Elvis Costello: Classic or Dud

'Glitter Gulch' is fairly short, surely - whereas 'Rosemary ...' is about 8 minutes long. That makes a big difference.

The beginning of "...This Town..." -- the organ, electric 12-string picking, galumphing drums -- is one of the most exciting moments on a Costello song, better than the song

Great comment. LOVE this opening. Though Keltner(?)'s drums I find a subtle, not clumsy sound. Love how it's McGuinn who suddenly chimes in. But I would give quite a lot of credit to the whole song also.

That Age of Innocence analogy is a chef's kiss

A Scheff's kiss.

hmph

anyways

I love "Poisoned Rose," and the story of EC musing aloud about the vibe of an Ella Fitzgerald record he'd just been listening to, apparently unaware that his bassist (Ray Brown) had both played on that record and been married to Ella.

How could he be unaware of that?

Either unaware, or perhaps had temporarily forgotten. Or he told the anecdote that way as a humblebrag? I don't know.

Okay, per the liner notes:

While the introductions were underway T-Bone was musing as to why nobody seemed to be able to achieve the spontaneity that we had heard on a Louis Armstrong/ Ella Fitzgerald side playing on the inflight music around the time we were planning this very session. Being the diplomat Earl informed us... "Of course, you know, Ray was Ella's first husband..." and after a beat Ray added "I think I might have played on that session". "Oh yeah" I was thinking, "and now we're going to play this stupid little song I've written".

Earl? Earl Palmer?

Indeed

Surprisingly, Target is offering Spanish Model as a Target exclusive CD with three bonus tracks. I thought they reserved those exclusives for the biggest-selling artists. You've finally made the big time, Elvis!

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Both. Stuck around way too long and became a dud but come on, he wrote some magnificent songs (too many to mention but "Beyond belief" is always staggering to me) and made some classic albums.

Hey the Spanish Model is shockingly great imo. It does exactly the opposite of what I thought the project was going to do: it keeps the ferocious Attractions recordings (and a little bit of Elvis's vocals here and there) and brings in new singers who not only translate the songs but in many cases adapt the rhythm and melody. And they are great. I've only listened once but I was completely blown away. The mastering alone brings things out that I'd not heard before, but these are also slightly new mixes so there are new parts as well.

Listened to PUNCH THE CLOCK on old vinyl last week. It was marvellous. His lyrics never better; also his voice; and subtlety in the arrangements and playing.

Have we come this fa-fa-fa
To find a soul cliché?

yeah I've only listened to a few tracks and I think it's pretty good! definitely good enough to justify what comes off as a silly idea at first. the instrumental bits almost sound like they could be new - some of the drum parts sound different and a few guitar bits sound pitched down. I do wonder if some of it was re-recorded though. or maybe different takes were used. or maybe I just don't remember the original all that well!

also my Spanish is not too great but I feel like a lot of the lyrics are different?

i do remember a lotta people whos take on EC is "the songwriting is great and the Attractions rule, but I can't get over his voice" - I guess this is for them

Agree! My guess is that the mix is different which means that there were bits and pieces on the tape that they didn't use but are bringing in here -- lots of guitar ornaments. I don't hear any different drum parts, but the mastering makes everything sound better. It's been a perennial problem with Costello's records but I never expected the guitar to sound as good as it does here.

And yes I think the translations are "taking liberties" with the lyrics, as they should!

I just read that right before he went on stage the other night, Steve Nieve tested positive for Covid and couldn't perform, so the band (augmented by guest Charlie Sexton on guitar) winged an entire set without keyboards. That's pretty cool.

yeah i think they did a number of shows like that -- two guitars, no keys.

Apparently they did a bunch of songs and covers they hadn't performed in a while. Turns out it was a false positive so Nieve was back the next night.

The test came back and his viral load was less than zero

wait, fuck, no...

The initial test result was a brilliant mistake

Is uhh this a good tour if one is really only familiar with EC up to 1992 or so?

Dud

setlists appear to be mostly stuff from his first few albums + covers

He doesn't have his backup singers this time, which may help. I've seen him twice with them - first time was on the tour revisiting Imperial Bedroom and it worked in that context due to the complex arrangements, but the second time (supporting Look Now) both highlighted what felt overdone about that album AND may have negatively impacted his performance. The second time was post-surgery so I don't know if he was in weaker shape, but he had to project louder over everything else and he was noticeably dragging behind everyone vocally - it almost seemed like he was struggling.

New single is sounding good:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnQIWS5F4PU

Yeah, it almost sounds like something the B-52's would've recorded in the early '80s. I don't think he's made a consistently good album since When I Was Cruel and The Delivery Man (they would have been back-to-back albums if it weren't for his excursions into ballet and tepid jazz) so here's hoping.

Actually, looking over the 25 or so albums he's put out since 1989, there's maybe seven I actually like:

Spike (if you take the 11 demos from Rhino's bonus disc and slot in the demo-like "God's Comic")
Brutal Youth
All This Useless Beauty
Costello & Nieve
Painted from Memory
When I Was Cruel
The Delivery Man

And I would supplement these with a compilation of highlights from the rest. He's had enough ideas and songs to sustain a nice run of really good EP's out of the likes of National Ransom, Wise Up Ghost, Look Now, Hey Clockface, etc.

Would love to hear a s&d of the post '89 years, if someone has the stamina.

Like Prince, I think Elvis Costello's post-peak years (after 1986 in his case, after 1996 with Prince) would have looked pretty good and consistent had 60 to 70% of what he released been kept in the vaults.

The problem with "Brutal Youth" is that the songs and performances are good, but it sounds like the band recorded the album, and then Elvis was brought in to a different studio to scream over everything, and then asked for his vocals to be mixed even higher afterwards.

Hah, I just listened to this the other day (I basically did what I've done with Bowie and Prince and played a bunch of albums in order).

I think that problem has something to do with the era - that's when the whole "loudness" wars nonsense started, and a lot stuff from 1994 seems to be engineered the same way, with a lot more compression (though not as much as we have now), a hard, sharp EQ pattern that boosted the top and upper mids, and often times vocals that are bone dry and mixed up. It is what it is, and sometimes I do love it, but I'm not a fan of how it sounds here. It doesn't bother me too much because I just accept it and focus on other things.

It's a good album, but "20% Amnesia" is f-ing awful - dropping that track helps the flow immensely. The album's too long anyway - without it, it still runs over 50 minutes.

That was also a problem with Spike - I forgot it was well over an hour. I tried listening to the album as it was released, and surprisingly it seemed better this time around...BUT what also seemed to help was dropping the two instrumentals and a track like "Any King's Shilling" (and possibly "Miss MacBeth"). That gets it to 46 or 51 minutes, and the production seems less all over the place since you're losing some of the biggest detours (musically-speaking) on the album. It also feels like an extension of Blood & Chocolate where you have this eclectic album that doesn't have an overriding theme or concept, just 11 or 12 well-crafted songs. More ambitious in the production department, but more or less the same blueprint.

FWIW, I also thought Punch the Clock was better after applying some changes based on Costello's comments in the reissue liner notes. Replace "The Element Within Her" with "The Flirting Kind" and replace "Love Went Mad" with "Heathen Town" - it seems to pull the album more in the direction of Imperial Bedroom.

What's wrong with "Brutal Youth" is more than the loudness war. It's like the band (inc. EC's guitar) was mixed down, and the vocals were mixed way up, then further blasted totally in the red as an aesthetic choice. They sound like they were recorded as demos on an iphone and just dropped onto the album totally raw. Like he's yelling in your ear while the music plays from another room.

A compilation by KFOG in San Francisco containing a selection of performances from their archives, this seems to be the same performance used for Costello & Nieve. Better than the album version, but it also made me realize how much I overlooked the songs themselves on Brutal Youth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nG7E2MJO5Q

Actually, someone uploaded the whole EP set - adds up to a two-hour live album with only one repeated song (from different shows):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATE0WRAWdhw

The drums on BY sound like shit.

That's pretty much the drum sound on a lot of Mitchell Froom's productions...I'm fine with it, but it's an acquired taste. What does he actually do them anyway?

To me it just sounds like Pete Thomas used a clangy, 60s/Motown kind of snare throughout. I love the sound of that album, drums and all. I don't think it ever gets mentioned, but BY was his 'Back to Basics' album at the time

That's pretty much the drum sound on a lot of Mitchell Froom's productions...I'm fine with it, but it's an acquired taste. What does he actually do them anyway?

― birdistheword,

They bother me less on Richard Thompson and Suzanne Vega albums, though

I don’t enjoy Elvis’s guitar playing on most of his post-Brutal Youth records - it’s like he’s trying too hard to be Marc Ribot. And from the 2000s onwards, the Imposters are basically a guitar rock band and Nieve seems content to disappear unless it’s a duo record. I’ll take Froom’s 90s production over the dullness of the 2000s stuff though.

xpost Vega/Froom’s 99.9F is a masterpiece!

Pete typically used the classic Ludwig metal "biscuit tin" snare. Ironically, that trademark Froom clang is closer to what drums actually sound like than what we usually hear, but I think Froom/Blake play it up a bit to be even more distinctive. But for whatever reason, I think that approach just does not work with EC. *Everything* sounds so loud and abrasive and distracting, so much so it's sometimes hard to believe this is the same crack band that recorded all those classic Lowe-produced albums. I mean, Nick Lowe loves a clanging snare drum, too, at least sometimes, but his own trademark bash and pop production sounds downright restrained compared to "Brutal Youth." Which is also ironic, since iirc some of it was produced by Lowe, too!

the Crowded House albums produced by Froom also sound fine.

And Los Lobos, etc. It's only EC that sounds bad, and as the biggest ego of the bunch I wouldn't be surprised if it was all his fault.

I've actually got mixed feelings about the Thompson albums. A lot of those songs sounded MUCH better live, and not just for the extended solos.

Lowe did not produce any of BY's tracks. He only played bass and stepped aside late in the process when he suggested Bruce Thomas would be more suitable for the remaining songs they didn't nail down.

Los Lobos and Latin Playboys were great Froom productions. I liked SOME of the cuts he did with Bonnie Raitt. I'm not a Crowded House fan beyond one or two singles, but "Don't Dream Is Over" is still great.

I think Froom really saps the life out of Los Lobos (maybe that was what they were going for!), those records always sound dispiritingly mannered to me. Brutal Youth has lotsa energy even if sounds a little dated.

Lisa Germano's Slide is a Tchad Blake-credited production, but Froom is involved too and it's probably my favorite example of their sonic aesthetic

I sometimes forget that Brutal Youth has the Attractions on it; but All This Useless Beauty manages to sound much more like the Attractions than BY, while employing more expansive (and certainly more effective) arrangements.

And that album marked the return of Geoff Emerick, right?