Rolling Stone Elvis Costello on Why He Remade ‘This Year’s Model’ Entirely in Spanish
Costello, Juanes, and producer Sebastian Krys talk about the all-star
Spanish Model project Paul Moore
Elvis Costello doesn’t speak Spanish, but on at least one occasion, he’s dreamt in it.
Back in 2018, the television writer David Simon had reached out to him about transforming “This Year’s Girl,” the prickling cut from his pivotal 1978 LP
This Year’s Model, into a duet for the second season of
The Deuce. The thought of reworking a classic might have unnerved a less adventurous artist, but Costello, ever the shapeshifter, was intrigued. He and his frequent collaborator, the Grammy-winning Argentinean producer Sebastian Krys, dug into the song’s original masters and added vocals by the singer Natalie Bergman alongside Costello’s. The process sparked all kinds of ideas about reinvention and reinterpretation for Costello and some nights later, he ha
As Costello and Krys began to think of artists that would be a good fit, they discovered that This Year’s Model was an important record to many artists in the pan-Latin world, but its true nature had never been fully appreciated because of the language barrier. They enlisted many Costello fans, a few who Krys and Costello felt would be a great fit for the song, and all of whom have stellar careers and were excited to participate and bring their own styles to the immediacy and poignancy of the original songs, helping to create an entirely new listening experience.