Attractions Deserved Much More Attention

Reviewed by J. Pizzino, 2005-08-24

Mad About The Wrong Boy is one of those unknown gems of musical history. It's creative, catchy, and simply a refreshing spin. Too bad more people don' t know about it. This album is definitely on my top 10 favorites of all time!

An interesting disc from Elvis Costello's backing group

Reviewed by Joseph P. Ulibas, 2005-06-24

Mad About the Wrong Boy was a one shot album from Elvis
Costello's back-up band. It's a pretty good pop album and the songs are short, poppy and peppy. The Attractions (Pete
Thomas, Steve Nieve and Bruce Thomas) perform on all the songs (Bruce Thomas and Steve Nieve share vocal duties).
The band has a cheesy 60's sound to them, they sound out of place in the post-punk English rock era.

Highly recommended.

Just getting started

Reviewed by Krick M. Batty, 2005-06-03

The Attractions are such an incredible live band, super-tight, razor sharp, experimental, rock-solid, fluid. Backing Elvis Costello live and on record this has to be one of the best bands ever. To have high expectations of this quick one-off little record they did while cooling their heels as EC decided if he'd quit the business or not would be unfair. This is a better record than many British New Wave bands were making at the time. Steve Nieve (Hart) did in fact write the songs with his then-wife, and at least a couple are tuneful. Steve Nieve still works in some neat keyboard work, and the rhythm section is solid as usual. Don't expect anything like the music they were making behind Elvis and you'll probably be pleasantly surprised if you like 80's New Wave. I've always wished this were just a freshman effort where they were just getting started finding out what they might be able to do under their own steam. However, I've never heard of any other group effort, with Pete, Bruce and Steve, and none of these guys is really a vocalist. Even so, give it a try and make up your own mind.

A correction to the other review

Reviewed by Anonymous, 2000-06-25

Actually, none of the songs on this album were written by Elvis Costello - they were for the most part written by Attractions keyboard player Steve Nieve who used the name Norman Brain. He wrote them in conjunction with his then wife Fay Hart, so the writing credit was Brain & Hart.

Good album unto itself

Reviewed by John Powers, 2000-01-14

If one considers this as a freestanding album and not a spin-off from the Costello show, this album rocks better than most new-wave. It just doesn't feature the expected lead voice and guitar of Costello himself. Given that Costello himself wrote most of the songs (credited as Brain), in one of his most tuneful periods, you have here a take on what these guys can do when their bandleader is on vacation.

The guitar playing is actually better than most Costello albums and the vocals are more likely to hit the right notes than Elvis himself. Some of the songs are repetitive, but Sad about Girls and La La La La La Loved You rank up there with the most exuberant songs of this era, one of the most exuberant of any rock eras.