Elvis Costello: Classic or Dud

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.

yep

Accurate, methinks:

Goodbye Cruel World [Columbia, 1984]

In these changing times it's good to know there are things we can rely on, so here's another solid if unspectacular effort from this thoughtful, hard-hitting, surprisingly tender singer-songwriter. Highlights include the lilting country cover "I Wanna Be Loved," the straight-to-the-point "Inch by Inch," and--who says there are no great protest songs any more?--"Peace in Our Time," which almost got him booed off Carson. B+

He only has maybe 4 or 5 albums that are a good entry point for the unconverted, though. And there are at least a dozen it's better than, contrary to EC's "my worst album" patter. xp

I think it's because it was the first one to get lukewarm reviews.

Yeah I get that, but it's way better than Punch The Clock imo

Punch The Clock has those awful horn charts! Playing it now on Spotify, I realized I've heard this album several times in the last few years and still can't remember the album tracks. It might be the classic-period EC album with such disproportionate strengths. You'd think a record with "Everyday I Write The Book," "Pills and Soap," and "Shipbuilding" would be better.

It's funny that GCW gets tarred for 'trendy' synthesizer sounds, as if Steve Nieve was playing a grand piano on earlier albums

"Peace in Our Time," which almost got him booed off Carson.

In looking for that clip I found the whole segment (two songs and an interview!) which includes "I Hope You're Happy Now," two years before it was released:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dJH5IqUxrw

i used to have a boot of a show from the punch the clock era, took the best from the album ('tko', 'let them all talk', 'everyday i write the book')(i've somehow never really considered 'shipbuilding' or 'pills and soap' proper album tracks in my head for some weird reason but more just tracks that happened to end up on that album like 'fight the power' w/ fear of a black planet), did what it could bringing imperial bedroom to the stage, and really worked magic w/ get happy!! tracks - THE TKO HORNS. langer and winstanley and costello probably could've yielded a better album but costello was nearly burnt out, in this mode at least. goodbye cruel world was even more exhausted though it has it's odd charms, it may have been his worst album at the time but he's done worse in every manner since.

i think this may be that show -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTfurBqOlP4

He's since revised his estimate: now it's "worst album of good songs"

"Peace in Our Time," which almost got him booed off Carson.

doesn't sound like booing to me! sounds like a rather warm reception.

they should've booed him for dissing prince tho! (unless calling prince "an imposter" is a sneaky way of saying "i hope that he will be a member of the band i form a couple decades hence").

he adores Prince. He's covered "Pop Life" several times.

huh -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrVHssXodqI

man if i was on a music trivia game show i would totally want elvis costello on my team

xpost - yeah there's a clip of him doing (the end of) 'purple rain' at a show while the bangles go-go danced on stage

I could never figure out the "Peace in Our Time" brewhaha. Was it just because of the passing whack at Reagan? You'd think the studio audience wouldn't be attuned enough to what he was singing to boo. Anyway, I don't hear any booing, either. Maybe that is what Xgau meant by "almost."

He and Prince sort of feuded for a while. EC wanted to cover "Pop Life," but Prince kept saying no. "Elvis Costello once planned to do a cover version of the song, with altered lyrics, but Prince refused. Costello later recorded the song "The Bridge I Burned," which borrows the chord sequence from "Pop Life""

prince just said no cuz ec was on warners and prince had (hell probably still has) a fatwa.

Ha, no this was before that. I think it was because EC wanted to change the lyrics.

xpost What an insane music trivia line-up!

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/elvis-costello/2013/lisner-auditorium-washington-dc-1bc4d53c.html with video clips from his current US solo tour

Friday night I saw Elvis Costello live for the first time in quite awhile. 2 hours plus solo set in DC. There were both thrilling moments and disappointing ones. Plus a funny mention of "Paul McCartney in his bermuda shorts watching Costello rehearse at Lisner for the Gershwin Award event at the White House awhile back). Elvis was up there with his choice of 5 different guitars plus a keyboard and his (what I think were) high-tech music stands with lyrics and stuff. Some of it rocked (he also had foot pedals and such and had the guitar sounds looping and feeding back at times), although much of it was more quiet, occasionally too singer/songwriter/folkie. He did a long set and for a number of tunes could be clearly seen with his head and eyes down reading the lyrics as he sung them. But he looked at the audience a fair amount too and told some interesting stories. I am a fan of his first 5 albums or so and mostly lost interest after that. So I was glad when he opened with "Green Shirt," albeit rearranged, and later weaved in "High Fidelity" as part of a medley.

But he lost me when he raced through a number of later recorded songs. While singing solo can bring out the melodies, here it hid them and showed their weaknesses--including a certain sameyness. I wish the Attractions had been up there--though those tunes might still have not worked. There were more highlights to come though. A nice version of "Beyond Belief," a medley of "Radio Sweetheart," and Van Morrison's "Jackie Wilson Said," and the encores that included "Shipbuilding," a gorgeous acapella from the front of the stage sans mic "Alison," and "Watching the Detectives." He also did his original version of "Radio Radio" (called "radio Soul" on the setlist) that was about the joy radio gave him (and his dad), and not the anger that corporate radio later inspired. 2 new ones from his latest effort with the Roots worked--"Tripwire," and a solo keyboard rendition of the sweet slow "The Puppet Has Cut His Strings" (which he has been doing elsewhere as a medley with the beautiful old number "Almost Blue").

Invasion Hit Parade
Ascension Day
She's Pulling Out the Pin
Come the Meantimes

He raced through these numbers