Whats on your turntable tonight?

I’ll go further, reubent. King Of America is my favorite of EC’s (in the same way that Full Moon Fever is my favorite Petty album). Nice full, warm acoustic rhythm guitar parts (giving it an Everly Brothers sound), a more relaxed, "Southern" feel than The Attractions provide him with (they have that somewhat rushed, "trying too hard" feel common to British bands). A lot of great American musicians play on the album: the incredible Jerry Scheff on bass, Earl Palmer, Jim Keltner, Ron Tutt, and Mickey Curry (all great) on drums, James Burton and T-Bone Wolk on guitar. Wow! And T Bone Burnett’s production is much better than that of Nick Lowe and others on EC’s other albums (Jeff Lynne's production on Petty's FMF is vastly superior to that of Petty's other albums). I have the U.K. F-Beat label pressing, which sounds great. Some of the now-out-of-print CD versions of the album contain bonus tracks.

bdp's comments on Kof A are well-observed--other EC records have a stronger set of songs top-to-bottom but do tend to sound over-polished, while this one has a natural swing. "Brilliant Mistake" and "Indoor Fireworks" are among his very best ever.

@bdp24 @loomisjohnson - Thanks for your follow-up comments regarding Elvis Costello's "King of America". It is an outstanding album.

Just curious, what are your other couple of favorite Elvis Costello albums? I guess my criteria for judging my favorites would be how often I play them. I've got probably 10 different EC albums. The 3 that end up playing on my TT or CD player most often (in no particular order) are:

"King of America"
"Spike"
"All This Useless Beauty"

reubent, i'd offer the following:
1. song for song, i'd say this year's model is the strongest, esp. the deluxe version, which has great obscurities like big tears and tiny steps. on a certain level, i think the playing's great, esp. the  thomases on bass and drums, but as per bdps' remarks, it does sound a tad studied and restrained compared to, say, graham parker and the rumour.
2. my other go-to is imperial bedroom, which really is more of a chamber piece than a rock album; i think the songs are better matched to the band's more clinical virtuosity, although steve naive tends to overplay like a MF.
3. i also dig the odds and sods collection, taking liberties, which by and large rocks the hardest and is the least fussiest record in his canon.

Calexico  "The Thread That Keeps Us"