Elvis Costello: Classic or Dud

maybe the point of the bit wasn't to be educational, how about that

No, it's Sesame Street! It's about learning!

don't get me wrong, i know kids need to learn about elvis costello sooner or later, I just think there was room for an additional lesson here.

xpost frogbs stop being a capt save-a-muppet

gottta hand it to him for that blog entry about the box set.

weirdly i feel like old-school E.C. fans are more likely to be grandparents than parents of children still learning to count to ten.

in other words, he looks old.

so do i.

look croup i understand it re: katy perry but i feel like the young'uns should know about elvis costello

When EC reunited the Attractions for that '94 tour, they called it the "Lock Up Your Mothers" tour.

Not classic or dud. Bunch of catchy songs whose clever lyrics don't really age as well as he may have thought they would when he wrote them. I'd happily sit through a bunch of his records if someone else played them, but would never put them on myself. I like "Beyond Belief" because of the weird structure. He's like the perfection of a musical dead end, in some ways.

I love a few early Costello songs and quite a few late ones but if the next generation treated him as, I dunno, punk's Arnold Bennett I wouldn't lose any sleep.

All y'all pretending those first few albums are nothing but a few good scattered songs are crazy. Those albums are so solid, so musically inventive, and even if EC is, ironically, often the weakest point, so what? Again, like Prince, he hasn't done himself any favors over the years, and his propensity toward dilettante detours and distraction annoying, but downgrading the dude as a musical dead end is as bonkers as the nuts who dismiss the Clash.

agree. i'd go as far to say his first decade is a pretty astounding body of work.

I love TYM and Trust especially, and considerable portions of AF, GH, and B&C, but his weaknesses even then are so much more obvious than Prince's.

What miccio said upthread about how easily he reduces his own songs to bitchslaps is otm, and while Prince has his nasty moments at least he's flexible enough as a singer to consider generosity as a virtue.

the idea that the answer here is anything but "classic" is laughable. I think if he were less respected there could be a critical reappraisal but he's in that uncomfortable middle ground where he's canonical enough that the knee-jerk canon haters dismiss him and he's not obscure enough to get that sort of reappraisal. someday maybe.

yeah, totally. also the fact that he undeniably peaked early means it's hard for people to champion different eras of his work -- there's never going to be some revival of appreciation for Brutal Youth or something

For context's sake, the uncertain place in which you condemned him is exactly where Bill Wyman condemned him in the Big Orange SPIN Book.

To me of course he's classic, but if you don't listen to an EC album when you're under 21 you're never going to understand him; his weaknesses curdle into the most uninteresting kind of Grand Guignol the older I get. A few months ago I eliminated most of my EC collection -- I was one of those fans who owned The Juliet Letters, Brutal Youth, All This Useless Beauty -- and don't miss a thing.

if you don't listen to an EC album when you're under 21 you're never going to understand him

idgi, please explain. that seems to be a purely lyrical analysis, right?

Nah. Those early Nick Lowe productions sound claustrophobic now.

if ever there was an argument FOR claustrophobic production it's This Years Model

Which is why I don't listen to it often.

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

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