Elvis Costello: Classic or Dud

'Twas voice lessons that killed the beast.

extremely otm. before he began to reinvent himself as a capital-S singer, he was a pretty great singer. but the harder he tries to "sing," the less i like. his penchant for straying howlingly off-key doesn't help.

http://www3.pictures.fp.zimbio.com/Welcome+Voice+Opera+Paris+xPuK_UEI7Ycl.jpg

90s Costello: All This Useless Beauty is actually one of my favourite of his records. One of his strongest sets of songs (check out "Little Atoms," "You Bowed Down," "Just About Glad" or the title track) and unusually concise for any record he made during the 80s onward. The super limited edition live record he put out of his accompanying tour with Steve Nieve in '97 or so is one of the few live records I care about.

Brutal Youth has "13 Steps Lead Down," which was actually my introduction to Costello! Hard to believe now that the local "alternative" station actually played it in between Nirvana and the Pumpkins and all that at the time. "This is Hell" is another favourite--his effete vision of Hell, where "'My Favourite Things' is playing again and again / but its by Julie Andrews and not by John Coltrane" is still one of the funniest lyrics I've ever heard. But yeah, otherwise the album is subject to the same bloat that makes a lot of his albums a bit of a chore to take in all at once (PaulTMA is otm upthread).

What else was there in the 90s? File The Juliet Letters and Kojak Variety under genre detours that Costello has a lot more passion than talent for. The Bacharach collaboration bored me to tears; thank HMV for still doing returns on opened product in the late 90s.

*"thank YOU HMV..."

Brutal Youth has "13 Steps Lead Down," which was actually my introduction to Costello! Hard to believe now that the local "alternative" station actually played it in between Nirvana and the Pumpkins and all that at the time.

Mine did too. That spring I discovered the Ryko reissues and took the plunge.

Brutal Youth retains MItchell Froom completely ditches the kitchen sink production from Mighty Like A Rose, going for a fairly grunge-friendly sound instead. First time I heard 13 Steps on the radio, at the end of a Costello BBC Scotland interview, I assumed they were playing the demo version.

Brutal Youth has lots of plinky plonky wonky skronky Froomy drum sounds, though

xpost "All This Useless Beauty" follows in the one long compilation scheme of the '90s, since it's a selection of songs he wrote for or with other people for other projects.

Brutal Youth is messy but man the good stuff on it is great, maybe the last one I can say that for (the only 2000s one that had any decent songs was Momofuku iirc? I don't think I've ever heard When I Was Cruel though)

The drum sound on BY is the #1 reason why I've never warmed to it. It's like Froom gated a pair of aluminum garbage cans.

When I Was Cruel is pretty good! I saw him play a club date around that album and he was awesome.

Nick Lowe plays bass on a hunk of "Brutal Youth." They should have had him produce.

I saw him on that tour for the first time. I still love the title track.

Telling quote from Pete Thomas:

How old were you when you started playing music? When did you get your first set of drums? What drew you to the instrument?

I was 9, my grandmother bought me a snare-drum and cymbal. I made the rest of the kit out of old oil drums and biscuit tins.

Thomas still calls it his trademark "biscuit tin snare" sound.

I've seen EC with the Attractions a couple of time, the Imposters a couple of times, Emmylou Harris once, and paired with Nieve maybe three times? They've all been pretty strong, though his catalog has become so deep and unwieldy choice paralysis leads him to play it safe. Then again, a few years back he started breaking out the spinning songbook again, so who knows?

http://spencerweddings.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/elvis-costello-1.jpg

Aside: Larry Sanders is the main reason I sifted through Costello's later stuff. I was beyond impressed with 13 Steps Lead Down and that acoustic version of Little Atoms.

While we're here, can we have yet another round of applause for the Attractions? What an amazing band. The playing, the arrangements, the cool ideas and personalities, paired with Costello's weird rock songs? Perfect.

Has this been posted anywhere yet? I haven't heard almost half of these but still found it quite an interesting order.

http://www.stereogum.com/1426582/elvis-costello-albums-from-worst-to-best/top-stories/lead-story/

Aside: Larry Sanders is the main reason I sifted through Costello's later stuff. I was beyond impressed with 13 Steps Lead Down and that acoustic version of Little Atoms.

It's funny to realize that there are more years beween Brutal Youth and now than Brutal Youth and My Aim Is true

the ATUB-era episode of Conan where EC was the only guest, with interview segments and multiple performances, was what really got me all set on picking up My Aim Is True and beginning to fall in love with his catalog.

EC with the Attractions might be one of my top 5 favorite rock quartets ever, just an incredible combination of personalities and instrumental styles.

love his cover of "Brilliant Disguise," recorded during this era.

Mighty Like A Rose being routinely singled out as his worst album is just sheer insanity

yeah, and North over Useless Beauty? feels like they're really working overtime to peg the 90s as his nadir.

Painted From Memory over When I Was Cruel is a truth bomb, though.

There's a lot of imprecision and overwroughtness in MLAR that only becomes apparent after you listen to the rest of the catalog. As the second album of his I bought -- the first one bought at the time of release -- I thought the sixteen guitars per track and crazed harmonies and toy pianos sounded glorious.

Mighty Like A Rose was practically the last old album I checked out. from my vantage point it's middling but better than its rep.

I'd put it "Couldn't Call It Unexpected No. 4" on the all-time list.

^^^ this. Best song on the record by far, and probably his best post-Blood and Chocolate vocal.

that album with The Roots is only a month away now... i was really curious and optimistic about the project's potential initially, but that single kinda lowered my expectations. should at least sound nice if he doesn't bleat too much.

How To Be Dumb is Elvis at the most livid I've ever heard him. I wrongly thought The Other Side Of Summer was a Veronica-sized semi-hit due to seeing the video once or twice on the telly when I was 10 - guess it wasn't. Hurry Down Doomsday is great too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY_Lw53udq8

This is making the twitter rounds. I assume it's a comment on the Stereogum piece:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BR532RvCYAAaL0n.png

bzzzt

pas de poo!

For those who scour for such things, some guy recently compiled/collected each of EC's albums up until his most recent output, with the album bundled with a disc of bonus tracks, a disc of contemporaneous performances, a disc of sessions, and/or related releases. It's a pretty cool way to dive back in for the fan who has everything, not just because it previously seemed impossible to collect everything, but because each album/era provided its own little world worth immersing oneself in.

The whole album w/the Roots is streaming now:

http://www.npr.org/2013/09/08/219316721/first-listen-elvis-costello-the-roots-wise-up-ghost?sc=fb&cc=fmp&refresh=true#playlist

First couple of songs did not impress me. Some funny comments on the npr thread. Need to hear the whole thing. So no Black Thoughts from the Roots on this, and the NPR comments say Costello is reworking some previously released lyrics on 3 or 4 songs of this.

I never liked "Walk Us Uptown," but I really dig the album, it only gets better from there.

"Walk Us Uptown" was so tacky and schticky I thought this album was going to be a disaster, but Costello is on his A game here (or at least his late-period A game). Haven't enjoyed a Costello release this much in ages.

Haven't listened to him since the legendary shark-jumping but will give this a spin.

Eh its ok

His singing is still too facile for me. I kind of doubt I'll ever be able to get into any post-singing-lessons EC.

A dude at the Brooklyn Bowl concert last Monday posted the show on YouTube. For a Costello skeptic like me who hasn't paid attention since 2002, the chemistry between him and the Roots was fresh and surprising. It's making me consider the album.

before i heard this my friend said that elvis sounds like his (my friend's) pretty funny imitation of elvis singing and now i can't get that out of my head when i hear this new record

I've seen some live clips of Elvis Costello over the past few years that I liked. They showed that video of him and his newer band The Imposters recorded in Memphis a few years quite a bit on satellite TV and it's pretty spirited and a decent show. Every once in a while, I will hear a track here or there that I think is ok, but Costello tries everything and some of those odd matchups just sound weird.

I only have the 80s stuff, but that Live at Hollywood High that Rhino put out a couple of years ago is pretty ace. That band had a tons of energy at that point.

i made a mega mix of EC songs through the decades that really helped me appreciate a lot of the kind of conceptually iffy collaborations, which can often be better in small doses: http://narrowcast.blogspot.com/2013/09/elvis-costello-deep-album-cuts-box-set.html

The Imposters is not so much a newer band as it is The Attractions with the one member Elvis didn't get along well with swapped out for a different bassist, so they still sound great ripping through all the old stuff live.

Really,this guy is so good, and the only thing he did wrong was release too much good stuff, so that people hear the OK stuff and think, bah, it's not as good as the (10 or so) albums of good stuff.

Those photos with questlove gave me quite a shock - dude looks like Ernie Coombs nowadays! Jeepers.

good lists, dude. No "Peace in Our Time"? otoh I'm still figuring out -- years later -- how I'm supposed to respond to "The Only Flame in Town."

Well, I wasn't including any singles. I came out of making that a pretty big fan of GCW though, I think the narrative around it has stifled appreciation of a perfectly decent EC album.

I don't think it's terrible either. It's for fans only, though, ie won't convert anybody.