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

This Year's Model is Elvis Costello's second album and his first with the Attractions, released in 1978. It was mainly recorded at Eden Studios in West London.

It was voted the best album of the year in The Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics poll. In 2000, Q magazine placed This Year's Model at number 82 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. In 1987, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it number 11 on its list of the best albums of the period 1967–1987. In 2003, the album was ranked number 98 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Early issues of the album have an apparently misprinted sleeve, which cuts off the left side of the front cover (including the letters 'E' from 'Elvis' and 'T' from 'This') and shows a printers' colour bar along the right side (see cover right). This was a deliberate mistake (a favourite technique of cover designer Barney Bubbles), as was pressing "Special pressing No. 003. Ring 434 32 32. Ask for Moira for your prize" between the holding spirals on Side 1. Indeed people calling the aforementioned number ("Moira" being a press agent at F-Beat Records) would be rewarded with a badge.

Early issues of the LP came with a free 7" single, housed in a Radar house sleeve, with "Stranger in the House" on side A and a live cover of The Damned's "Neat Neat Neat" on side B. The promotion also included a black and white sticker stuck on the LP's shrinkwrap that said 'Free Album With This Single'.

The USA version was a different photo from the same session and didn't feature the deliberate mis-cropping. The original American pressing on Columbia also says "Costello" instead of "Columbia" on the inner label.

The title This Year's Model indirectly references two songs on the original UK album: most obviously "This Year's Girl", but also "(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea", which contains a lyric about "last year's model".

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