Elvis Costello - I think My Aim Is True is his best and he was working a crappy job working with IBM punch cards or some other primitive early computer shit and had a young child and a bad marriage and he’d end up going back to that if MAIT hadn’t been a success. That IS what happened, right? I guess it’s common to think Imperial Bedroom is his best, but did any song from that end up being some big hit with the public?

Pavement - Just about everybody picks one of their first two and those got plenty of critical attention. Dump the first one and Pavement probably doesn’t make the second one, dump the second one and you’re dumping their peak in the public eye.