We all know boys don't make passes at girls who wear glasses and vice versa, so bespectacled rockers should theoretically have an even harder time in the adulation stakes. Not so; Elvis Costello, the latest sensation to explode on these shores, proves you don't have to squint at an audience in order to get your message across….

Costello's first appearance on vinyl was early this year with the single "Less than Zero." As abstract a record as could be, he gave few clues to his territory…. The lyrics were shrouded in a strange, twisted sarcasm and seemed to express contempt for the way everybody goes about living a lifestyle rather than simply living. I later discovered that the song has something to do with Oswald Mosley, a British fascist leader of the '30s, but it's still hard to make sense out of it…. [It] was intriguing … on...