A Poll To Trust (or another Elvis Costello poll then....)

"Watch Your Step" > "Clubland" > everything else

I love "New Lace Sleeves" as well as the two listed above the most. The whole album has since grown on me, but it took a while - it's the one great album from his 'classic' era that I didn't warm to right away.

Strict Time is like my favorite type of Costello song, it's wonky and bouncy and overlays a bunch of parts that shouldn't really fit together. Beyond Belief is another one. wish he did more like it.

Yeah totally. I always thought that was pretty amazing about a lot of his records from this era - they model these disparate parts from records that have little relation from one another and then fuse them together into something that works. It really is the type of thing that would be conceived by a group of record connoisseurs, and it makes his eventual collaboration with the Roots decades later seem pretty logical. In this particular case, I think EC said they focused their reach to the New Wave groups of the day, though it was more like "this is our idea of a [fill-in-the-blank] song," etc.

Also the way this album came together seemed pretty haphazard - it sounded like they weren't in the best state and drinking way too much, and the results were such a mess that they had to regroup and start all over again from scratch.

I've listened to this album far more than any other EC album, and for the life of me, I can't remember any song on it named New Lace Sleeves.
For my money, "Big Sister's Clothes" is the standout, followed closely by Strict Time and Lover's Walk.
As a teenaged Squeeze fan, I wanted to love the Glenn Tilbrook duet far more than I ever did.

Update:
Listening now, and "New Lace Sleeves" still feels pretty unmemorable to me.

This is his first and best "grown-up" record.

Listening now, and "New Lace Sleeves" still feels pretty unmemorable to me.

I like the space -- that bass and organ recall "Ghost Town" -- and the mysterious lyric.