as a standout. Appearing on lists of the best albums of the 1980s by Rolling Stone, Pitchfork and Slant Magazine, it has been reissued multiple times with bonus tracks and extensive liner notes written by Costello himself. Background Elvis Costello and the Attractions—bassist Bruce Thomas, drummer Pete Thomas (no relation) and keyboardist Steve Nieve—supported his third studio album Armed Forces on the Armed Funk tour in America, which lasted from February to April 1979. The tour was plagued with issues, including drug and alcohol problems, aggressive behaviour from Costello and his manager Jake Riviera to the press, and poor performances that led to critical and audience backlash. In March, Costello engaged in a drunken exchange with Stephen Stills, where he insulted various American musical artists, including James Brown and Ray Charles, using racial slurs. Although Costello quickly apologised in a press conference, details of the exchange was leaked to the public and he received additional backlash; he received death threats and Armed Forces was pulled from radio stations. By the tour's end, Costello's reputation in America was nearly destroyed. Bruce Thomas later admitted: "We never really recovered from that tour. Every time Elvis is doing something well, he kind of sabotages it." His reputation in the United Kingdom, however, remained largely unaffected, mostly due to newspapers failing to pick up the story. Author Mick St. Michael compares it to the worldwide response from John Lennon's 1966 more popular than Jesus comment. Costello first acknowledged the incident in an interview with Rolling Stone in 1982, feeling that it "outweighs my entire career", but later reflected in his 2015 memoir Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink: "So what if my career was rolled back off the launching pad? Life eventually became a lot more interesting due to this failure to get into some undeserved and potentially fatal orbit." Although he remained with Columbia Records, he did not tour America again until 1981 in support of Trust. Following the disastrous tour, he decided to reevaluate himself and his career. He ended his relationship with Bebe Buell and reconciled with his wife Mary and son Matthew. Apart from the occasional demo and promotional gig, he and the Attractions took some time off from each other over the summer of 1979; the former produced the Specials' debut album in June while the latter recorded an album released in September as Mad About the Wrong Boy. During