Forgotten Favorites: 'Get Happy!!'

Some albums are just too good to let slip away beneath the sands of time, so each week Bill Melville pulls one out, dusts it off and offers it up for your renewed consideration ...

Get Happy!! received its share of praise in its day.

But Elvis Costello's soul album doesn't garner the attention it did in the 1980s; even live, Costello generally breaks out the best-known songs from his first three records, skipping past Get Happy!!

Easy to dismiss as a genre exercise, Get Happy!! goes far beyond simple labels. Nor is it strictly the musical mea culpa for Costello's infamous comments about Ray Charles.

The bass gallops through this rapid-fire record (only 3 of the 20 songs pass the 3-minute mark) and Costello incisively decorates his trademark New Wave sound with touches of soul. None of them feel out of place.

Love for Tender ups Costello's ante with a virtual Wall of Sound, with keyboards and a bouncing bassline breaking through the mix. From that beginning, he declares that this album will follow a its own path.

Lighter fare like Clowntime is Over meshes well with the organ-embellished guitar of New Amsterdam.

To a degree, Costello has the interpretive skills of Johnny Cash  -- no matter who penned the song, his unmistakable voice and intonation make it an Elvis Costello tune. Here he tackles Sam and Dave's I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down without tripping up. He doesn't drag into his New Wave so much as meet the song halfway.

Get Happy!! could be easy to ignore because it flies by -- only the Ramones could tear out 20 songs in such raging fashion.

While another album might get hung up by lesser songs like B Movie and Motel Matches, Costello shifts gears again for Human Touch, which if stripped down to piano and vocals, could become a Ray Charles tune.

He switches it up again with the funky Beaten to the Punch.

The album ends with one of its best, the slow burning Riot Act. Often viewed as a response to the Ray Charles comments made to Stephen Stills and Bonnie Bramlett, the song's majesty quickly surpasses any subtext.

Rarely will an album capture the sound of obscurities dusted off from an earlier era, but Costello's songwriting soars.

Forget the trappings of the genres Costello steps into -- this is pop par excellence.

Got memories of your own from this hidden gem? Share them in the comments section below ...