Do you LOVE a good bagel?

Do you LOVE a good bagel?

everal reviewers placed Costello as one of the best British New Wave artists.[j] 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".[65] 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.[57] Creem's 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."[66] Record Mirror's 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".[56] 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".[59] Other critics highlighted Lowe's production.[k] 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.[32] 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.[33] 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".[67] In The New York Times, John Rockwell described This Year'