Elvis Costello: Classic or Dud

"Black and White World" from Get Happy

Even when the songs aren't at their absolute best the performances are never less than a total joy. I could listen to the Attractions tune.

I had a weird experience with Elvis because I listened to Spike and the Brodsky Quartet records first - I used to love "Let Him Dangle", of all songs - before I moved to the earlier, better stuff.

I like every record up to and including "Useless Beauty", with the exception of Kojak Variety, which, in retrospect, is the real preview of Elvis's terrible 2000s - not the Brodsky record, which I don't mind at all. Kojak has all the bad qualities - weird song choice, charmlessness, oversinging and boring guitar playing - of his late 90s/2000s work. And then "When I was Cruel" is the first back-to-basics Elvis record that's a complete failure. (It's so hard to listen to! And boring!)

Imperial Bedroom remains the classic for me - the only one I still want to listen to beginning to end without cherry-picking. And King of America sounds really drab to me these days.

Of the late stuff I seem to remember thinking Momofuku was the least terrible.

And, I would say, his autobigoraphy is fun and he seems like a mensch these days.

When I Was Cruel is really good

I had a weird experience with Elvis because I listened to Spike and the Brodsky Quartet records first - I used to love "Let Him Dangle", of all songs - before I moved to the earlier, better stuff.

Yep. And I loved MLAR in '91.

Some of my favourite Elvis songs on those records - God's Comic, Couldn't Call it Unexpected, Taking My Life in Your Hands...

Brodsky is great singing record - it's the last one before the raspy vibrato nonsense take over

He makes too many long records the last 30 years. When I Was Cruel would have been great with about 20 minutes cut off. Momofuku was a lean 12 songs and excellent. Having said that, all of Brutal Youth justifies the length, but it's (most likely) a one-off of his 50+ minute albums.

I like assorted bits of late (?) Elvis. Some of the Toussaint stuff, Spooky Girlfriend. His book was pretty solid; so was his show. I don't mind him; I just won't follow his every move like I did in 1986.

spike was also my first; i recall rolling stone heralding it as 'his best since . . .' which was weird because while i like it, blood & chocolate and king of america are both better

macca tho

In looking backward I think I have said most of what I want to say already in

Should I decide that I just can't keep up with Mr MacManus?

and the rather more bluntly titled

Elvis Costello: The Exact Moment When This Balding Fat Fucker Jumped The Shark

i've been listening to these a lot lately too for some reason after several years of actively avoiding them. to me the drop off started in earnest at Brutal Youth which is still his last great album to me; and then it's varying degrees of 'ok' to 'no' from there. Punch the Clock used to be one of my least favorites from this period but now I'd think it's about on par with Trust. I mean it has Shipbuilding on it for fucks sake.

Lots of those songs for me blur in a whiz of horn blasts.

I didn't to anything of his for a long time until recently, funny how fascism makes certain things more resonant

listen to

punch the clock has shipbuilding AND pills and soap, hard to beat that

But This Year's Model/Get Happy/Blood and Chocolate will always be my favorites.

also, I think the first costello album I owned (after Spike) was that Girls Girls Girls comp which is a great comp. It flows like an actual album and the variety of records those tracks came from is pretty huge.

PT has "Everyday I Write the Book," "Pills and Soap," "Shipbuilding," and nothing else tbh

Girls Girls Girls comp which is a great comp. It flows like an actual album and the variety of records those tracks came from is pretty huge.

otm -- I love comps that play as a miscellany (album tracks, singles).

let them talk is a good song.

also goodbye cruel world isn't great but it's certainly not terrible. Peace In Our Time, Love Field...those are good songs. I'd take that over National Ransom or Delivery Man or that Roots record any day.

yeah that comp is really good (as are the liner notes iirc)

and yes I like Juliet Letters. I saw him do this live with the Brodsky Quartet and it was one of the better things I've ever seen in 30 years of seeing shows.

also "Couldn't Call it Unexpected" is one of his greatest songs. Ok I'm done

really like his cover of 'days' on the until the end of the world soundtrack too -- seems like the best use of the ribot weird sounds era

I hate the production on Brutal Youth, but it's got some great songs on it. What I really got from the book is that the dude is no mere dilettante, he truly is a wealth of enthusiasm for and knowledge of music that (for better or worse) informs all his records. Also, yeah, one of the few acts whose compilations (hits and b-sides and the like) stand up as albums. Plus, Ryko liner notes are A+. That might be my favorite reissue program of all time. Sound, packaging, bonus tracks, liners, all top notch.

also "Couldn't Call it Unexpected" is one of his greatest songs. Ok I'm done

― akm,

otm

Juliet Letters is really better than it could/should have been, for such an odd idea.

I love his title track here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKXH8CD08yw

Stripped down with Frisell here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_xMZ-_XTJ4

Oh, and really doesn't get enough credit for Almost Blue. The idea of this guy of all people paying tribute to George Jones, Merle Haggard, or Gram Parsons in 1981 (!) was insanely progressive, imo.

those frisell things were good, forgot about those. used to have to pay through the nose for that CD.

All This Useless Beauty - classic

yeah i'm not a costello fan but this is great, esp "the other end of the telescope" and "distorted angel"

I loved that when it came out but it hasn't held my attention in the past 10 years. I should revisit it.

he certainly toured a shitload behind it and did a bunch of duo shows with Steve Nieve (which he bundled up and sold in an overpriced box set)

Walked into an Italian restaurant on Sunday and was surprised to hear This Is Hell playing. Admittedly Elvis was playing in the Playhouse across the road and it was probably just Spotify on random, but still a nice surprise.

After years of never being able to pick a favourite EC album, I think I may have to choose Brutal Youth after all. But like Bowie, no one album comes close in defining him, so there is that.

I personally like the production, clearly a backtracking from the kitchen sink sound of Mighty and Spike and most likely a welcome product of the post-grunge stripped down "BACK TO BASICS" ethos, although I do not believe her ever pushed it as such (thankfully)

This last week I've finally heard this and surprisingly like a lot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hsh61d6qBzE

it's funny that both MIghty Like a Rose and Brutal Youth are produced by Mitchell Froom. He uses similar reverbs and studio effects on both frankly, but the band makes the difference.

xpost I like the Back to Basics approach, I just don't like how BY literally sounds. Unlike This Years Model and Armed Forces, or Trust and Blood n Chocolate, impeccable Nick Lowe productions that are powerful and passionate but also very precise, the Lowe/Froom hybrid of Brutal Youth is just a mess to my ears.

I saw one of those Elvis/Steve duo dates, was great.

Saw him on Useless Beauty tour, too, which was the last with Bruce, and you could sort of tell.

For some reason I thought Froom only produced part of that record and three or four songs were handled by Lowe. Maybe I'm just thinking of him playing bass.

I can appreciate that the saucepan-like snare drum on BY may not be pleasant to everyone's ears, but I like it

maybe that's right (xpost)

I hate the drums recorded for BY.

and I like them!

Just decided to listen to My Aim Is True on a whim for the first time in 10-odd years and it's not as awful as I remembered; helps that I forgot those 'authoritative' reviews I so readily trusted back in the day.

Get Happy is the peak for me. Hook after hook after hook, and the wordplay is out of control.

yeah it's a great album, and long, and full of songs! so many songs crammed onto one LP. keeping everything short, like 2.5 minutes, was a great idea.

I love how Xgau, in his review of Get Happy!, backhandedly praises the wordplay:

why deny lines like "You lack lust you're so lackluster" or "I speak double dutch to a real double duchess"? On the other hand, why bother digging them out?

(The album gets a B)

And then in his Trust review makes fun of it:

Who ever said he wasn't much of a singer? Was that me? No, I said he wasn't much of a poet--all wordplay as swordplay and puns for punters (one of which means something, one of which doesn't, and both of which took me ten seconds).

(The album gets an A)

The bootlegs from the Get Happy era - really any from that early era - are so propelled by amphetamines they're hilariously exhausting. As if the thing the band needed was the play more, and faster! I love it, though.

christgau's whole schtick is always backhandedly praising something while low key being a dick about it i dunno, i feel like i don't even know or care wtf he's even talking about like 75% of the time