Produced by Nick Lowe and engineered by Roger Béchirian, the sessions began in London but moved to the Netherlands after Costello found the material derivative of his previous album, Armed Forces (1979).

The tour was plagued with issues, including drug and alcohol problems, aggressive behaviour from Costello and his manager Jake Riviera toward the press, and uneven performances that led to critical and audience backlash.

[b][1][3][4] In March, Costello engaged in a drunken exchange with Stephen Stills, where he insulted various American musical artists, including James Brown and Ray Charles, using racial slurs.

Costello quickly acknowledged the incident without apology in a press conference when details became public,[5] and he received further backlash including death threats and Armed Forces being pulled from radio stations.

This yielded versions of "Black and White World", "Riot Act", "Five Gears in Reverse", "Love for Tender", "King Horse", "New Amsterdam" and "Men Called Uncle".

were a response to the events of the Armed Funk tour,[17][18] although in his 2003 reissue liner notes, Costello said "Riot Act" was the only track on the album to refer to the incident, further commenting:[10] It might have been tempting to claim that I had some noble motive in basing this record on the music that I had admired and learned from prior to my brush with infamy.

I simply went back to work and relied on instinct, curiosity, and enduring musical passions.The album's title is taken from the song of the same name, written by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler.

[6] Reviewing the album on release, critic Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times found the song titles hint at the "jarring encounters" described throughout, naming "Beaten to the Punch", "Temptation", "Possession", "Clowntime Is Over" and "High Fidelity".

[12] A theme of doomed romance, inspired by the artist's former relationship with Buell, appears in "Beaten to the Punch", "Riot Act", "Men Called Uncle", "New Amsterdam" and "B Movie".

[1][13] Additionally, The Ringer's Elizabeth Nelson retrospectively found that Costello intended "Temptation", "Opportunity" and "Possession" to be "a kind of Burroughs-like, cut-up trilogy", dissecting them as "a tortured romance in three acts" or "a plan for military domination".

[1] The author James E. Perone argues that the swapping is significant, as the album makes "more rhetorical sense" with "Love for Tender" as the opener and "Riot Act" as the closer.

[22][12][20] A reworking of the Armed Forces outtake "Clean Money", Costello stated that he used the same "You Can't Hurry Love" riff that the Jam used for "Town Called Malice", a 1982 UK number one.

[20] The lyrics of "Clowntime Is Over" are vague, but Gouldstone argues that it concerns "some kind of lament"; and words and phrases such as "blackmail", "ransom", "somebody's watching" and "a voice in the shadows" offer sinister undertones.

With a theme of nostalgia similar to "New Amsterdam", the song reflects on days of innocence gone by, and also combines ideals of time, the media and battles between the sexes set against, in Gouldstone's words, "powerful and gripping music".

The latter song, while not as brutal, describes an unsatisfactory affair taking place in a motel room,[12] and the story is delivered in such a way that Hinton says "emotion overtakes cleverness".

[13][25] Hinton calls it the "first genuinely relaxed song on the whole LP" and compares the music to the English band Procol Harum,[13] while AllMusic's Stewart Mason considers the arrangement "almost bombastic".

Designed by Barney Bubbles,[26] and featuring a clash of changing colours, the geometric sleeve contains three identical images of Costello photographed from above, with his hands in the pockets of a buttoned-up coat and his face appearing "almost deformed".

[32][33] Throughout March 1980,[13] Costello and the Attractions toured the UK for the first time in almost a year, playing in smaller venues in lesser-known cities compared to previous live outings.

"[f][1] Due to his alcohol and drug abuse, Costello himself suffered several moments of instability during the shows, including forgetting lyrics, freezing in place and poor vocals.

[1] In June, "New Amsterdam" was released as an EP of the same name with bonus tracks Costello had recorded alone, including "Just a Memory", "Ghost Train" and "Dr. Luther's Assistant".

[1][14][43][39] Rolling Stone's Tom Carson felt that "if the new album is hard to get into, it's also difficult to ignore", concluding that Costello has "succeeded in making his obsessions belong to us.

Costello's most satisfying work up that point, commenting on the "stylistic range, emotional depth, melodic richness and verbal invention" inside strong songwriting.

[46] Joel Selvin of the San Francisco Chronicle also placed it among the artist's best work, highlighting the "distinctive" songwriting and Lowe's production, which he felt created a "sense of being both precise and off-hand".

[41] Sounds magazine's Dave McCullough was highly positive, writing that the album "soars to a pinnacle of Costello's combined creative force, by the end leaving the listener quite breathless.

remains a pivotal work in [Costello's] long career, an assured first step toward even more grandiose experiments to come – from jazz, classical and baroque pop to hip-hop, New Orleans groove and Americana.

[61][16][62] Writing in (The New) Rolling Stone Album Guide, critic Rob Sheffield dubbed it a "tour de force",[58] a sentiment echoed by senior AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine, who hailed Get Happy!!

Finding the inconsistent quality of its tracks part of its overall charm, he ended that the album "bursts with energy and invention, standing as a testament to how Costello, the pop encyclopedia, can reinvent the past in his own image".

[6] She further labelled it "a landmark in maximalist efficiency" that anticipated works by the Minutemen, They Might Be Giants and Aesop Rock, ultimately appraising it as a successful comeback record: "a dizzying display of desperation and talent that remains a fascinating, frantic flare from a sinking ship.

an album of chemistry rather than "individual cameos", Thomson states that the record showed the backing band at "their rawest and roughest", with "little sophistication" from Armed Forces.

[1] Nelson agreed, finding their performances stand out with individual styles that become "almost automated", thereby "embroidering Costello's frenzied impulses into supple, insinuating grooves that can seem at times almost oblivious to the man raving over them".