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This Year's Model

This Year's Model is the second studio album by the English singer-songwriter Elvis Costello, released on 17March 1978 through Radar Records. After being backed by Clover for his debut album My Aim Is True (1977), Costello formed the Attractions—keyboardist Steve Nieve, bassist Bruce Thomas and drummer Pete Thomas (no relation)—as his permanent backing band. Recording sessions took place at London's Eden Studios in eleven days between late1977 and early1978. Nick Lowe returned as producer, and Roger Béchirian acted as engineer. Most of the songs were written prior to the sessions, and debuted live during the latter half of 1977.

Embracing new wave, power pop and punk rock, the songs draw from bands such as the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. The lyrics explore subjects such as technologies of mass control and failing relationships. Echoing the lyrics of some of the tracks, the cover artwork, designed by the English graphic artist Barney Bubbles, shows Costello behind a camera on a tripod, emphasising his role as an observer.

The accompanying singles "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea" and "Pump It Up" were commercially successful and the album reached number four on the UK Albums Chart. The American LP was released in May1978 through Columbia Records. Substituting "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea" and "Night Rally" for "Radio Radio", it reached number 30 on Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart. This Year's Model also received critical acclaim; reviewers highlighted strong songwriting and performances, while also admiring Costello and the band as artists. The album appeared on year-end lists in both the UK and the US.

In later decades, This Year's Model has been acclaimed as one of Costello's best works, some critics commenting on its influence on punk and new wave. It has appeared on several lists of the greatest albums of all time and has been reissued multiple times with bonus tracks. In 2021, Costello spearheaded a new version of the album titled Spanish Model, which featured songs from This Year's Model sung in Spanish by Latin artists over the Attractions' original backing tracks. It received favourable reviews and charted on several Billboard charts.

Background
Elvis Costello was backed on his debut album My Aim Is True (1977) by the California-based country rock act Clover, whose laid-back approach he felt did not fit the sound of the times. Wanting a harder and sharper sound, he decided to assemble a permanent backing band. The first musician hired was Pete Thomas, former drummer of Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers; the second hired was Bruce Thomas, a bassist whose previous involvements included several folk rock albums earlier in the decade; and last Steve Nieve, who had no prior band experience and had trained at the Royal College of Music. With Costello on guitar, he and the band, now named the Attractions, made their live debut on 14July 1977. Shortly after the release of My Aim Is True eight days later, the group performed an unauthorised show outside a Columbia Records convention, which led to Costello's arrest. The stunt attracted the attention of record executive Greg Geller, who months later became integral in signing Costello to Columbia in the United States.

Costello and the band were on tour for most of the rest of 1977. The dates included the Greatest Stiffs Live Tour with other Stiff Records artists and their first tour of America. During this time, Stiff co-founder Jake Riviera departed Stiff due to disputes with label co-founder Dave Robinson. Per Costello's management contract, Costello followed Riviera and left Stiff for Radar Records but retained his American deal with Columbia. His final release for Stiff was that October's "Watching the Detectives", his first single to reach the UK top 20. In the meantime, Costello had written a large amount of new material which would appear on This Year's Model.

According to author Graeme Thomson, Costello's reputation in the US grew faster than in the UK. He was acclaimed in publications such as Time and Newsweek and approached to appear on NBC's Saturday Night Live as a last-minute replacement for the Sex Pistols, which took place the day after the tour's end. During the appearance, Costello and the Attractions played "Watching the Detectives" and began "Less Than Zero" before Costello abruptly cut the band off and counted them into the then-unreleased "Radio Radio", a critique of the commercialisation of broadcasting. The impromptu stunt angered producer Lorne Michaels and resulted in Costello's banning from Saturday Night Live until 1989.

Writing and recording
This Year's Model was recorded during a break in Costello's touring schedule. Recording took place at Eden Studios, a 24-track studio in Acton, London, beginning towards the end of December 1977 and completing in early January 1978. Costello later said the entire album was recorded in about eleven days. The band briefly paused to play a three-night residency at London's Nashville Rooms, which concluded on Christmas Eve 1977. Nick Lowe returned from My Aim Is True as producer and, in Thomson's words, was the "mad professor", pushing the band's energy further to attain the best performance. Like the debut, Lowe primarily wanted to capture the songs live with few overdubs. Acting as a foil to Lowe was engineer Roger Béchirian, who Costello recalled was tasked with interpreting Lowe's commands, such as "turn the drums into one big maraca" or "make it sound like a dinosaur eating cars".

Costello stayed at Bruce Thomas's flat during the sessions. According to Thomson, Costello remained focused despite keeping himself apart from his wife Mary during this time, which eventually led to their separation. Most of the songs had been written and performed live with the Attractions before the recordings. One of the final tracks written was "Pump It Up", which Costello began writing outside a hotel fire escape during the Live Stiffs tour, debuting the song two days later and properly recording it in the studio a week after that. Having frequently played the tracks live, the band were able to complete them with few overdubs; some of Costello's live guide vocals ended up in the final mix. Bruce Thomas recalled: "We literally did the best tracks on the album – "Pump It Up", "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea" – in one afternoon. It was like Motown. We'd just go in, play them, and that was it." Despite the fast-paced nature of the sessions, Béchirian recalled Costello coming off the tour with "radiating energy":

"He was a star almost overnight, and I think he was quite bemused by it all, swept up with the excitement. I have a great laughing image of him being fairly fresh-faced, like a little boy in a sweet shop."

Thomson says the sessions were "vibrant", productive and completed without difficulty. They began each day around 11 a.m. and finished around 9 p.m. According to Béchirian, "the whole thing was really good, it was really friendly, very positive. Everyone was really excited because they were the stars of the moment." Costello and the Attractions collaborated during the songwriting process. Although Costello preferred an "immaculate approach" to songwriting, wherein he would not present songs to the musicians until they were fully written, the Attractions offered suggestions that helped shape the songs. For "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea", Costello based the guitar parts on the 1964 tracks "I Can't Explain" by the Who and "All Day and All of the Night" by the Kinks, which the band used to create new figures to make "Chelsea" stand out on its own. The band recorded several outtakes, including "Radio Radio" and "Big Tears", the latter featuring a guest contribution from the Clash guitarist Mick Jones. Other tracks written or demoed included "Crawling to the U.S.A.", "Running Out of Angels", "Green Shirt" and "Big Boys".

Mixing
The album was mixed at Eden by Béchirian with Lowe and Costello in attendance; Costello did not contribute due to his relative inexperience in the studio. The mixing console had been custom-built by Béchirian in the early 1970s after the studio had changed locations. According to author Mick St. Michael, Lowe intentionally made the record louder than its predecessor. Béchirian recalled in an interview with Mix magazine that Lowe's primary goal was to "make sure the bass sat in well with the kick" and to bring Costello's voice to the forefront. With the record completed, Costello and the Attractions toured America in January 1978.

Music and lyrics
In the 2002 liner notes, Costello mentioned the Rolling Stones' Aftermath (1966) as a major influence on This Year's Model. Musically, the album embraces several styles, including new wave, power pop, punk rock, garage rock, and pop rock; St. Michael also recognised references to Merseybeat and glam. According to biographer Tony Clayton-Lea, rather than reusing the rockabilly and country sounds of My Aim Is True, This Year's Model opts for straightforward pop music "as influenced by punk rock". AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine, on the other hand, defines the album as pure punk, with music that is "nervous, amphetamine-fueled, [and] nearly paranoid".

In a contemporary interview with Creem magazine, Costello said the record contained less humour than its predecessor: "It's more vicious overall but far less personal, though." Referencing technologies of mass control, from corporate logos to night rallies, Hinton writes that the lyrics are "strongly visual, as befits the voyeurism which fuels many of the songs". References to objects such as cameras, films and telephones are present throughout many tracks, in both positive and negative lights, which author David Gouldstone argues creates a disillusioned world where greed and revenge are dominant. Like the cover artwork itself, the mechanical imagery emphasises observation rather than participation. Themes of uncertainty between reality and artifice previously emerged on "Watching the Detectives", and appear throughout This Year's Model on tracks such as "Pump It Up", "This Year's Girl" and "Living In Paradise". Author James E. Perone interprets songs like "Lipstick Vogue", "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea" and "This Year's Girl" as relating to Costello's former job working at cosmetics and perfume company Elizabeth Arden.

Some reviewers identified themes of misogyny. In 1978, the writer Jon Pareles found the album "so wrong-headed, so full of hatred, [and] so convinced of its moral superiority" in Crawdaddy magazine. Drawing comparisons to Aftermath similar lyrical content, Sounds magazine's Jon Savage said that "at least on occasion Elvis has the grace to make clear that it's a two-way process and at fault. Just wanna be your victim...". Costello himself later wrote in the 2002 reissue's liner notes that he never understood the misogynistic accusations, believing they "clearly contained more sense of disappointment than disgust". Costello's failure to get the girl is the focal point of most of the relationships described in the album. Rolling Stone writer Kit Rachlis agreed, stating that all romances on the album are over or are about to commence, including a situation where he is unsure of whether to answer the phone or not ("No Action") or coming to terms after rejecting all compromises ("Lipstick Vogue").

Side one
"No Action" begins with Costello's solo voice. The lyrics detail the regret of a failed relationship. Gouldstone said that the song is the first example of Costello's use of "thematic punning", meaning the incorporation of references that indirectly relate to the song's main subject; "No Action", in this case, uses a telephone as comparisons to the narrator's companion. According to Costello, "This Year's Girl" was written as an "answer song" to the Rolling Stones' "Stupid Girl" (1965). Other influences included the mid-1960s works of the Beatles. In his 2015 memoir, Costello wrote that the song discusses how men see women and what they desire from them. The song's subject has achieved fame through fashion but it is only temporary, as by the next year, another girl will take her place. Once she realises it as time runs out, she feels cheated but by then it is too late. "The Beat" is primarily led by Nieve's keyboard and the rhythm section of Bruce and Pete Thomas. The song explores the uncertainties and pains of adolescence and early manhood, and Hinton regards it as the closest thing on the album to romantic love. It quotes Cliff Richard's "Summer Holiday" (1963) as a way to express enjoyment before the narrator is sought after by vigilantes.

"Pump It Up" was based on the stylings of Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" (1965) and Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business" (1956). An energetic attack on a female chic society's member, the song takes place in a nightclub, where its self-important members aspire to fit into high society, seeking purpose. The vocals are fuelled by obsessive sexual desire, while the rhythmic guitar riff is likened by Gouldstone to heavy metal. Writing for AllMusic, Mark Deming stated that the song "perfectly captures the giddy but terrifying feeling of a wild, adrenaline-fueled all-night party that's dangling on the verge of collapse." A softer track changing from soft soul to Burt Bacharach, "Little Triggers" is about a failing relationship caused by the woman's indifference. The 'little triggers' refer to the small things that occur in the beginning of a relationship that make it meaningful, such as kissing, body-brushing and lip expressions. RAM magazine's Anthony O'Grady called it "a hypnotic, frustrated, hurt love song that's almost the mirror image of 'Alison' [from My Aim Is True]." "You Belong to Me" is heavily in debt to the Rolling Stones, using the same riff as "The Last Time" (1965). Lyrically, it is a plea for sexual freedom and is full of resentment and anger. Musically, AllMusic's Stewart Mason likens it to 1960s garage rock.

Side two
The track "Hand in Hand" opens with guitar feedback evoking the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix. Although the music provides a Merseybeat shuffle, the dark and revenge-driven lyrics follow two lovers walking hand in hand straight to Hell. Like "No Action" and My Aim Is True "I'm Not Angry", the narrator tries to deal with chaotic emotions by denying they ever occurred. "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea" is a ska-infected rocker that was originally directly influenced by the works of the Who, before Bruce and Pete Thomas contributed new rhythms that made the track stand out on its own. Lyrically, the song attacks fashionable society; the girl is described as 'last year's model', as she has suffered a fall from grace. According to Rachlis, "Chelsea represents Costello's nightmare world of success, where deceit is masked by propriety and last year's model is thrown out with yesterday's wash." "Lip Service" represents a culmination of Beatles influences into a track that contains sexual innuendos, both in its lyrics and title. It is primarily led by Bruce Thomas's bassline, which Hinton compares to the sound of the Hollies. The partially vague lyrics express a narrator's sexual frustrations on a would-be lover and observations on insincerity around him.

"Living in Paradise" was written in 1975 when Costello was a member of the pub rock band Flip City. O'Grady calls it as "shuffling power-pop reggae detailing how dreams of soft-living actualise in soul-decaying corruption". Morgan Troper of PopMatters maintained that it abandons the punk workings of the rest of the album for a ska-type rhythm. According to Gouldstone the track has themes already present in the album's other songs, including misogynistic ideals. "Lipstick Vogue" is described by AllMusic's Tom Maginnis as a showcase for the band's energy and skill. It opens with a drum fill by Pete Thomas before Bruce Thomas and Nieve drive on bass and keyboards, respectively. Reflecting themes of alienation, the song is about the perils of imperfect love. "Night Rally" provides commentary on the then-prevalent UK National Front. It presents, in Hinton's words, a "nightmare of state control and worse" that argues how totalitarianism infiltrates and affects society. Costello compares conglomerate corporations to these types of governments, in how they attempt to control the people. It cuts off abruptly, ending the album on, in St. Michael's words, "an explicit and disturbingly pessimistic note".

Packaging and artwork
The original UK cover artwork for This Year's Model was deliberately off-centre, making the title appear as His Year's Model and the artist "Lvis Costello". The design by Barney Bubbles left a printers' colour bar intact along the right side. The American and Swedish sleeves were lined up correctly and not off-centre. Riviera's F-Beat Records released a May 1980 issue with an aligned sleeve, which has been retained for all subsequent releases.

Photographed by Chris Gabrin, the front cover depicts Costello in his signature black framed glasses, wearing a dark suit with a polka dot shirt, glaring from behind a camera on a tripod. In Thomson's words, he is "expressionless" and "both observed and observing". According to Hinton, it was a "careful reconstruction" of David Hemmings from Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow Up (1966). The British cover had Costello standing back with his hands open; on the American cover, he crouched forward with both hands gripping the camera like a gun; a third shot was also used for the Swedish release. The back cover depicts Costello and the Attractions in a small, dimly lit hotel room reacting to a television with mock horror. Three of them are wearing black ties while Nieve dons a V-neck pullover. The inner sleeve depicts a robotic hand gripping a miniature TV on which Costello is playing, standing on one leg, and the other side depicts four colour-coded and dismembered mannequin bodies wearing string vests in a laundromat. Hinton states that the label's gimmick at the time was off-centre sleeves and avant-garde inner fold images.

The Attractions were acknowledged on the LP labels but did not receive sleeve credits on the original release. The LP labels contain text between the holding spirals reading "Special pressing No. 003. Ring 434-3232. Ask for Moira for your prize". Packaged with the first 50,000 copies of the LP was a free 7" single containing "Stranger in the House", an outtake from My Aim Is True left off the album due to its country-influenced sound, with a live cover of the Damned's "Neat Neat Neat" as the B-side. The first American pressings contain Costello's rather than Columbia's logo.

Release and promotion
The band's North American tour before the album's release lasted from January to early March 1978. The setlist consisted of tracks from both My Aim Is True and This Year's Model, as well as B-sides and covers. The tour was positively received, but contributed to the growing exhaustion of Costello and the Attractions.

Radar released the first single, "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea", backed by "You Belong to Me", on 3March 1978 in the UK, which received acclaim and reached number 16 on the UK Singles Chart. A performance in Toronto on 6March was heavily bootlegged, and was eventually issued as Live at the El Mocambo in 1993 with the 2½ Years box set, and as a standalone release in 2009. This Year's Model was released in the UK on 17March with the catalogue number RAD3. Costello and the Attractions undertook a 28-date UK tour between March and April. The dates were plagued with problems, including Bruce Thomas cutting his hand smashing a glass bottle, requiring Lowe to substitute for him; Thomas wore bandages for the filming of promotional clips for "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea" and "Pump It Up". Costello grew more exhausted from constant touring but continued writing new material. By the tour's end, This Year's Model had reached number 4 on the UK Albums Chart.

Another US tour commenced just three days after the previous tour's end. With Bruce Thomas still unavailable, Costello brought back Clover guitarist John Ciambotti, who only had one day of rehearsal. Throughout the tour, Costello and the band continued the wild behaviour they had become known for—both on and off stage—and experienced an increase in drug use, lack of sleep and growing exhaustion. Songs that would appear on Costello's next album, 1979's Armed Forces, began appearing in the set-lists. This Year's Model was issued in the US in May1978; Columbia substituted "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea" and "Night Rally" with "Radio Radio" on the notion that the lyrics on both tracks were "too English". It reached to number 30 on Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart. The Scandinavian release retained the UK track listing and added "Watching the Detectives" as the final track on side one. It reached number 10 in Sweden. Elsewhere, This Year's Model reached the top 20 in New Zealand (11), the Netherlands (14) and Norway (15), and the top 30 in Canada (21) and Australia (26).

The tour lasted until June1978, after which the band again toured Europe. "Pump It Up", backed by "Big Tears", was released as the second single in June, which peaked at number 24 in the UK, earning Costello another appearance on BBC's Top of the Pops. In July, Costello recorded "Stranger in the House" with country artist George Jones, which appeared on the latter's My Very Special Guests album in 1979, before commencing the recording sessions for Armed Forces. "This Year's Girl", backed by "Big Tears", was issued as a US single. After appearing on the American LP, "Radio Radio" was released as a stand-alone single in the UK on 24October 1978, backed by "Tiny Steps".

Critical reception
This Year's Model was well received on release. Many critics deemed it superior to My Aim Is True, praised the Attractions as a better band than Clover, and highlighted the strong songwriting and performances. Melody Maker Allan Jones called it "an achievement so comprehensive, so inspired, that it exhausts superlatives". He wrote that "the penetration of the language matches the vaulting hysteria of the performance" and concluded that the record "promotes its author to the foremost ranks of contemporary rock writers", such as Bruce Springsteen. Cash Box remarked that This Year's Model allowed Costello to surpass early comparisons of Springsteen and Graham Parker to establish his own identity. In RAM magazine, O'Grady dubbed This Year's Model "the best collection of...fashion-conscious songs since Ray Davies [of the Kinks] started his 'Dedicated Follower of Fashion' period." Tom Zito of The Washington Post had a hard time recalling an artist whose sophomore record surpassed their "already impressive" debut.

Several reviewers placed Costello as one of the best British New Wave artists. In Circus magazine, Fred Schruers lauded his lyrics, musicianship and angry persona, and cited This Year's Model as having fulfilled "every new wave expectation". Robert Christgau of The Village Voice also saw Costello's emotional delivery as full of anger and grimace, which he found "more attractive musically and verbally than all his melodic and lyrical tricks". In the midst of the punk movement, Christgau acknowledged the genre's influence on the album and artist. Creem Alan Madeleine found the artist proves himself "stylistically mindful": he is "distinct enough from any other extant act to be noted, yet cautious of excess experimentation in this establishmental sophomore phase." Record Mirror Tim Lott considered the songs "less vicious" than its predecessors, but said the artist remains an "Aladdin's cave of anti-matter". He called Costello's voice "insubstantial but wiry", the music "clever in its very lack of detail", and compared the organ-heavy sound with Blondie: a Sixties sound "trapped for ten years on atmospherics". Naming This Year's Model the winner of May 1978's "disc derby" in the Los Angeles Times, Robert Hilburn wrote that Costello's vocals "bristle with conviction and bite that we rarely find in rock in the '70s". Other critics highlighted Lowe's production.

Some critics were less enthusiastic. Savage felt Costello was "less than likable" and the Attractions "spare yet full", but ultimately considered the album "an excellent, soon-to-be-popular" record. In Rolling Stone, Rachlis believed the album was more "musically and thematically" cohesive than My Aim Is True, but not "diminish[ing] the prodigal brilliance" of its predecessor. Conversely, Joel Selvin of the San Francisco Chronicle found "no new surprises" on Model, but felt the songs improved on the style exhibited on Aim, concluding that it "should satisfy his growing legion of fans, as well as gain new converts". In The New York Times, John Rockwell described This Year's Model as a "fine" record that maintains all of the artist's previous angry energy, yet "filling out the arrangements with a richness of texture (organ especially) that is very appealing". Pareles was critical of the overtly misogynistic themes.

This Year's Model was voted the best album of 1978 by both Melody Maker and The Village Voice. It was highly placed in other year-end lists by Rolling Stone, NME (3), Record Mirror (5) and Sounds (8).

Legacy and influence
This Year's Model continues to receive critical acclaim. Journalists praise the Attractions' music,  describing them as one of the best backing bands in rock music. Gouldstone wrote that with Costello on guitar, they became a band who are "capable of making even mediocre music listenable and of giving Costello's greatest songs an enthralling sense of intensity and immediacy." Erlewine described them as giving the album a "reckless, careening feel", further commending the sound, concluding that "Costello and the Attractions never rocked this hard, or this vengefully, ever again." Writing for Pitchfork in 2002, Matt LeMay said they were the reason the album was superior to My Aim Is True, and that "it's not only a more complex and dynamic album, but also one that steers well clear of the retro guitar twang that marred the less interesting bits of his debut." Declaring This Year's Model not only Costello's best, but one of the best albums ever made, he stated that it balanced the "raw energy" of its predecessor with the "more elegant pop songwriting" of his later works." Writing for Blender magazine, Douglas Wolk considered the Attractions "perfect creative foils" for Costello, particularly signalling out Nieve's playing throughout the record.

Critics consider This Year's Model one of Costello's best, and "angriest", works. Spin Al Shipley argued that Costello was never able surpass the record's "inventive punch", while Michael Gallucci of Ultimate Classic Rock deemed it the work that "bridged his brief past with his wide-open future". Troper deemed it Costello's "most consistent" release and finest with the Attractions, finding it the artist's "most live-sounding, most punk, and most honest record of his dauntingly expansive career". PopMatters writers Jason Mendelsohn and Eric Klinger hailed the album as "simple, refreshing, and surprisingly modern" and "an object lesson that the New Wave could compete on the old school's field", respectively. Consequence of Sound Ryan Bray named it the first of Costello and the Attractions' eight-year run he nicknamed "murderer's row". Reviewing in 2008, Rolling Stone Rob Sheffield named This Year's Model as an album everyone should own, saying the songs "remain brutally funny, sung with moments of unexpected tenderness". Regarding Costello's musicianship, Uncut Paul Moody argued that after he "dispensed with his musical safety net entirely" from My Aim Is True, This Year's Model began "his insatiable urge to 'bite the hand that feeds me'." The album was not without its detractors. Mojo magazine's Jim Irvin was more mixed on the material and arrangements, overall finding the album "unfeasibly invigorating" following its "mild-mannered" predecessor, but liked Lowe's production.

Some reviewers mention the album's influence on punk and its evolution into new wave. In 2002, Uncut magazine's Chris Roberts called Costello the "bitter bard of the punk era", writing that with This Year's Model, he "articulat[ed] a generation's ire every bit as caustically as the [Sex] Pistols' gigantic guitars". Bray cited it as the album that proved pop and punk could co-exist. Writing for Record Collector in 2008, Terry Staunton cited it as "the post-punk distillation of the times", especially in London, and ten years later, Nick Hasted named it the "template" for the transition from punk to new wave. Regarding the album's position in the new wave genre, punknews.org's Julie River described This Year's Model as one of the first and strongest new wave albums, ultimately standing as one of Costello's finest albums. Paste magazine's Andy Whitman went further, describing the album as "the moment when New Wave found its frontman". Both River and Whitman agreed the album has aged well.

Thomson described the songs as "tight and instantly memorable", and mentioned Costello's improved songwriting and the Attractions' performances. Hinton considers it "light years ahead" of its predecessor, creating a "paranoid universe, where everyone is being watched." St. Michael similarly writes that the record "provokes and invokes" the listener as much as it entertains. In The Words & Music of Elvis Costello, Perone calls This Year's Model one of the "strongest sophomore efforts of any singer-songwriter", arguing that it affirmed the seeds that outlined on My Aim Is True that predicted the artist's future projects. The author also comments that it debuted one of the strongest four-piece rock bands of the era.

Black Francis of Pixies named the album as a favorite, recalling, "The [album] I listened to the most [at college], though, was This Year's Model. ... Instead of studying I'd go in [my room] and listen to Elvis Costello over and over until my ears hurt and my head couldn't take it anymore".

Rankings
This Year's Model often appears on lists of the greatest albums of all time. In 2000 Q placed it at number 82 on its list of the "100 Greatest British Albums Ever". In 1987, Rolling Stone placed the album at number 11 on its list of the best of the past 20 years, and said that Costello charted "the modern romantic terrain with keen cynicism, caustic wit and furious energy." The same magazine ranked the album number 98 in its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003, maintaining the rating in a 2012 revised list, and dropping to number 121 in a 2020 revised list. In lists compiling the 100 greatest albums of all time, Mojo, NME and Spin ranked This Year's Model at numbers 69, 40 and 8 in 1995, 1985 and 1989, respectively. NME listed it at number 256 in their 2013 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In a 2018 issue selecting 70 landmark albums of the past 70 years, Record Collector chose This Year's Model as their pick for 1978. In 2004, Pitchfork Sam Ubl ranked it the 52nd best album of the 1970s, calling it "one of [Costello's] most deceptive rock records", and in 2012, Paste placed it at number 35 in a similar list. Ultimate Classic Rock also included it in their list of the 100 best rock albums from the decade. Paste magazine also ranked it the 19th greatest new wave album in 2016. The album was included in the 2018 edition of Robert Dimery's book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Reissues
This Year's Model was first released on CD through Columbia and Demon Records in January1986. Its first extended reissue came in October1993 through Demon in the UK and Rykodisc in the US, which added the bonus tracks "Radio Radio", "Crawling to the U.S.A.", "Running Out of Angels", "Greenshirt" and "Big Boys". The 2002 CD reissue by Rhino Entertainment added more tracks on top of the 1993 additions; with this release, "Radio Radio" was sequenced as the album closer after "Night Rally". Troper argues that the addition changes the record's tone immensely, stating that as "Radio Radio" is more upbeat, it brings the album to a proper conclusion compared to the disturbing imagery and abrupt ending of "Night Rally".

In 2008, it was reissued again by Universal/Hip-O Records as a deluxe edition, featuring most of the same tracks as the Rhino reissue, with the addition of a 13-track live bonus disc taken from a show at the Warner Theater in Washington, D.C., on 28February 1978. For its 2021 remaster by UMe, "Big Tears" was added before "Radio Radio" on the standard album, bringing the total track count to 14.

Track listing
All songs written by Elvis Costello.

Side one
 * 1) "No Action" – 1:57
 * 2) "This Year's Girl" – 3:16
 * 3) "The Beat" – 3:42
 * 4) "Pump It Up" – 3:12
 * 5) "Little Triggers" – 2:38
 * 6) "You Belong to Me" – 2:19

Side two
 * 1) "Hand in Hand" – 2:30
 * 2) "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea" – 3:06
 * 3) "Lip Service" – 2:34
 * 4) "Living in Paradise" – 3:51
 * 5) "Lipstick Vogue" – 3:29
 * 6) "Night Rally" – 2:40

Notes
 * The US release dropped "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea" and "Night Rally" and added "Radio Radio" to close side two. The 2002 Rhino reissue added "Radio Radio" after "Night Rally" as the album closer,  and the 2021 remaster added "Big Tears" before "Radio Radio".

Personnel
According to the liner notes of the 2002 reissue: with:
 * Elvis Costello – guitar, vocals
 * Steve Nieve – keyboards
 * Bruce Thomas – bass
 * Pete Thomas – drums
 * Mick Jones – lead guitar on "Big Tears"

Technical
 * Nick Lowe – producer, mixer
 * Roger Béchirian – engineer

Spanish Model
In 2018, Costello collaborated with singer Natalie Bergman for a new version of "This Year's Girl" for the second season of the American television series The Deuce. For this version, Costello and his frequent collaborator, producer Sebastian Krys, added new vocals from Bergman alongside Costello's originals. The project led Costello to conceive a reimagining of This Year's Model entirely in Spanish. The project, titled Spanish Model, features 16 songs from the This Year's Model period sung by an array of Latin artists, including Juanes, Jorge Drexler, Luis Fonsi, Francisca Valenzuela, Fuego, Draco Rosa and Fito Páez, replacing Costello's original vocals but retaining Costello and the Attractions' original backing instrumentation.

In a 2021 interview with Mojo, Costello said that he had three requirements for the project: he wanted a lesser-known line-up, each singer would translate his or her own song and the Attractions' original backing tracks would be used. He was insistent on the quality of the band's performances: "Take my voice out of it and the playing from Pete, Bruce and Steve is sensational." As a non-Spanish speaker, Costello and Krys worked with songwriters Elsten Torres, Ximena Muñoz, Luis Mitre and Andie Sandoval to translate the lyrics. Costello told Rolling Stone:

"The thing with the translation, and we've discovered a lot over the record, [is that] the Spanish adaptation makes the melodies sound a little different, because the sound elements are different. I sing with a lot of, shall we say, attitude, particularly then. With songs like 'Hand in Hand' and 'Living in Paradise', I didn't realise these songs had melody — I thought it was just me sneering. I didn't realise they had tunes until I heard them sung by more melodious singers in another language."

The lyrics themselves are not literal translations. The first track completed was Cami's reinterpretation of "This Year's Girl" titled "La Chica de Hoy", which literally means "the girl of today". Costello explained that it has the same ideas as the original track, but Cami introduced reflections from her own career. "Radio Radio" was given "the most radical change" due to the track's now-outdated themes. "Night Rally" and "Chelsea" were also given changes to instead reflect the rise of Spanish fascism and the updated location of Miami, respectively. Krys originally intended to mimic Lowe and Béchirian's original mix, but decided it worked better when he mixed the backing tracks around the new vocals.

Many of the Latin performers connected with the music on the original album. La Marisoul, a huge fan of Costello's, felt honoured to sing "Little Triggers", now titled "Detonantes". The artist approached the track by saying "Okay, I'm gonna live in these lyrics". For "Radio Radio", Fito Páez amended it to the current era where he presented himself "like this old dinosaur who goes back to his little radio to listen to Elvis Costello". Juanes, who recalled watching the music video for "Pump It Up" on MTV, offered a Spanish take on the lyric's events for his version of the song. Francisca Valenzuela, who sang "Hand In Hand" with Luis Humberto Navejas, cited This Year's Model and Imperial Bedroom (1982) as her favourite records by Costello and was delighted when she was approached for the project, stating: "I think it reflects something we're all interested in, which is the multiculturalism and syncretism of music." Draco Rosa was thrilled at the opportunity to provide a new and natural take on "The Beat", titled "Yo Te Vi".

Preceded by the release of Juanes's "Pump It Up" on 15July 2021, Spanish Model was issued on 10September through record label UMe and was packaged with the 2021 remaster of the original album. Costello said in a statement: "Part of the fun of this project is its unexpected nature. Although, I think people in my audience that have been paying attention are pretty much used to surprises by now." Speaking to Mojo, he stated that the Attractions, Lowe and Béchirian all responded positively to Spanish Model.

Spanish Model earned Costello and the Attractions their first top-ten entry on a Billboard Latin chart, reaching number six on Latin Pop Albums. It also charted at number 50 on the Top Album Sales, number 32 on the Top Current Album Sales and number 38 on the Billboard Top Latin Albums. The album debuted to 2,000 album-equivalent units in the US the week of 16 September 2021.

Critical reception
Spanish Model has been favourably reviewed by music critics. Erlewine commended the new vocals, stating that the Latin singers retain the "barbed humour" and "spiky politics" of the original album. He believes the new songs improved the project overall and expand the "musical and emotional palette", creating an album that was "not as a curiosity but rather a small wonder, revealing new dimensions of the original recording while opening up these songs for new audiences". Mojo John Aizlewood found the project unnecessary but refreshing.

In PopMatters, Marty Lipp cited the project as a complete display of the Attractions' strength as a band and recognised how many of the Latin singers on the project were female, which represented a "striking reversal" of the "she done me wrong" mentality that pervaded a majority of Costello's early work. He felt that the absence of Costello's "brilliantly cynical wordplay" did the album more harm than good, particularly on "Pump It Up", but considered the project "still as exciting and fun as ever" and commended Costello for continuing to surprise his fans. Matthew Berlyant in Under the Radar magazine called the project unique and praised Costello for taking a major left turn almost 45 years into his career. He highlighted the rearranged track listing and additions to the original record as making the project stand on its own, concluding that Costello succeeded in both bringing attention to the original album and the Spanish-speaking artists that enveloped Spanish Model.

Track listing
Track information adapted from Spotify:

title: This Year's Model


text:
James S. Albus

James Sacra Albus (May 4, 1935 – April 17, 2011) was an American engineer, Senior NIST Fellow and founder and former chief of the Intelligent Systems Division of the Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Biography
Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Albus received the B.S. degree in physics from Wheaton College, Illinois, in 1957 and the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from Ohio State University, Columbus, in 1958. In 1972 he received a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park. From 1957 to 1973 Albus worked at NASA starting in 1957 as Physicist-Engineer on Project Vanguard at the Naval Research Laboratory, Washington DC. From 1958 to 1969 he was Physicist-Engineer at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and from 1963 Acting Head of the Video Techniques Section. From 1969 to March 1973 he was head of the Cybernetics and Subsystems Development Section. In the 1960s he was associated with the early Vanguard satellite program and responsible for the optical aspect sensors on seven Goddard satellites, more than ten sounding rockets, and over 15 NASA spacecraft.

From 1973 to 2008 Albus worked at the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) which changed its name in 1988 to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). March 1973 to June 1980 he was Project Manager for Sensors and Computer Control Technology, NBS where he developed the Cerebellar Model Arithmetic Computer (CMAC) neural net model. From June 1980 to January 1981 he was leader of the Programmable Automation Group at the NBS and developed the RCS reference model architecture for the Automated Manufacturing Research Facility.

From 1981 to 1996 he was chief of the Robot Systems Division at NIST. Here he founded the Robot Systems Division, developed the RoboCrane, and many applications of the RCS architecture for DARPA, NASA, ARL, U.S. Bureau of Mines, Ford, and General Motors. From 1995 to 1998 as Chief, Intelligent Systems Division, NIST he managed a Division of 35 professional scientists and engineers with an $8+ million per year budget. He developed the 4D/RCS architecture for the Army Research Lab (ARL) Demo III Experimental Unmanned Vehicle program. From 1998 to 2008 he was a Senior NIST Fellow, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Provided technical leadership to the Intelligent Systems Division and served as Principal Investigator for the implementation of intelligent ground vehicle projects funded by the Army and DARPA.

From June 2008 to 2009 he was a Senior Fellow of the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Studies at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, where he worked toward advancing the understanding of the computational and representational mechanisms of the human brain. From 2008 to 2011 he worked part-time at Robotic Technology Incorporated (RTI) and Robotic Research, LLC.

He was a member of the editorial board of the Wiley Series on Intelligent Systems served on the editorial boards of six journals related to intelligent systems and robotics" Autonomous Robots, Robotics and Autonomous Systems, Journal of Robotic Systems, Intelligent Automation and Soft Computing.

In 1962 he received the highest NASA cash award granted to that time for the invention of the Digital Solar Aspect Sensor. In 1984 he was winner of the Joseph F. Engelberger Award for robotics technology. He also received several other awards for his work in control theory including the NIST Applied Research Award, the Department of Commerce Gold and Silver Medals, the Industrial Research IR-100 award, the Presidential Rank Meritorious Executive, the Jacob Rabinow Award, and the Japan Industrial Robot Association R&D Award.

Work
Albus made contributions to cerebellar robotics, developed a two-handed manipulator system known as the Robocrane (a crane-like variation on the Stewart platform idea), and proposed an economic concept known as "Peoples' Capitalism". Peoples' Capitalism is similar to the ideas of Louis O. Kelso and discusses the question "how would we live without jobs?". Albus himself described the impact of his economic ideas as "slight".

Albus's vision concerns included the following: a world without poverty, a world of prosperity, a world of opportunity, a world without pollution, a world without war, and includes a detailed plan for achievement of these goals.

Brain theory
In 1971, he published a new theory of cerebellar function that modified and extended a previous theory published by David Marr in 1969.

Neural nets
Based on his cerebellar model, Albus invented a new type of neural net computer, the Cerebellar Model Articulation Controller (CMAC), for which he received the IR-100 award from Industrial Research Magazine as one of the 100 most important industrial innovations of the year 1976.

RoboCrane
Albus invented and developed a new generation of robot cranes based on six cables and six winches configured as a Stewart platform.

Real-time Control System
Albus co-invented the Real-Time Control System (RCS), a reference model architecture that has been used over the past 25 years for a number of intelligent systems including the NBS Automated Manufacturing Research Facility (AMRF), the NASA telerobotic servicer, a DARPA Multiple Autonomous Undersea Vehicle project, a nuclear Submarine Operational Automation System, a Post Office General Mail facility, a Bureau of Mines automated mining system, a commercial open architecture machine tool controller, and numerous advanced robotic projects, including the Army Research Lab Demo III Experimental Unmanned Ground vehicle.

During the 1980s, the Albus-Barbera reference model architecture (a.k.a. RCS - for Real-time Control System) provided the fundamental integrating principle of the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) Automated Manufacturing Research Facility (AMRF.) This was an $80 million experimental automated factory-of-the-future. It was co-funded by the U.S. Navy Manufacturing Technology Program and the National Bureau of Standards (NBS). The success of the AMRF was largely responsible for the Congressional Legislation that transformed NBS into NIST.

Computational Theory of Mind
The 4D-RCS Reference Model Architecture is a reference model for military unmanned vehicles developed by the NIST, which describes how software components of military unmanned vehicles should be identified and organized. Albus has extended the reference model to a cognitive architecture for Intelligent Multi-Agent Systems. Albus (2009) described:

This extended architecture is designed to enable any level of intelligent behavior, up to and including human levels of performance in driving vehicles and coordinating tactical behaviors between autonomous air, ground, and amphibious vehicle systems. It addresses the fundamental theoretical questions regarding whether computational processes are capable of emulating the functional processes in the brain, and provides a theoretical basis for understanding how the machinery of the brain generates the processes of the mind. Albus' work has led to a biologically plausible model of representation and computation in the human cortex.

Publications
Albus has published more than 150 scientific papers, journal articles, and government studies on intelligent systems and robotics, and authored or coauthored six books:
 * 1976. Peoples' Capitalism: The Economics of the Robot Revolution. New World Books. ISBN 0-917480-01-5
 * 1981. Brains, Behavior, and Robotics. Byte/McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-000975-9
 * 2001. Engineering of Mind: An Introduction to the Science of Intelligent Systems. Wiley. ISBN 0-471-43854-5
 * 2001. The RCS Handbook: Tools for Real-Time Control Systems Software Development. Wiley. ISBN 0-471-43565-1
 * 2002. Intelligent Systems: Architecture, Design, and Control. Wiley. ISBN 0-471-19374-7
 * 2011. Path To A Better World: A Plan for Prosperity, Opportunity, and Economic Justice. iUniverse. ISBN 978-1462035328

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: James S. Albus


text:
Hugh Lawson White

Hugh Lawson White (October 30, 1773 – April 10, 1840) was an American politician during the first third of the 19th century. After filling in several posts particularly in Tennessee's judiciary and state legislature since 1801, thereunder as a Tennessee Supreme Court justice, he was chosen to succeed former presidential candidate Andrew Jackson in the United States Senate in 1825. He became a member of the new Democratic Party, supporting Jackson's policies and his future presidential administration. However, he left the Democrats in 1836 and was a Whig candidate in that year's presidential election.

An ardent strict constructionist and lifelong states' rights advocate, White was one of President Jackson's most trusted allies in Congress in the late 1820s and early 1830s. White fought against the national bank, tariffs, and the use of federal funds for internal improvements, and led efforts in the Senate to pass the Indian Removal Act of 1830. In 1833, at the height of the Nullification Crisis, White, as the Senate's president pro tempore, coordinated negotiations over the Tariff of 1833.

Suspicious of the growing power of the presidency, White began to distance himself from Jackson in the mid-1830s, and realigned himself with Henry Clay and the burgeoning Whig Party. He was eventually forced out of the Senate when Jackson's allies, led by James K. Polk, gained control of the Tennessee state legislature and demanded his resignation.

Early life
White was born in what is now Iredell County, North Carolina (but then part of Rowan County), the eldest son of James White and Mary Lawson White. James, a Revolutionary War veteran, moved his family to the Tennessee frontier in the 1780s, and played an active role in the failed State of Franklin. In 1786, he constructed White's Fort, which would eventually develop into Knoxville, Tennessee. Young Hugh was a sentinel at the fort and helped manage its small gristmill. In 1791, White's Fort was chosen as the capital of the newly created Southwest Territory, and James White's friend, William Blount, was appointed governor of the territory. Hugh Lawson White worked as Blount's personal secretary, and was tutored by early Knoxville minister and educator, Samuel Carrick. In 1793, he fought in the territorial militia under John Sevier during the Cherokee–American wars. Historian J. G. M. Ramsey credited Hugh Lawson White's company with the killing of the Chickamauga Cherokee war chief, King Fisher, and White's granddaughter and biographer, Nancy Scott, stated that White fired the fatal shot.

White studied law in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, under James Hopkins, and was admitted to the bar in 1796. Two years later, he married Elizabeth Carrick, the daughter of his mentor, Samuel.

The judiciary and early political career
In 1801, White was appointed judge of the Superior Court of Tennessee, then the state's highest court. In 1807, he resigned after being elected to the state legislature. He left the state legislature in 1809, following his appointment to the state's Court of Errors and Appeals (which replaced the Superior Court as the highest court). He resigned this position in 1815 when he was elected to the state senate. He served in the state senate until 1817. As a state legislator, White helped reform the state's land laws, and engineered the passage of an anti-dueling measure.

In 1812, White was named president of the Knoxville branch of the Bank of Tennessee. White was described as a very cautious banker, and his bank was one of the few in the state to survive the Panic of 1819.

In 1821, President James Monroe appointed White to a commission to settle claims against Spain, following the Adams-Onís Treaty in which that nation sold Florida to the United States.

United States Senate
In 1825, the Tennessee state legislature chose White to replace Andrew Jackson in the United States Senate (Jackson had resigned following his failed run for the presidency in 1824). White spearheaded the Southern states' opposition to sending delegates to 1826 Congress of Panama, which was a general gathering of various nations in the Western Hemisphere, many of which had declared their independence from Spain and abolished slavery. White argued that if the U.S. attended the congress, it would violate the commitment to neutrality put forth by President Washington decades earlier, and stated that the nation should not get involved in foreign treaties merely for the sake of "gratifying national vanity."

Following Jackson's election to the presidency in 1828, White became one of the Jackson Administration's key congressional allies. White was chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, which drew up the Indian Removal Act of 1830, a major initiative of Jackson. The act called for the relocation of the remaining Native American tribes in the southeastern United States to territories west of the Mississippi River and would culminate in the so-called Trail of Tears.

In an 1836 speech, White described himself as a "strict constructionist," arguing that the federal government could not pass any laws outside its powers specifically stated in the Constitution. Like many Jacksonians, he was a staunch states' rights, advocate. He opposed the national bank, and rejected federal funding for internal improvements (which he believed only the states had the power to fund). He also supported Jackson's call for the elimination of the Electoral College. A slaveowner himself, he and opposed federal intervention into the issue of slavery.

Like most Southern senators, White opposed the Tariff of 1828, which placed a high tax on goods imported from overseas to protect growing northern industries. White argued that while the federal government had the power to impose tariffs, it should only do so when it benefited the nation as a whole, and not merely one section (i.e., the North) at the expense of another (i.e., the agrarian South, which relied on trade with England). During the resulting Nullification Crisis in late 1832 and early 1833, as the Senate's president pro tempore (the leader of the Senate in the absence of the Vice President), White coordinated negotiations in the interim between the resignation of Vice President John C. Calhoun (December 28, 1832) and the swearing in of Vice President Martin Van Buren (March 4, 1833). Vice President Calhoun's resignation put White next in line to assume the presidency should that office have become vacant.

1836 presidential election
Toward the end of Jackson's first term, a rift developed between White and Jackson. In 1831, as Jackson reshuffled his cabinet in the aftermath of the Petticoat affair, White was offered the office of Secretary of War but turned it down. During the Nullification Crisis in February 1833, White angered Jackson by appointing Delaware senator and Clay ally John M. Clayton to the select committee to consider the Clay compromise. In later speeches, White stated that the Jackson Administration had drifted away from the party's core states' rights principles, and argued that the executive was gaining too much power.

At the end of Jackson's second term, the Tennessee state legislature endorsed White for the presidency in 1835. This angered Jackson, as he had chosen Martin Van Buren as his successor. White stated that no sitting president should choose a successor, arguing that doing so was akin to having a monarchy. In 1836, White left Jackson's party entirely, and decided to run for president as a candidate for the Whig Party led by Henry Clay, which had mainly formed from opposition to Jackson but also continued the nationalist agenda of the National Republican Party, although this very contradicting position in regard to White's ideals was not yet determined at that time, as the party was still regionally factionalized.

In the 1836 presidential election, the Whig Party, unable to agree on a candidate, ran four candidates against Van Buren: White, William Henry Harrison, Daniel Webster, and Willie Person Mangum. Jackson actively campaigned against White in Tennessee, and accused him of being a federalist who was opposed to states' rights. In spite of this, White won Tennessee, as well as Georgia, giving him 26 electoral votes, the third highest total behind Van Buren's 170 and Harrison's 73.

Later career
By 1837, the relationship between White and Jackson had turned hostile. Jackson was outraged when he learned that White had accused his administration of committing outright fraud, and stated in a letter to Adam Huntsman that White had a "lax code of morals." Jackson's allies such as James K. Polk, Felix Grundy, and John Catron, also turned against White and blamed him for the dispute with Jackson. White stood by his accusations and blasted Jackson for making "useless expenditures" of public money, and increasing the power of the presidency.

By the late 1830s, Jackson's allies had gained control of the Tennessee state legislature. After White refused their demand that he vote for the Subtreasury Bill, he was forced to resign on January 13, 1840. Following a large banquet in Washington, White returned to his native Knoxville. His entry into the city was marked by the firing of cannons and the ringing of church bells, as he paraded through the streets on horseback.

Shortly after his return, White fell ill, and he died on April 10, 1840. A large funeral procession led his casket and riderless horse through the streets of Knoxville. He is interred with his family in the First Presbyterian Church Cemetery.

Personality and style
White believed strongly in the principles of strict constructionism and a limited federal government and voted against fellow Jacksonians if he felt their initiatives ran counter to these principles. His independent nature and his stern rectitude earned him the appellation "The Cato of the United States." His congressional colleague, Henry Wise, later wrote that White's "patriotism and firmness" as the Senate's president pro tempore was key to resolving the Nullification Crisis.

White believed that being on the public payroll obligated him to attend every Senate meeting, no matter the issue. Felix Grundy recalled that White once departed Knoxville in the middle of a driving snowstorm to ensure he made it to Washington in time for the Senate's fall session. Senator John Milton Niles later wrote that White was often "the only listener to a dull speech." White prided himself on being the most punctual member of the Senate and was usually the first senator to arrive at the Capitol on days when the Senate was in session. Senator Ephraim H. Foster once told a story about waking up well before sunrise one morning, determined to beat White to the Capitol at least once in his career, and arriving only to find White in the committee room analyzing some papers.

Family and legacy
White's father, James White (1747–1820), was the founder of Knoxville, Tennessee. His brothers-in-law included surveyor Charles McClung (1761–1835), who platted Knoxville in 1791, Judge John Overton (1766–1833), the co-founder of Memphis, Tennessee, and Senator John Williams (1778–1837). White and his first wife, Elizabeth Carrick, had 12 children, two of whom died in infancy. Between 1825 and 1831, eight of their surviving ten children died of tuberculosis. Their lone surviving son, Samuel (1825–1860), served as mayor of Knoxville in 1857.

White's farm lay just west of Second Creek in Knoxville. In the late 19th century, this became a land development area known as "White's Addition." The area is now part of the University of Tennessee campus and the Fort Sanders neighborhood. White County, Arkansas was also named in his honor.

title: Hugh Lawson White


text:
Amalgamation

Amalgamation is the process of combining or uniting multiple entities into one form.

Amalgamation, amalgam, and other derivatives may refer to:

Mathematics and science

 * Amalgam (chemistry), the combination of mercury with another metal
 * Pan amalgamation, another extraction method with additional compound
 * Patio process, the use of mercury amalgamation to extract silver
 * Amalgamation (geology), the creation of a stable continent or craton by the union of two terranes; see Tectonic evolution of the Barberton greenstone belt
 * Amalgamation paradox in probability and statistics, also known as Simpson's paradox
 * Amalgamation property in model theory
 * Free product with amalgamation, in mathematics, especially group theory, an important construction

Arts, entertainment, and media

 * Amalgamated Broadcasting System, a short-lived American radio network during the 1930s
 * Amalgamation (fiction), the concept of creating an element in a work of fiction by combining existing things
 * Amalgamation, a 1994 EP by the band Pop Will Eat Itself
 * Amalgamation, the debut studio album by the band Trapt

Other uses

 * Amalgamated (1917 automobile), car manufactured by the Amalgamated Machinery Corp.
 * Amalgamated (organization name)
 * Amalgamation (business), the merge or consolidation of companies
 * Amalgamation (land), the formal combination of adjoining plots; in some jurisdictions distinct from a merger
 * Amalgamation (names), the strategy of naming something after a combination of existing names
 * Amalgamation (race), a now largely archaic term for the merger of people of different ethnicities and "races"
 * Amalgamation, another name for a trade union, chiefly used in the UK
 * Amalgamation, in C (programming language) (C) and C++ programming, merging all the source codes of a library into a single header file
 * Conflation, also known as "idiom amalgamation", the combination of two expressions
 * Merger (politics), consolidation or amalgamation, in geopolitics, joining two or more political or administrative entities, such as municipalities, cities, towns, counties, districts etc. into a single entity

title: Amalgamation


text:
Hickory

Hickory is a common name for trees composing the genus Carya, which includes around 18 species. Five or six species are native to China, Indochina, and India (Assam), as many as twelve are native to the United States, four are found in Mexico, and two to four are native to Canada. A number of hickory species are used for their edible nuts, lumber or other wood and woodcraft products.

Hickories are temperate forest trees with pinnately compound leaves and large nuts. Hickory flowers are small, yellow-green catkins produced in spring. They are wind-pollinated and self-incompatible. The fruit is a globose or oval nut, 2 – long and 1.5 – diameter, enclosed in a four-valved husk, which splits open at maturity. The nut shell is thick and bony in most species, and thin in a few, notably the pecan (C. illinoinensis); it is divided into two halves, which split apart when the seed germinates.

Etymology
The name "hickory" derives from a Native American word in an Algonquian language (perhaps Powhatan). It is a shortening of pockerchicory, pocohicora, or a similar word, which may be the name for the hickory tree's nut, or may be a milky drink made from such nuts. The genus name Carya is κάρυον, káryon, meaning "nut".

Species and classification
The genus Carya (not to be confused with Careya in the Lecythidaceae) is in the walnut family, Juglandaceae. In the APG system, this family is included in the order Fagales. Several species are known to hybridize, with around nine accepted, named hybrids. Beaked hickory (Annamocarya sinensis) is a species formerly classified as Carya sinensis, but now considered its own genus, Annamocarya.

Asian hickories
'Carya'' sect. Sinocarya'''
 * Carya dabieshanensis M.C. Liu – Dabie Shan hickory (may be synonymous with C. cathayensis)
 * Carya cathayensis Sarg. – Chinese hickory
 * Carya hunanensis W.C.Cheng & R.H.Chang – Hunan hickory
 * Carya kweichowensis Kuang & A.M.Lu – Guizhou hickory
 * Carya poilanei Leroy – Poilane's hickory
 * Carya tonkinensis Lecomte – Vietnamese hickory

North American hickories
'Carya'' sect. Carya''' – typical hickories
 * Carya floridana Sarg. – scrub hickory
 * Carya glabra (Mill.) Sweet – pignut hickory, pignut, sweet pignut, coast pignut hickory, smoothbark hickory, swamp hickory, broom hickory
 * Carya laciniosa (Mill.) K.Koch – shellbark hickory, shagbark hickory, bigleaf shagbark hickory, kingnut, big shellbark, bottom shellbark, thick shellbark, western shellbark
 * Carya myristiciformis (F.Michx.) Nutt. – nutmeg hickory, swamp hickory, bitter water hickory
 * Carya ovalis (Wangenh.) Sarg. – red hickory, spicebark hickory, sweet pignut hickory (treated as a synonym of C. glabra by Flora N. Amer.)
 * Carya ovata (Mill.) K.Koch – shagbark hickory
 * C. o. var. ovata – northern shagbark hickory
 * C. o. var. australis – southern shagbark hickory, Carolina hickory (syn. C. carolinae-septentrionalis)
 * Carya pallida (Ashe) Engl. & Graebn. – sand hickory
 * Carya texana Buckley – black hickory
 * Carya tomentosa (Poir.) Nutt. – mockernut hickory (syn. C. alba)
 * †Carya washingtonensis Manchester – Miocene of Kittitas County, Washington

'Carya'' sect. Apocarya''' – pecans
 * Carya aquatica (F.Michx.) Nutt. – bitter pecan or water hickory
 * Carya cordiformis (Wangenh.) K.Koch – bitternut hickory
 * Carya illinoinensis (Wangenh.) K.Koch – pecan
 * Carya palmeri W.E. Manning – Mexican hickory

Ecology
Hickory is used as a food plant by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species. These include:
 * Luna moth (Actias luna)
 * Brown-tail moth (Euproctis chrysorrhoea)
 * Coleophora case-bearers, C. laticornella and C. ostryae
 * Regal moths (Citheronia regalis), whose caterpillars are known as hickory horn-devils
 * Walnut sphinx (Amorpha juglandis)
 * The bride (nominate subspecies Catocala neogama neogama)
 * Hickory tussock moth (Lophocampa caryae)

The hickory leaf stem gall phylloxera (Phylloxera caryaecaulis) also uses the hickory tree as a food source. Phylloxeridae are related to aphids and have a similarly complex life cycle. Eggs hatch in early spring and the galls quickly form around the developing insects. Phylloxera galls may damage weakened or stressed hickories, but are generally harmless. Deformed leaves and twigs can rain down from the tree in the spring as squirrels break off infected tissue and eat the galls, possibly for the protein content or because the galls are fleshy and tasty to the squirrels. The pecan gall curculio (Conotrachelus elegans) is a true weevil species also found feeding on galls of the hickory leaf stem gall phylloxera.

The banded hickory borer (Knulliana cincta) is also found on hickories.

Evolutionary history
The oldest fossils attributed to Carya are Cretaceous pollen grains from Mexico and New Mexico. Fossil and molecular data suggest the genus Carya may have diversified during the Miocene. Modern Carya first appear in Oligocene strata 34 million years ago. Recent discoveries of Carya fruit fossils further support the hypothesis that the genus has long been a member of Eastern North American landscapes, however its range has contracted and Carya is no longer extant west of the Rocky Mountains.

Fossils of early hickory nuts show simpler, thinner shells than modern species with the exception of pecans, suggesting that the trees gradually developed defenses to rodent seed predation. During this time, the genus had a distribution across the Northern Hemisphere, but the Pleistocene Ice Age beginning 2 million years ago obliterated it from Europe. In Anatolia, the genus appears to have disappeared only in the early Holocene, probably related to human disturbance. The distribution of Carya in North America also contracted and it completely disappeared from the continent west of the Rocky Mountains. Since fossil records show North America as having the largest number of Juglandaceae species, it is likely that the genus originated there and later spread to Europe and Asia.

Fruit
Some fruits are borderline and difficult to categorize. Hickory nuts (Carya) and walnuts (Juglans) in the Juglandaceae family grow within an outer husk; these fruits are sometimes considered to be drupes or drupaceous nuts, rather than true botanical nuts. "Tryma" is a specialized term for such nut-like drupes.

Nutrition
Dried hickory nuts are 3% water, 18% carbohydrates, 13% protein, and 64% fats (table). In a 100 gram (3.5 oz) reference amount, dried hickory nuts supply 657 calories, and are a rich source (20% or more of the Daily Value, DV) of several B vitamins and dietary minerals, especially manganese at 220% DV (table).

Uses
Hickory wood is hard, stiff, dense and shock resistant. There are woods stronger than hickory and woods that are harder, but the combination of strength, toughness, hardness, and stiffness found in hickory wood is not found in any other commercial wood. It is used for tool handles, pickaxe handles, bows, wheel spokes, carts, drumsticks, lacrosse stick handles, golf club shafts (sometimes still called hickory stick, even though made of steel or graphite), the bottoms of skis, walking sticks, and for punitive use as a switch (like hazel), and especially as a cane-like hickory stick in schools and use by parents. Paddles are often made from hickory. This property of hickory wood has left a trace in some Native American languages: in Ojibwe, hickory is called mitigwaabaak, a compound of mitigwaab "bow" and the final -aakw "hardwood tree". Due to its grain structure, hickory is more susceptible to moisture absorption than other species of wood, and is therefore more prone to shrinkage, warping or swelling with changes in humidity.

Baseball bats were formerly made of hickory, but are now more commonly made of ash. Hickory is replacing ash as the wood of choice for Scottish shinty sticks (also known as camans). Hickory was extensively used for the construction of early aircraft.

Hickory is also highly prized for wood-burning stoves and chimineas, as its density and high energy content make it an efficient fuel. Hickory wood is also a preferred type for smoking cured meats. In the Southern United States, hickory is popular for cooking barbecue, as hickory grows abundantly in the region and adds flavor to the meat.

Hickory is sometimes used for wood flooring due to its durability and character.

An extract from shagbark hickory bark is also used in an edible syrup similar to maple syrup, with a slightly bitter, smoky taste. The Cherokee people would produce a green dye from hickory bark, which they used to dye cloth. When this bark was mixed with maple bark, it produced a yellow dye pigment. The ashes of burnt hickory wood were traditionally used to produce a strong lye (potash) fit for soapmaking.

The nuts of some species are palatable and were used by Cherokee Indians in making Kanuchi soup, while others are bitter and only suitable for animal feed. Shagbark and shellbark hickory, along with pecan, are regarded by some as the finest nut trees. Pecans are the most important nut tree native to North America.

When cultivated for their nuts, clonal (grafted) trees of the same cultivar cannot pollinate each other because of their self-incompatibility. Two or more cultivars must be planted together for successful pollination. Seedlings (grown from hickory nuts) will usually have sufficient genetic variation.

title: Hickory


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User talk:Pollisimo

Hello Pollisimo, welcome to Wikipedia. Here are some useful links in case you haven't already found them;

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Angela 04:15, Nov 9, 2003 (UTC)

File source problem with File:Simpmand.png
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title: User talk:Pollisimo


text:
User:TMC1221

I'm a college student studying Mathematics and Computer science, but I have many other interests, especially in communication and ergonomics.

My ideals are broad but center around a theme of libertarianism; I vote Libertarian, don't support wars unless attacked, and I value civil liberties over the Bush administration's idea of "security". Thomas Jefferson is the person I most agree with. I identify myself as a Bright but don't particularly care what I am labeled as: atheist, humanist, free-thinker, all of them describe me.

I speak French at an intermediate level and love the ideas behind Esperanto (if not the language itself). A lot of this stems from my interest in communication; I love the idea of a precise grammar and unambiguous language. I identify strongly with the French ideal of searching for le mot juste.

I can program if need be in C, Obj-C, C++ (boo), and Java. I am interested in XML-based standards (like the Resource Description Framework) and wish they were used more often. Speaking of such, I support the OASIS OpenDocument format and dislike Microsoft's crufty OOXML. I like software licensed under the GPL or LGPL but I don't view closed-source software as "wrong".

I bought an iBook in 2004 and fell in love with Mac OS X. So many good ideas are collected in one operating system that it's a pleasure to use. I was even happier to discover that most of the ideas I loved in OS X (Services menu, the Dock, Bundles, Objective-C, Property lists, a logical filesystem hierarchy, ad infinitum) were inherited from NEXTSTEP, and thus could be found in GNUstep. I dream of a full-fledged GNUstep distro as the best computing environment.

Oh, and Userboxes!

I agree to multi-license all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

title: User:TMC1221


text:
User talk:Earl Manchester

Hello, welcome to Wikipedia. Here are some useful links in case you haven't already found them;

 * How to edit a page
 * How to write a great article
 * Naming conventions
 * Manual of Style

If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

Angela 04:16, Nov 9, 2003 (UTC)

Article Licensing
Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 2000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:
 * Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
 * Multi-Licensing Guide
 * Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the " " template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

 * Option 1
 * I agree to multi-license all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

OR
 * Option 2
 * I agree to multi-license all my contributions to any U.S. state, county, or city article as described below:

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace " " with "  ". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

ArbCom elections are now open!
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:53, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Nomination of List of anthropogenic disasters by death toll for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article List of anthropogenic disasters by death toll is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/List of anthropogenic disasters by death toll until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished. CoconutOctopus  talk  13:59, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

title: User talk:Earl Manchester