Blog: PopMatters

"This Year's Girl" is much-welcomed cool-down after This Year's Model's comparatively raucous opener, "No Action" If "No Action" is one of Elvis Costello's best album openers, "This Year's Girl" is certainly one of his cleverest choices for a second cut. The second song's role on an album is less obvious than the first's, but no less important. A good second track ought to provide the listener with an opportunity to breathe, to "cool down", and being one of the mellower, most fluid songs on the album, "This Year's Girl"'s sequential...