Fun 
2009-03-04 - Wheras this album primarily focuses on 2-3 minutes songs,typical of Brit-pop at this time Elvis & The Attractions second album together is really works best when taken as a whole.No it's not conceptual and the music doesn't exactly flow together in any particular way. Nonetheless the sound doesn't alter from song to song. The 13 songs included here generally place the focus on Costello's new musical mission;a digestion of contemporary pop of the 60's and 70's from The Beatles to ABBA,whom were both huge inspirations to this music.Says quite a lot for a genre that at this point is literally railing against "phony Beatlemania";I guess at least this guy say past the commercial irony of it all and how both of those previously mentioned influences impact on early British New Wave rock. Sure enough "Accidents Will Happen",the hit "Oliver's Army","Busy Bodies","Big Boys" and "Goon Squad" all have a similar structure.All are a slightly more full bodied pop variation of the more basic impact of his debut My Aim Is True or This Year's Model. They key to this album is how,even in it's similar moments this album is very highly transitional. Any alligiences that Elvis might've owed musically to the punk era began to erode here and the sound moves closer and closer to "poppy sound'.Which is pretty strange because the lyrical subject matter couldn't be any more punky;the power struggles of militarism in society.The album title is not a misnomer.Nevertheless there are some musical changes of pace that indicate something new is on the way;the arrangement of "Green Shirt" could definately be described as psychedelic while "Mood For Moderns",
"Sunday's Best" and "Two Little Hitlers" have a very pronounced soul leaning,with the kick and syncopation and the drums and all especially."(What's So Funny) About Peace,Love And Understanding",a Nick Lowe tune,is the most obviously punl/new wave song here and the hardest rocking. I would'nt qualify this as Costello's GREATEST album-in some ways it's not very diverse and result is a lot of songs that kind of sound alike. But it's one of his strongest early albums outside his debut and one well worth getting into.
Elvis completes his trifecta
2009-01-14 - Armed Forces" was Elvis and The Attractions' claustrophobic pop masterpiece, loaded with melody and paranoia, fueled by cramped touring vans, hotel rooms and long stretches of listening to ABBA, Kraftwerk, Bowie and the Beatles while driving between gigs. It was also the last of the Elvis albums that mirrored the tightly wound image/cliched "angry young man" singer-songwriter of the new wave world. It also happens to be one of the most indispensable albums of the 70's.
Songs like "Oliver's Army" and "Two Little Hitlers" brimmed with neo-fascist imagery and highly charged sexual/emotional content, yet flourished with pop-hooks. "Accidents Will Happen" portrays a barely apologetic philanderer as he tries to explain the infidelities of his life, and uses one of early Elvis' frequent descriptions of romantic partners as a "victim." (Think of how many times that word appears on his first three albums.) Many of the songs bear unmistakable ominous threatening qualities, like the roar of "Goon Squad," the hushed fear that underscores "Green Shirt" and the implied threat of "they took me in the office and told me very carefully, the ways that I could benefit from death and disability" (from "Senior Service").
Nick Lowe deserves a good deal of the credit for keeping this album in check (and when is he going to get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?!?!). It is likely his pop sophistication that gave some of "Armed Forces" levity in its darkest points. It is also Lowe's one song - and the first cover to appear on a proper EC album - that brings the relentlessly downward outlook to a more optimistic close. "(What's So Funny About) Peace Love and Understanding" was the kind of song that, once Elvis claimed it as his own, provided a banner to his part during the formation of Rock Against Racism.
Unfortunately for this reissue, Rhino's 2002 double CD issue was also the CD that most justified Rhino's double disc reissues of Elvis' work. "Armed Forces" is the kind of album that more than holds its own as a singular entity, and the Ryko release that tacked the bonus selections on the same disc distracted from that sense of "piece" to me. So to have some excellent material on a bonus disc Was just cream on the berry. Especially since it included the entire "Live at Hollywood High" recording as opposed to the three song bonus vinyl that was included in the original album. If it was possible to add a bonus star to an already 5 star album, Rhino managed that trick. That is the essential "Armed Forces." I understand that the rights to the EC CBS years catolog have turned over once again, but the double CD is really worth seeking out.
