Elvis Costello: Classic or Dud

One of those weeks we were scheduled to appear on Tops Of The Pops to perform our new single, "I Wanna Be Loved". As the song ended, "a representative of the Elvis Costello Group" was testily summoned over a public address system.

Being the only barely responsible person on hand, I presented myself at the foot of the iron stairs to the production gantry above the studio floor. When the producer finally emerged, he attempted to give me a dressing down because Pete Thomas had ruined the illusion of live performance on an entirely mimed programme by playing the final drum fill of our song on his head, while in tight close-up. The fact that the drummer from the group Tight Fit had got up from his drums in the middle of "The Lion Sleep Tonight" and bent over so his bandmate could mime beat out a marimba solo on a keyboard design printed on the arse of his loincloth was completely lost on the apoplectic BBC stooge.

When taping ended, a stern voice came crackling over the public address system. “A representative of the Elvis Costello group” was summoned to the foot of the iron stairs leading to the production gallery. Being the only vaguely responsible person on hand, I presented myself at the headmaster’s office. The producer emerged, apoplectic with rage, and attempted to give me a dressing-down for Pete having ruined the illusion of a live performance. I shut him down immediately.

The drummer from Tight Fit had got up during the middle of The Lion Sleeps Tonight, walked forward and bent over – so his bandmate could beat out a marimba solo on a keyboard printed on the arse of his loincloth, while his drums magically continued to play. The shattering of illusions was the least of their problems.

book is 674 pp, so excerpts is about all i can handle

even just putting together his liners for those early 2000s rhino reissues would make a pretty good book, i think.

"Congratulations! You've just purchased our worst album." is up there with great opening lines in literary history imo.

All of his liner notes can be found here btw: http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/index.php/My_Aim_Is_True_(1993)_liner_notes

haha yeah that was good

xp

It was dark when I awoke. I could hear the rats scuttling across the rehearsal room floor. It was just as I had been warned. If the lights went off, the rats came out. Feeling for my shoes, I edged to the light-switch and illuminated the drinking party passed out on another ragged sofa. I tried to get back to sleep with lights on. I was going to make a record the next day.

xp lol yeah, perfect. glad there's a little bite in that excerpt -- after that tv show he hosted, i thought EC was getting toothless.

The audiobook is now loaded on my phone, but I need to finish this Jim Henson bio I took out from the library first. Looking forward to digging into this ASAP.

"Congratulations! You've just purchased our worst album."

would have been a lot funnier if it opened the liner notes to every one of his albums!

Ha.

i just imagine some guy's sad face when he expectantly cracks open the liner notes to armed forces...

I dunno, if anything it would raise expectations!

all liner notes collected here FYI

http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/index.php/Goodbye_Cruel_World_%281995%29_liner_notes

Pretty sure you mean here

http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/index.php/Trust_(1994)_liner_notes

Really liked his book. In a lot of ways it reflects his all over the place career, but it makes a really strong case for Costello as some sort of genius shaped and directed by the company he kept. Almost an anti-Bowie, really, a strong traditionalist whose collaborators drew out various aspects of his personality and background: jazz, ABBA, soul, Beatles, country, etc. In fact, it's kind of interesting to hear how important country was to him from the very start, and how much of his musical tastes were codified collecting records while touring America nonstop, sort of his equivalent of the Beatles hanging in Hamburg. Also touched by his affection for his father and family, and respect the way he carefully illuminates his three very different marriages (on that point sot of makes me want to read a Diana Krall book!). In the end I left feeling sort of guilty for taking him for granted for so long, as a songwriter but specifically as a lyricist. And it's a ton of fun reading accounts of him almost accidentally rubbing shoulders with so many of his musical heroes, from Dylan and McCartney and Bacharach to Allen Toussaint and George Jones.

he is currently writing songs for a musical of the 1957 Elia Kazan film, “A Face in the Crowd.”

and lives in Vancouver now

from a fawning interview in the NY Times, mostly about Costello and his time in NYC

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/02/arts/music/elvis-costellos-new-york-soul.html?&moduleDetail=section-news-2&action=click&contentCollection=Music®ion=Footer&module=MoreInSection&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&pgtype=article

Are they permanently in Vancouver? I had some idea they might be coming back at some point.

To be pedantic, he lives in the British Properties of the Municipality of West Vancouver, which is a couple of cities distant from Vancouver in the Lower Mainland. It's known as the richest neighbourhood in one of the most exclusive cities in Canada.

Not much detail in the story on his current residence, its more about Costello and NYC, and the Brooklyn living author (who is the NY Times metro section editor) and his Costello fanaticism since he was a teen (he's now 50)

Some details on the Imperial Bedroom album, as Costello is gonna play it on some tour gigs with the Imposters

My freshman year roommate wants to go to one of those shows so maybe I will report back.

Via Wiki:

Elvis Costello has written 17 songs for A Face In The Crowd, a planned stage musical based on Budd Schulberg's story originally published as Your Arkansas Traveler and adapted into the 1957 film A Face In The Crowd written by Schulberg, directed by Elia Kazan, and starring Andy Griffith.

The musical's book is written by Sarah Ruhl, who had previously collaborated with Elvis on an unfinished musical about WHER, the all-female Memphis radio station.

An invitation-only reading of A Face In The Crowd was held in New York on June 10. The New York Post reported that Elvis and his backers want Hugh Jackman to star. The Swiss newspaper Zürich Tages Anzeiger reported the musical was expected to premiere in 2017.

Elvis premiered nine of the songs in concert in the spring of 2016 and an additional song in the Fall of that year.

A detailed article about this project can be found at the ecsongbysong blog.

Went last night. He opened with "Night Rally."

Followed by "Lipstick Vogue." Which I feel like in the old days was near the end of the set.

Everyone gets armbands and 3D glasses.

Ha. Really? He did all of Imperial Bedroom, plus more, right? DC show sold out at high ticket prices before I decided I really wanted to go no matter the price. Oh well. Freelancer for the Washington Post loved the gig.

Night Rally is a great song

It was pretty good. Similar to when I, and no doubt you, saw him back in the day. Think he skipped maybe one from Imperial Bedroom, "You Little Fool." He also did three from his upcoming musical project, A Face in the Crowd.

Night Rally is a great song

He played a deep cut that I wasn't familiar with, "Seconds of Pleasure."

No he did do "You Little Fool." Must have erased it from my memory.

Saw the summer outdoor tour version of the Imperial Bedroom tour, from the lawn. He did most of the album, but not in order. Only did 1 new songs "A Face in the Crowd" from that upcoming project. Did a song or 2 I wasn't familiar with. Had 2 backing soul-gospel women singers with him (spaced out on their names. One of em keeps liking photos on Instagram that show her singing with Elvis). The 3 of them doing "Alison" was nice. Some songs sounded rushed and cluttered near the beginning of the set, but then it all seemed to come together better. Too many loud talking folks near me on the lawn who didn't know Imperial Bedroom songs.

Ha, curm, I had exactly the same experience, maybe you were sitting near me.

I thought the ...and in every home/lucy in the sky mashup was funny; loved the spare Alison. Beyond Belief and Man Out of Time were strong encores.

Shabby Doll came out rockin' as well, but I still think my favorite version is one he did on tv with Fioner Rapple.

I've decided to give this guy another chance, even though his music historically has done very little for me...

Just this year I noticed how Bruce Thomas's Shabby Doll bass soloing is a nod to Stevie's "I Wish" (I assume).

The minimal version of Alison was impressive. Beyond Belief and Almost Blue also worked well too.

also liked green shirt

Wld pay money at this stage of my life for this.

I've decided to give this guy another chance, even though his music historically has done very little for me...

― The Anti-Climax Blues Band (Turrican), Friday, June 23, 2017 1:56 PM (five days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

So, after sitting through every album from My Aim is True up to Spike over the last few days, my opinion hasn't really changed all that much. Costello comes across to me as being the type of dull classicist that people accuse Paul Weller of being, but even Weller went on to make a house album and occasionally experimented. He's also nowhere near as good a songwriter as Weller either, as evidenced by the fact that I'm fresh off listening to 11 or 12 of his albums, and the songs that I remember were the ones I knew anyway - I literally can't recall one single deep cut that made me go "wow, it was totally worth listening to the album for this"

One thing that I did take away from the experience is how much Costello sounds like Bryan Adams when he starts bellowing.

File under "new wave artists that you only really need a singles compilation by" alongside The Police.

Costello fairly drastically changes elements of his sound from album to album and Paul Weller probably wrote like 5 good songs in his life

We'll call you when he makes a house album tho

He slightly changes elements of his sound from album to album, not drastically. I would have personally loved it if there had been a drastic change in sound, but there wasn't. A bit more variety in the composition of his toplines would have been nice, too.

As for Paul Weller, there was no indication at the start of his career with The Jam that he would have had a Confessions of a Pop Group or a Modernism: A New Decade in him, let alone a 22 Dreams, Sonik Kicks or a Saturn's Pattern. When I got to King of America in Costello's discography, it wasn't a surprise at all.

Costello's 4th album was a Stax-esque soul record, his fifth was a foundational new wave record, his sixth was a straight up country album, and his seventh was orchestral, Beatles-esque music hall

I can understand why someone wouldn't like Elvis Costello, but criticizing him for "not experimenting" is silly

The differences were minimal. Like I say, if they'd been as drastic as you say, maybe I would have changed my mind.

North (pianoey lounge jazz), Juliet Letters (scrapey scratchy string quartet song settings), and When I was Cruel (spooky rock with drum machines) sound more than minimally different to me, and certainly don't resemble Almost Blue. His voice is unavoidably on all of them, I will grant.

Not to mention his most recent album, Wise Up Ghost, which he did with The Roots

Not sure how anyone could hear the differences between EC albums as "minimal," unless you consider the differences between all rock albums to be minimal.

and the songs that I remember were the ones I knew anyway

Even if this was your standard, I would be shocked if you knew less than, I dunno, 15 or 20 EC songs, which is a pretty nuts high number, and definitely pushes him beyond the realm of "singles act." (Save that category for Squeeze.) And anyway, even if you didn't think EC's singles or albums or album tracks or dozens of b-sides and one-offs and other things were worthwhile, the Attractions are an absolutely incredible and endlessly inventive band that is worth listening to on its own merits.

I'm not sure how many artists there are out there who drastically experiment between every record and still sound like themselves, but whatever that's a stupid way to judge an artist's body of work. But it's very hard to deny that Costello approached each album with different musical and thematic ideas--and it's very hard to mistake a song from This Year's Model for a song from, say, Get Happy!! despite identical personnel.

xxxpost:

Well, I didn't get that far in the discography - kinda figuring that getting 11 or 12 albums in was more than enough, and at this stage I don't really feel the need to investigate further given that the albums I heard were pretty much all of his so-called "canonical" ones.

But yeah, I was expecting to find a lot to like in Costello's discography given that I love his contributions to McCartney's Flowers in the Dirt and thought that as a producer he brought a great deal to Squeeze's East Side Story - unfortunately, I don't.

I can see why the likes of Rolling Stone liked this guy so much - putting out King of America in 1986 must have been right up their street. The rest of us had the Pet Shop Boys.

The biggest difference between This Year's Model and Get Happy!! was in the production.

Well I was just about to listen to an Elvis Costello record, but I forgot that I can't enjoy both Elvis Costello and Pet Shop Boys or else I would... make the Rolling Stones angry, or something?