Elvis Costello: Classic or Dud

he's an indispensable gateway if you discover him young, although I doubt most fans take the trouble to find out who Billy Sherrill is and the artists he produced.

I don't even understand what you mean by claustrophobic or what that has to do with hearing him before you're 21

When I was twenty-one the dense arrangements for those mean songs fitted exactly how I thought a smart-ass should respond to objects of desire. As I got older it sounded less gripping -- a manner, if you will.

I still think you're just talking about lyrics

to me he ran out of ways of saying "I don't wanna kiss you," and as I've aged I don't think this is a particularly interesting sentiment either.

I am, in the main, I guess I'll admit. His voice suits those early songs.

seems kinda boringly reductive to say "he's not compelling once you're not an ANGRY YOUNG MAN anymore" tbh

It is, and it's fine with me.

yeah, it's interesting to me how basically 100% of the criticism against him focuses on the lyrics or his voice. which, you know, fair enough but I like his voice and don't care about lyrics. but it's also funny how some people who claim not to care about lyrics also hate him because of his supposedly clever lyrics.

The messiness of Trust is very attractive. It's old hat now to claim it's one of his best records but when I got the Ryko reissue in the early nineties it sounded bracing and slightly hysterical. I loved and still over the dub undertones of stuff like "New Lace Sleeves" -- what a good use of space. The narrative, such as it was, never resolved itself either; it was a mystery you couldn't penetrate. The tightly packed arrangement of things like "New Amsterdam" had the same effect.

Let's put it this way: I don't care for him as a singer enough to forgive some of those lyrics and arrangements. And quite a few of his vocals on Spike and Mighty Like a Rose make me hate him as a singer too.

The turning point for me was a 2002 concert in which every vocal intonation underlined every supposed mordant irony in "I Want You," for which he also rolled his eyes and mugged like a vaudevillian. I love the recorded version but this performance reminded me of what I despised about his voice.

plus, Elvis C doesn't need defending! Every new staff at the college radio station I advise mentions loving him. He's never going away.

yeah, it's interesting to me how basically 100% of the criticism against him focuses on the lyrics or his voice. which, you know, fair enough but I like his voice and don't care about lyrics. but it's also funny how some people who claim not to care about lyrics also hate him because of his supposedly clever lyrics.

― the wheelie king (wk), Friday, November 18, 2011 10:26 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah it's kind of a shame that the focus ALWAYS goes there and stays there, because the Attractions are one of my favorite bands of all time, there's just a ton of great playing and arranging on those records

I mean, I think Nick Lowe (for example) is a far superior lyricist, and really no less mean, but EC's lyrics, while bilious and self consciously clever (at times; other times they are lovely and perfect - see "Temptation"), are not so risible as to drag the dude down like an anchor. Especially with that band lifting him up at every occasion. \\

And anyone with a dedicated ILX thread titled "Elvis Costello, when did this fat balding fuck jump the shark" or whatever does need defending, to a degree. That's why I keep bringing up Prince. There's been enough bad (or insignificant) Prince now that that's all a generation or two knows; the rest is '80s-signifying nostalgia (unless, per Alfred, you actually grew up with it, ironically). Same with EC, though I'd argue that even at his most merely serviceable there are still, as above, the classic cut or two. He's just become such a formalist it's hard to hear his songs as much more than constructions. But I think his angry young man era has aged well, and the production in particular is part of it; it's a different sort of wall of sound, more like a wall of kinetic energy.

yeah he's never had a great rep on ILM relative to his general reputation, for whatever reason. like, i'd love to do an EC tracks poll but i feel like it'd have a low turnout and really cranky, unpleasant noms/results threads.

I'm a huge fan of EC at least through Blood & Chocolate and would vote the hell out a poll.

I don't mind polling songs. That double disc Girls Girls Girls thing is worth a poll.

i think he's great as long as he's with the Attractions. i never liked King of America much, found it way too long and overindulgent for only a small amount of good material, then Blood & Chocolate comes along and suddenly everything I liked about him came back

The great KofA songs sound really great now.

Oh Girls Girls Girls is great! I would love an EC poll of that comp.

i dunno why but i just haven't been able to muster up enthusiasm for Blood & Chocolate for a long time except for a coupla songs. King of America has the opposite effect on me

Never warmed up to that either of those alleged classics- both were way after BFF sharp-jump.

BFF sharp-jump

I can't decipher this.

Sorry, FBF

(see title of another EC thread, recently mentioned in this one)

Actually it was BFF: Elvis Costello: The Exact Moment When This Balding Fat Fucker Jumped The Shark

ah, ok -- I don't think of that thread when I think of him

That's the only thread I think of when I think of him

i find B&C to be really good at least for the first half. second half is decent but I still dig "Uncomplicated" and "Tokyo Storm Warning" quite a bit

I can totally see someone calling "King of America" a dud, but "Blood & Chocolate" has way too much going for it. I want to say his first real dud, excluding "Goodbye Cruel World" (liners of the Ryko reissue begin something like "Congratulations, you've just bought my worst album!"), was "Mighty Like a Rose," and it's been erratic if not outright weird ever since.

Holy shit, this live German TV performance from 1978 is smoking hot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQbQ2InHp44&feature=player_embedded

If nothing else, do yourself a favor and watch the performance of Lipstick Vogue @ 28:27.

So, I was listening to "Almost Blue" this morning, and as much fun as it is to give this guy shit these days, that album's really ahead of its time, isn't it? I mean, it was received as a lark, but really: a 1981 album by a Brit punk doing hardcore country - George Jones, Merle Haggard, even Gram Parsons - with a straight face, before a lot of that stuff became a hip signifier? This is pre-Mekons, pre-alt country, pre pop rediscovery of Parsons, etc. Not bad, Costello.

I never really got into that one. But Imperial Bedroom and Blood & Chocolate have impressed me a lot lately. I figure it's time to jump into his 90's work, for better or worse.

http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4dfbaefe49e2ae2b75000000-480/swimming-nose-holding-underwater.jpg

I don't really like "Almost Blue" much, but I do think it was as massively ahead of its time as any ahead of its time record.

'90s Elvis: hodgepodge. It's like one long compilation.

it's easy to make a good playlist/CD-R of his nineties stuff; it's taking the time to do it though.

I like "Kinder Murder" a lot. I am skeptical though - when I saw him at Summerfest, his set was like 75% from the albums up to Imperial Bedroom, which kinda said a lot (intentionally or no)

Sulky Girl is a great EC 90s song. Brutal Youth is where I stopped listening, though. I did order his latest through an amazon.com vendor but that was 3 weeks ago and they have yet to deliver it, which says something...

I got up to All This Useless Beauty, probably his best since Blood & Chocolate, but I could never get into anything he did after that. There's something about his singing starting in the 90s that really puts me off, like he found a slick comfort zone that he rarely steps out of. I can't imagine present-day Elvis doing a whispery menacing vocal like "Beyond Belief."

Ironically, I just got an email that my order of National Ransom has been cancelled.

Starting with Spike, the problem with most of his albums is that they tend to be least 10 minute too long.

...or about 20 in the case of 'When I Was Cruel'

There's something about his singing starting in the 90s

'Twas voice lessons that killed the beast. I blame "The Juliet Letters."

or turned him into a beast

When did Elvis stop drinking? Given This Year's Model and the El Mocambo live album are what I return to most, I got this hunch that I started losing interest in the guy's career when he got sober.

Pretty sure it was around Imperial Bedroom.

I think speed was the drug of choice of most of his generation. All those songs and albums is so short a span, and I mean, you can really hear it at work on the live stuff.

I actually liked Almost Blue a lot the year it came out -- put it in a year-end top 10 I did for my college paper in 1981, which seems doubly nuts since Trust also came out that year, but I was apparently just starting to explore country at the time. (Also listed albums by Joe Ely, Rosanne Cash, and Merle Haggard.) I haven't listened to it in decades, but it did introduce me to songs and country artists I was only vaguely aware of before. Thing is, it probably wasn't that unheard-of a move for Costello, given that he'd basically graduated out of the U.K.'s pub-rock scene, which in a lot of ways was the roots-rock/alt-country of its time, at least where bands like Brinsley Schwarz were concerned. The Fabulous Poodles had already covered "Third Rate Romance" by Amazing Rhythm Aces, for instance, and Chilli Willi & the Red Hot Peppers did "Six Days On The Road" by Dave Dudley. (I only know because they're both on a CD compilation of '70s pub-rock I have.)

Otherwise, I pretty much stopped paying attention to Costello after Goodbye Cruel World -- so I didn't even make it through his first decade. Basically still love the first 3 albums; like a few of the other early albums okay, especially Trust and the B-sides compilation Taking Liberties, and can live without the rest. (Never liked Imperial Boredom much, even when it was new.)

Also worth remembering that he had already done a couple original straight country songs before Almost Blue -- "Stranger In The House" (duet on a George Jones album in 1979) and "Radio Sweetheart" (on Taking Liberties, so maybe a B-side in England? Something like that.)

I talked with Steve Earle once, and he said Elvis Costello was massively important to him and his friends in 1970's Texas.

'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.