Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Blender
Chicago Tribune
Christgau's Record Guide	B+
Entertainment Weekly	A−
Pitchfork Media	9.8/10
Q
Rolling Stone
The Rolling Stone Album Guide
Uncut

My Aim Is True is the debut album by English singer-songwriter Elvis Costello.

The album was recorded at Pathway Studios in Highbury, London Borough of Islington, over the course of 1976 during late-night studio sessions, in a total of approximately twenty-four hours. It was the first of five consecutive Costello albums produced by Nick Lowe and cost £2,000 to record. The backing band was made up of members of Clover, but they were uncredited on the original release due to contractual difficulties; some early publicity for the album identified the backing band as "The Shamrocks".

In 1977 Rolling Stone magazine named the album one of the best of the year. In 2003, the TV network VH1 named My Aim Is True the 80th greatest album of all time. In 2003, the album was ranked number 168 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In 2004, it was ranked 37 of the top 100 albums of the 1970s by Pitchfork which reported the album to be "held by many as the most impressive debut in pop music history." In 2007, the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Costello had been performing in clubs and pubs in Liverpool and London since 1970 and had created some demo tapes, but he had had little success in obtaining a recording contract. When Stiff Records was founded in 1976, Costello submitted his demos there and found some interest, but initially they wanted him as a songwriter for Dave Edmunds. Edmunds, however, was reluctant, so the company had Costello and Clover re-record some of his songs, with Lowe producing, to try to persuade him. The new recordings were good enough on their own for Stiff Records to abandon that idea.

The label then suggested that he share a début album with Wreckless Eric, but Costello had written enough songs, most of them at home late at night (so as not to wake his wife and young son) or on the London Underground while commuting to work, to have an entire album of his own. Costello called in sick to his day job (as a data entry clerk) to rehearse and record the album with Clover, which was cut in a series of six four-hour sessions for about £1,000.

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Wikipedia