The angry young man. The punk poet of the pop charts.

Declan McManus, the bespectacled, geeky, new wave Buddy Holly lookalike, grew up loving Merseybeat and Motown, and spent his teenage years playing country and pub rock. Everything was normal. He had a record deal and a solid solo debut.

Then The Clash released their first album.

McManus listened to the record on headphones for 24 hours straight, and upon emerging from the clattering chrysalis of rage, sat down and immediately wrote the entirety of “Watching The Detectives,” a tough and taut reggae-inspired opus with lyrics sharper than a punk’s razor blade. He had found his new voice — and it was out to draw blood.

After signing with Stiff Records (“If it ain’t Stiff, it ain’t worth a…..expletive deleted“), he adopted the name Elvis, because what’s more aggressively ironic and upsetting to the mainstream, old guard music biz than naming yourself after the King of Rock & Roll? But now he needed a band to bring to life his songs of, as he put it, “revenge and guilt.” And so it was that The Attractions coalesced and the quartet got down to business.

Soon after, Elvis and his new group became the first artists ever banned from Saturday Night Live after the show asked them to fill in for the absent Sex Pistols. His record label requested that the band play a specific song Costello didn’t want to play and, on live TV, he stopped his band after about ten seconds and launched into “Radio, Radio,” an anti-commercialization tirade about “biting the hand that feeds you.” One of those feeding hands gave him the finger and it took 12 years before SNL reinstated him.

A musical polyglot, Costello would diverge wildly from style to style in the ensuing years, and after his new wave beginnings, he recorded a country album in Nashville, followed by a Beatlesque pop album recorded at Abbey Road, followed by a contemporary synth-pop album. His subsequent catalog always demonstrated a willingness to experiment with sounds both old and new, and he slowly morphed over the years into a charming, avuncular curmudgeon with a sly twinkle in his eye.

So don’t get smart or sarcastic — we break wise guys just like matchsticks. Here’s the least you need to know:

My Aim Is True (1977) The first shot. Harder-edged than pub rock but not as angry or anarchic as punk. Solo, but not for long.

This Year’s Model (1978) Skinny ties, harsh neon, nightclubs and claustrophobia. Tense and on the edge. A polaroid of London in 1978. The Attractions fit Costello like a tightly cut suit.

Armed Forces (1979) Opening up the sound, allowing the influences to add textures. Politics begin to creep in — the government alongside the heart. Accidents and armies, fascism and chemistry, and what’s so funny ’bout peace, love, and understanding?

Imperial Bedroom (1982) Sgt. Pepper in the 80’s as Elvis employs the sound engineer for The Beatles as a producer for an album of studio trickery. Who’s sneaking through the shadows? Everybody. Who’s crying in their pillow? Everybody.

The Best Of The First Ten Years Costello’s songs, especially during this time, tend to be short, so you get a lot of bang for your buck with this (or any) greatest hits collection. This album covers the time before his switch to Warner Bros. and the second act of his career.

It was difficult to leave off undisputed classics like Get Happy!!, Trust, and King Of America, as well as personal favorites like Spike. If you like what you learn from the basics, those are the next level.

This song doesn’t come from one of the recommended albums, but you should also be familiar with what is, by far, Elvis’s biggest US hit: