Elvis Costello: Classic or Dud

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.

Yeah "Withered and Died" from the Ryko bonus tracks is grebt

erased EC's (lead) vocals

wait, I thought it was advertised as having NEW instrumental tracks?

Not at all, it’s exactly the same tracks that you know and love. Only the lead vocals are changed. Listen to one of the videos that have already come out.

Heh, almost forgot about the French EP he did.

Thanks, JR+tB, then I'm even less interested. Anyway, 17 good things about Punch the Clock:

1. "I wish you luck with a capital F"

2. Bouncy synclavier on "Everyday I Write the Book"

3. "In and out of matrimony never once removed the Sony"

4. Thwacky-trashy snare sound on "The Greatest Thing"

5. Rubber-band-like piano on "The Flirting Kind," and the vocal slipping into nonsense that has counterpoint with the horn solo

6. "The little girl you dangled on your knee without mishap / stirs something in your memory, and something in your lap"

7-14: Chet Baker

15. "Even the pretty secreTREES who wouldn't even let me hang my... HAT"

16. Three-way tie between "When you find strange hands in your sweater," "Even in a perfect world where everyone was equal / I'd still own the film rights and be working on the sequel" and glamorous / amorous

17. The live "Merseybeat" version of "Everyday" is pretty decent, groovewise

whoops, forgot

18. Caron Wheeler

19. Claudia Fontaine

20. Caron Wheeler and Claudia Fontaine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS516NhvNmY

Thanks! Is that a German-language performance of GCW or Punch the Clock?

Great earlier video of Elvis in Germany - with a three pickup charcoal frost Jaguar?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K--POHTLGY0

It's just impossible to think about When I Was Cruel without agonising over why he couldn't just trim 20 mins off and stick it on some EP or whatever

I'd have been satisfied with a 12" remix of Spooky Girlfriend

It's just impossible to think about When I Was Cruel without agonising over why he couldn't just trim 20 mins off and stick it on some EP or whatever

Don't forget, he released a companion disc of B-sides, live cuts and leftovers soon after! (Cruel Smile) I guess the glass-half-full take is that he didn't release an overstuffed two hour album but still...

Brutal Youth is an excellent album that I'll not hear any negative talk about. I love the songs and I love Froom's mix.

Punch the Clock has some annoying horns but all the songs are top notch for the most part and it has Everyday I Write the Book on it, it cannot be a bad album.