Remembering When Elvis Costello Released His Final Album With The Attractions in 1996

A two-decade run as a rock band is nothing to sneeze at, especially considering the volatility of such enterprises. The Attractions’ longevity as the backing band to Elvis Costello stands out as especially notable when you consider they were formed on the fly.

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The band’s last album with Costello was released in 1996, and it featured them at the top of their game. But Costello’s inability to coexist with one member prevented them from playing together again.

Attractions Assemble

Elvis Costello recorded his debut album, My Aim Is True (released in 1977), with a hastily assembled bunch of musicians, several of whom played in the San Francisco-based group Clover. (A couple of those players ended up joining Huey Lewis as members of the News.) But Costello knew he needed a full-time group, if only for touring purposes.

It didn’t take very long for him to settle on Steve Nieve on keyboards, Bruce Thomas on bass, and Pete Thomas (no relation to Bruce) on drums. Once Costello realized the chemistry of this hastily assembled unit, he chose to use them in the studio as well. Classic albums like This Year’s Model, Armed Forces, and Imperial Bedroom established the group as a potent force behind Costello’s wonderful songs.

In the mid-80s, tensions started to arise within the band. That resulted in Costello pursuing solo albums in between occasional Attractions records. Eventually, rancor between Bruce Thomas and Costello led to a public back-and-forth that very nearly scuttled the quartet for good at the beginning of the 90s.

The Singer Vs. the Bassist

In 1990, during an extended Attractions’ hiatus, Bruce Thomas wrote a book called The Big Wheel. It was a memoir of sorts, and although he didn’t use actual names, “the singer” in the band within the book was presented in an unflattering light. Costello returned fire in 1991 with the song “How To Be Dumb”, which took direct aim at the bassist.

Yet three years later, The Attractions reunited on the album Brutal Youth. With that album earning good notices, Costello reassembled the group for the 1996 album All This Useless Beauty.

Interestingly enough, this represented a change of heart. Costello originally planned to do a project whereby he did his own version of songs of his that had been covered by others. Instead, he simply included a few of those songs on the finished LP, along with several newer songs he wrote just for the occasion.

One Last ‘Beauty’

All This Useless Beauty is a wonderful record, one on which The Attractions acquit themselves brilliantly. You can hear some of their old uptempo, maximalist playing on songs like “You Bowed Down”. But they also display winning elegance and restraint on songs like the title track.

As it turned out, the album would be their swan song. During the tour to support the album, tempers once again flared between Elvis Costello and Bruce Thomas. Costello announced he was shutting the band down, and this time he stuck to his guns.

Costello enlisted Steve Nieve and Pete Thomas, along with new bassist Davey Faragher, to fill the void of The Attractions, calling the new unit The Imposters. When The Attractions earned induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003, Bruce Thomas was on hand to accept the honor. But he didn’t participate in the band’s performance, proving that the old animosity still existed.

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