Elvis Costello: Classic or Dud

Yep, Iovine was the engineer. In 1977-78, though, it was apparently impossible to find a studio in the US with any kind of resonance. Everything had carpeted walls -- Greil Marcus called it "the muffled flumpf of L.A. studio drummers." Not sure why Landau/Iovine didn't add reverb from whatever outboard gear was around at the time, but Bruce was pretty exacting, if not always clear, about how he wanted things to sound.

Plotkin did some (all?) mixing on Darkness.

i love that dead 70s drum sound

reverb is for cowards

Maybe Elvis Costello and Steve Albini can patch things up over a beer and saying the N-word

ums otm

ultimate credit/blame would have to be with the boss himself

This is pretty much always true, whether the boss is the Boss or Metallica or whomever. "Rid of Me" sounds like it does because that's what PJ wanted, for better or for worse. The sound is definitely part of the album's character, however.

Re: Froom, I think the culprit (if one is even needed) may actually be Tchad Blake, who is (even) more quirky and idiosyncratic than Froom. Blake produced Soul Coughing solo, for example, which leans into that stuff hard. But Froom's production on those first few Ron Sexsmith albums is pretty sympathetic and subdued. Regardless, Froom's stuff, like Albini's (as he will be the first to say), isn't exactly being imposed. Folks go to Froom for Froom, just as others go to Albini, whose metier probably allows for a greater range of productions than Froom's, come to think of it. For point of comparison, I suppose, Low might be the only group that has gone with both approaches. Well, Tchad Blake and Albini, respectively.

reverb helps cowards feel strong and brave

I mean, if you don't think the drums sound good on Rumours (to use the most obvious example) then I just am not sure what is up with your ears

xpost That and double tracking vocals!

Fleetwood Mac drums sound ace. Much better than the marshmallow drums that came a decade later, like the drums on Bryan Adams' "Heaven." Boooooooooooooosh!

Fun fact: Stewart Copeland apparently cranked his drums (especially his snare) so tight that they had to spend a whole bunch of time adding effects to make them sound deeper and more resonant.

Really don’t care for this Elvis en Español edition of This Year’s Model, sorry.

Also was this the recent discussion of drum tech the pfox was referring to or was it more recent?

take it to the 'no action is indefensible' thread

Ha! Believe I already may have mentioned it there. Also, every time I revive that one, somebody invariably says "What's up with the original post?"

James Redd: no, I hadn't seen this thread. Bewildered to see that the EC thread was talking about ... Bruce Springsteen drum sounds?! That's confusing enough on the Boss thread.

I don't know the edition you refer to, James Redd.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0ZtHceZ8yA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmD6so5aZ-s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPxPHFIJFj8

Got excited for a moment when it was announced he'd remade an old album with the delusion it could be Goodbye Cruel World

Ha, that might actually be interesting.

I wish he remade Brutal Youth, or at least remixed it.

The Rhino double-CD of GCW does present a selection of demos and live versions of songs not strangled by the bizarre production

I seem to remember Greil Marcus raving about the prior live shows of the material and then when the album came out asking "Elvis: What Happened?"

The GCW live material when he toured college campuses is fantastic. He should release it as a separate album.

Yeah, I saw him at the HamPal supported by The Pogues. A great gig, and very long.

I didn't think the album was all that bad, no.

I was already getting a litttled tired of him so I was kind of disappointed that the album wasn't as good as foreshadowed but just kind of shrugged my shoulders.

re: GCW, I think I liked "Peace in our Time" and "Love Field."

The best version of "Deportee's Club," though, is Christy Moore's cover from Bespoke Songs....

It's better than Punch the Clock, whose insistent euphoria hurts my skull. Enough with the horns!

Almost anything is better than Punch the Clock.

except GCW, which is slightly worse

Ha, probably.

hmph

Okay, I never really liked either that much but I remember actively disliking Punch the Clock so I guess GCW wins by a nostril.

With all due respect, you are all RONG about Punch the Clock, which has many fine moments

I like Punch the Clock, and the boots from that era are on fire.

PUNCH THE CLOCK is my favourite EC record.

His recent LP LOOK NOW is good.

You're saying he has actually recorded THIS YEAR'S MODEL in Spanish, or something? ... What?!

A bloke on the trailer video says 'This concept is fucking nuts'.

So far I'm inclined to agree.

But then I don't have any intimacy with Spain, its language or culture. Maybe those who do will feel differently.

Not exactly. They took the tracks from This Year's Model, erased EC's (lead) vocals and replaced them with new lyrics in Spanish sung by Spanish-speaking singers.

It's dumb. I don't think it works, don't know who the intended audience is. I have some familiarity with Spanish-language culture.

should we talking about the fact that "la chica de hoy" does not in fact mean "this year's girl"?

Because "day" vs. "year"? Also idiomatically it seems to have a difference nuance, as in "the youth of today," but of this I am not sure.

i confess don't i know enough spanish language to fact check the nuance. just the 364-día diff between hoy and año.

he was interviewed by anderson cooper after that big central park show was called off because of rain. he said he realized that the only bad thing about 'this year's model' was his own vocals, so he had other people redo them. it sounded like he has a lot of other irons in the fire -- i think he said he has two new albums recorded.

also he played in k.c. a few nights ago with charlie sexton on guitar instead of steve nieve's keys. nieve had visa issues, apparently. when was the last time he did a show with no keyboards?

I wish he remade Brutal Youth, or at least remixed it.

I can see that helping, but FWIW I never liked that album until I heard Costello & Nieve (easily his best '90s release, IMHO), and I didn't even recognize "Just About Glad" which went over great. I was able to go back and appreciate the studio version - and I eventually liked the rest of the album as well - but the live solo version of "Just About Glad" was definitely a much better performance.

The Rhino double-CD of GCW does present a selection of demos and live versions of songs not strangled by the bizarre production

Absolutely. That whole bonus disc is a really good album in itself while the one he did put out is completely worthless. You'd need to get the solo "Deportee" from King of America bonus disc, but otherwise you can program together 12 early/solo versions of GCW's 13 tracks and see how much better it would have worked out if he had just recorded that whole album solo. The same is true for Spike - the "solo" version you can put together from the Rhino deluxe set is a much more cohesive and really enjoyable album.

It's better than Punch the Clock, whose insistent euphoria hurts my skull. Enough with the horns!

Opening the album with a blaring, one-dimensional horn arrangement was probably the shittiest way to start things. But I actually enjoy the album much more now - I came around to it when I pretended it was a Madness album.

also he played in k.c. a few nights ago with charlie sexton on guitar instead of steve nieve's keys. nieve had visa issues, apparently. when was the last time he did a show with no keyboards?

He's done solo tours in recent years. That stuck out in an old Sound Opinions review of Momofuku - DeRogatis's take on it was that he remembered a few songs from Costello's solo tour opening for Dylan where "he blew Dylan away," but the same songs fell flat when he heard the album's full-band arrangements. I think I mentioned this before, but from Spike to the present day, Costello's been so erratic in the studio that even when he writes a solid batch of songs, more often than not he'll fail to deliver an album that lives up to their potential. There's maybe six studio albums that I can listen to among the 19 (!) he's made since Spike, and even those nine aren't as good as they could have been. The best is probably When I Was Cruel - he had kept it to he best 40 or 50 minutes of music instead of piling it up past an hour, it would have been up there with his best work.

*and even those SIX

I remember expecting Punch to be an great album as the singles are all top notch, but nothing sticks in the memory bank

an heroic album, even

Punch the Clock has "Love Went Mad", "King of Thieves" and "The Invisible Man", which are all energetic, impassioned and witty (if cryptic).

when was the last time he did a show with no keyboards?

i should have made clear that this was a full band show with keyboards replaced with sexton's guitar.

You'd need to get the solo "Deportee"

Yep, a highlight. His Richard Thompson cover too.