Imperial Bedroom

Imperial Bedroom came out on July 2, 1982 on F-Beat in the UK and Columbia in the US. Geoff Emerick produced, credited as from an original idea by Elvis Costello, assisted by Jon Jacobs, at AIR Studios in London between November 1981 and March 1982. Costello plays guitar, piano and sings, Steve Nieve plays piano, organ, harpsichord and accordion and wrote the orchestrations, with Bruce Thomas on bass and Pete Thomas on drums; Barney Bubbles designed the cover. The lyrics of "Boy with a Problem" were co-written with Chris Difford.

It reached number six in the UK and number 30 on the US Billboard chart, with "You Little Fool" (UK 52) and "Man Out of Time" (UK 58) as singles. Robert Palmer wrote in the New York Times that some songs have the harmonic and melodic sophistication of pop standards from the 1930s and 1940s, and Rolling Stone ranked it 38th among the best albums of the 1980s and 166th on its 2003 list of 500. Robert Downey Jr. named it his favorite album. A Rhino and Edsel reissue on October 28, 2002 added a solo demo and an alternate AIR version of "Man Out of Time".