If it doesn’t seem like Elvis Costello’s debut album, “My Aim Is True,” is 50 years old, that’s because it’s not. It hit the stores in 1977, when British punk exploded on the scene and new bands proliferated, so maybe Costello is just getting a jump on the competition by releasing a 5-CD box set celebrating the LP’s 49th anniversary.
Costello’s backing band was the American pub rock outfit Clover, uncredited because of contractual issues. They were soon to become better known as Huey Lewis’ backing band, the News. The group lacked the intensity of the Attractions, the band he assembled soon after the recording, but the songs are so good it didn’t matter.
The remastered LP comprises Disc 1. The second and third consist of demos of Costello recorded, mostly on acoustic guitar, while he was still with the band Flip City. The fourth CD shows his permanent band, the Attractions, learning some of the early material. The fifth is a live album on a 2007 reunion concert with members of Clover.
“My Aim Is True” was released in July in the UK but not until November in the U.S., by which point it had become the best-selling import album in history. “Waiting for the End of the World” was a fitting final cut on the UK version of the album, but American buyers got a bonus track in “Watching the Detectives,” released as a stand-alone single in Britain.
