Elvis Costello: Classic or Dud

What do you thing of assessment in the 1992 Rolling Stone Album Guide, which says that "Costello writes songs that he's physically incapable of singing"?

Was just thinking, are there any "singer with guitar" albums (aside from scratchy '78 stuff and the like) that sound dated the way a lot of full band records sound? Is there an equivalent of "well, in the early '80s those acoustic guitars were practically dripping with gated reverb"?

Not an album, but the Replacements' "Here Comes A Regular" sounds very much like 1985, and would without the synth pad. The acoustic guitar sound, and the reverb it's dunked in, is painfully piercing.

At the time, glancing nervously at Mighty Like a Rose, I agree, and certainly in a foul mood I want to toss his albums off the balcony.

Another vote for live "Psycho"!

What do you thing of assessment in the 1992 Rolling Stone Album Guide, which says that "Costello writes songs that he's physically incapable of singing"?

I think that was a J.D. Considine entry. I thought his entries in that guide have aged terribly - he was assigned all of the "newer" music but he seemed painfully out of touch. (IIRC, he clearly didn't get Prince's "If I Was Your Girlfriend" at all.) To be fair, this was me reading them with the benefit of 20 years worth of hindsight, but I bet if someone like Bill Wyman of the Chicago Reader got that assignment, those entries would have aged a hell of a lot better.

Anyway, I think that's too broad of an assessment, especially if you hear All This Useless Beauty. Those were all songs meant for other people, and you can see how they were tailored for the people they were written for, but I think they work better as Elvis Costello recordings. I think Joyce Millman nails it: "Costello's vision of his idols, his ideas of what his idols represent (or ought to), is often more complicated than their own view of themselves." When someone else does a better job, it's usually because Costello can't get a grasp of the song himself (like "Girls Talk," which he gave away partly because he never recorded it himself in a satisfactory way). But I don't think there are many covers that do a better job than his original recordings because his songs end up feeling too idiosyncratic and too personal to be re-interpreted easily by anyone else.

I should add that Bacharach's contributions to Painted from Memory may be a big reason why it's a notable exception. Same with many of the songs he usually "co-wrote" with others. Like with McCartney, it wasn't usually an even split, but McCartney generally helped compose those songs to fit him as well, even if you can see Costello's influence.

Painted from Memory really brought out the best in both of them.

listening to this year's model for the first time in a long time - good stuff, check out this sleeper

I bet if someone like Bill Wyman of the Chicago Reader got that assignment, those entries would have aged a hell of a lot better.

Really? His take in the SPIN Alternaive Guide is not dissimilar from Mark Coleman's (he wrote the RS entry; he used to post here!).

Sleeper?

Did Mark stop posting here? I guess maybe he did.

XP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSe3dV7dPYw

It's really only Costello's post-Trust singing that he criticizes.
Unlike, say, Joe Jackson, I don't think Costello's voice gets in the way of a good song, but it does make it a chore to listen to an average song.

Trying to think: is there actually anything wrong with his singing or is it something else?

he sings the hell out of some of the songs on 'look now.'

I might have to check that out. His singing is the least of my problems with him.

I saw him in March last year and am sorry to say vocally he was not great. He made a real mess of Shipbuilding in particular, oversinging when he may no longer be able to carry it

I think he's the correct singer for his snide punky New Wave songs. I do not think he's the virtuosic crooner he imagines himself to be.

I often enjoy his Sinatra-isms tbh

Although Frankie didn't oversing so...

I saw him in March last year and am sorry to say vocally he was not great. He made a real mess of Shipbuilding in particular, oversinging when he may no longer be able to carry it.

Sorry to say, I'm not surprised. When I saw him in 2011, he was perfect. GREAT show. But when I saw him next in 2017 (on the tour revisiting Imperial Bedroom and well before his health scare), there were hints that something was wrong. For the first 15 minutes or so, something was off, but he seemed to right the ship so I figured it was just a rough start. Then I caught him at Riot Fest, and it was the same deal for the most of the set - he was falling behind the beat, and it didn't seem like a choice in phrasing. He seemed to be trying really hard to catch up with the pace of each song, and in the process it kind of sounded like he was oversinging. For their last number, they did "I Want You" and it was glorious, but it was also a much slower song, without the entire band playing full tilt, so it may have been much easier to sing. I saw him one more time on the Look Now tour and it was often a struggle, trying to keep up and sing over the blaring arrangements. I don't think he has the same vocal strength anymore. He'd probably rip me a new one for saying that, but he is up there in years and it's not an uncommon problem.

I'm surprised how many people really liked Look Now - I thought only a handful of songs really worked. Greil Marcus didn't seem to like it at all but he heaped a lot of praise on one track on the bonus EP, "The Final Mrs. Curtain," and it really is great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvFWs65c3tM

It's really only Costello's post-Trust singing that he criticizes.

I thought it was JDC not Coleman - my mistake! I'll have to read it again, but I remember the entry complaining about every album Costello did after Get Happy!!, even when they were rated positively (if not glowingly) in terms of stars rewarded.

Really? His take in the SPIN Alternaive Guide is not dissimilar from Mark Coleman's (he wrote the RS entry; he used to post here!).

I haven't read Wyman's SPIN entry, but I thought his take was pretty different from Coleman's based on his Chicago Reader reviews and his excellent Brilliant Careers feature for Salon.. (Wyman did a great Brilliant Careers feature on Dylan as well.) For Wyman, it's basically a glorious ten years following by an unusual three years of silence and a steep plunge off a cliff.

Wyman's Salon piece, which I read at the time, extends his SPIN piece. The late-career summa strikes me as hysterically overwritten as EC's more overstuffed Imperial Bedroom tunes.

I found the first half solid with more than a few insights.

I dislike Look Now and in fact basically everything post When I was Cruel (and even that album I'm not really a fan of). For me he just had a precipitous, obvious decline in quality at that point. Which is too bad because I think All This Useless Beauty is a magnificent album, one that doesn't get the appreciation it deserves, though god knows he tried (he did a big duo tour with Nieve, released a live box set of those shows, etc).

I forgot he put out an album last year two that I could not get through

As for his voice and stretching: look his voice can be an acquired taste. But I saw him perform the Juliet Letters with the Brodsky Quartet and fuck if it was not utterly amazing. I doubt he could do that now.

hey, now, you've got plenty of new artists -- no need to continue spending time on Costello after 2002 (or 1994, 1986, 1984, etc.). I saw Costello in 2002 and 2004, both shows excellent. He also opened for Steely Dan in 2015 -- eh.

I think All This Useless Beauty is a magnificent album, one that doesn't get the appreciation it deserves, though god knows he tried (he did a big duo tour with Nieve, released a live box set of those shows, etc).

Don't forget, he actually toured the album with the whole band! I saw the show here, which as I recall was the same night as the Sex Pistols reunion. It was only OK, possibly because Bruce Thomas was about to quit again. The reunion show behind Brutal Youth was tons of fun, though.

But I saw him perform the Juliet Letters with the Brodsky Quartet and fuck if it was not utterly amazing. I doubt he could do that now.
Wow, that's impressive. I don't doubt it came off great for anyone who was there, but I can't imagine ever enjoying that album in any setting.

King of America (with slight pruning) is very close to the best album he's ever done, IMHO. Wyman and plenty of others certainly make the case for it and Blood and Chocolate, and they both came out in 1986. (Both in the P&J top ten too - I think King of America actually placed second.) I think he's pretty much right that Spike is the dividing line, and he even suggested that in his original 1989 review:

"(Costello) keeps breathing, and writing songs about funny townspeople, and cute old insane women, and the 'Deep Dark Truthful Mirror.' Fine stuff, on the whole, but it’s not about changing the world, or changing rock ‘n’ roll, or even about an anger at anything at all that just boils up inside you. That’s what Costello used to do, and today other people do it–people like the members of Public Enemy, or Billy Bragg, or Peter Garrett of Midnight Oil, or Michelle Shocked, or even crazy Bono or Tracy Chapman. Together, they all represent the future of rock music. Elvis Costello doesn’t anymore."

There is still plenty of good stuff since then - I already listed a bunch, but it's the type of stuff that rewards the converted and probably not much more.

Does anyone rate the Deutsche Grammophon albums. I always figured they were on a par with McCartney’s “classical”.

Holy shit I forgot about the Wendy James album which was once given away for free in copies of Q magazine.

Are you all talking about a person called Bill Wyman who is not the lecherous veteran bass player Bill Wyman?

I think beating up Costello's reputation at this point is - maybe 'cruel' is a topical word. He's a magnificent talent, maybe a rare genius. He's survived and kept going. He's already left us 40+ years of music. We should cherish him.

fwiw PAINTED FROM MEMORY is a great favourite for me. A masterpiece, with another genius.

Still so glad I saw Burt Bacharach in London in July 2014. A hero. Though he didn't play any PAINTED FROM MEMORY.

nb when i refer to 'look now' i mean my vinyl copy, which i guess includes those EP tracks as well, so i don't distinguish between them. agree those ep tracks are among the highlights.

Yeah, shitting on EC I feel is a bit like shitting on, I dunno, Phil Collins or something. Yeah, you're one of the greatest drummers of all time, yeah your stuff with Genesis is good, yeah, your first few solo albums have some great stuff, yeah, you've played with everyone from Eno to Frida to John Martyn to John Cale to Robert Plant, yeah you've sold millions of copies of records and won an Oscar and largely seem to be an OK person. But what have you done for me lately?

EC, he released several of the best rock records of his era, imo, or at least legit candidates. He produced three of the best albums of the (more or less) '80s for other people. He's successfully collaborated with Paul McCartney, the Roots, Emmylou Harris and Allan Toussaint. He's an extremely talented, very ambitious songwriter and gifted musical historian. He still tours a ton and cranks out music. He substituted for Letterman. Etc. But other than that, meh, right?

Those 3 other people's LPs being ... Pogues? Squeeze? If so, I'm still not sure of the 3rd.

The Specials, I imagine.

Though I don't have views on Phil Collins, I like Josh in Chicago's summary of EC, and especially this: "gifted musical historian".

EC understands (and appreciates and loves) more about the history of popular music forms than most musicians, and most people. I can see that to some this leads to an "electicism" that they don't like (I read a Simon Reynolds live review saying this in ... July 1989!!), but at this point I'd rather admire the way that someone who's spent so much of his own time being creative has also been so scholarly and curious about the history of the various forms he hears.

Thanks Tim. I don't think I would have nominated any of those in my LPs of the 1980s, but I'm happy to see EC's work on them recognised - and 3 different genres? (Ska, New Wave, folk?)

Poster birdistheword wrote:

Those were all songs meant for other people, and you can see how they were tailored for the people they were written for, but I think they work better as Elvis Costello recordings. I think Joyce Millman nails it: "Costello's vision of his idols, his ideas of what his idols represent (or ought to), is often more complicated than their own view of themselves." When someone else does a better job, it's usually because Costello can't get a grasp of the song himself (like "Girls Talk," which he gave away partly because he never recorded it himself in a satisfactory way). But I don't think there are many covers that do a better job than his original recordings because his songs end up feeling too idiosyncratic and too personal to be re-interpreted easily by anyone else.

The quotation in the middle here is amusingly / poignantly very reminiscent of the time that EC wrote a (very good) song for Roger McGuinn, and (McGuinn said) sent it to him with a note saying "Sing this in the style of the Byrds' session cover of 'Positively 4th Street' crossed with the 1970 bootlegged outtake version of 'Chestnut Mare'", or the like. He had a more intensive and obsessive vision of McGuinn's past than McGuinn did.

Are you all talking about a person called Bill Wyman who is not the lecherous veteran bass player Bill Wyman?

― the pinefox, Wednesday, 1 September 2021 09:40 (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yep, same name, different person.

There's a whole bunch of covers done better than EC himself. Wyatt, Orbison, Edmunds, corps de blimey the list goes on...

I think "The Comedians" was rewritten.

Yeah, but still.

Also, "I love you when you sleep" Tracie Young, became "Joe Porterhouse" but.

Perhaps uniquely, I don't prefer Robert Wyatt's version to EC's.

I'm glad someone else agrees. I'm scared of sharing that position.

(and I like Wyatt's version)

Oddly enough I am very used to hearing people say they prefer the Costello version. (This may be because when I talk about Ec it’s usually with the Pinefox). I do not prefer the Costello version.

I don't have a preference, Wyatt and Costello's versions of "Shipbuilding" are both great. I already mentioned "Girls Talk" - Costello never recorded it in a satisfactory manner so he made the right call in giving it to Edmunds & Rockpile. I like Orbison's version of the rewritten "The Comedians," but plenty of people have knocked it for being self-parody. In terms of other favorite covers, Nick Lowe's "Indoor Fireworks" and Chet Baker's "Almost Blue" are great, but I wouldn't say they were better or inferior to Costello's. Allison Krauss's "The Scarlet Tide" is probably better - FWIW, her version was the 'original' version.

Forgot, "The Lovers That Never Were" - Costello wrote about this in is his book. McCartney eventually recorded it for Off the Ground (not a very good album), but Costello always preferred their original 1987 demo and hoped it would see release. It's possible he knew that was already in consideration for an upcoming box set given the way he expressed that in his book, and fortunately it was - both in the original recording and this new mix by Geoff Emerick, which is probably more suitable for release if they wanted to use it on an actual album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7fjjZ5iFpk

I like it, and I saw Costello perform it live. He only did it for like a week because of that box set, and it was actually pretty awesome - I don't think many in the crowd knew it, but everyone around me listened attentively and went nuts after it was over.