Review of ATUB
Raleigh News and Observer, NC, 1996-06-02


"How To Get Back In The Groove" 
by David Menconi   ***3 STARS

     If anybody deserves to feel bitter about his undeserved obscurity, it's
Elvis Costello. Fortunately for his listeners, he hasn't totally succumbed to
the lack-of-fame blues. Where frustration over their cult status has turned
his one-time contemporaries Graham Parker and Joe Jackson into crushing
bores, Costello continues to cast his net farther afield, finding better
things to get riled up about.
     Costello's latest, "All This Useless Beauty" (Warner Bros.), is another
fine textbook from the guilt-and-revenge school of living. The title track's
female narrator would "be tempted to spit if she wasn't so lady-like," as she
compares her shlubby husband with the attractive works of art in a museum.
The subject of "Poor Fractured Atlas" is a pathetic weekend warrior who
spends his free time "out in the woods with his squirrel gun to try and
recapture his anger." And the punch line to "It's Time" is "But if you do
have to leave me, who will I have left to hate?"
     Now that is one twisted co-dependent relationship.
     Angry songs call for angry music, and there's no group better at playing
angry than the Attractions (back again after their reunion with Costello on
1994's "Brutal Youth," which ended an eight year estrangement). Also back in
Costello's fold is producer Geoff Emerick, who produced his 1982 "Imperial
Bedroom" album. Emerick gives "All This Useless Beauty" a similarly
impeccable pop sheen, keyed around Steve Nieve's crashing piano dramatics.
     Considering the fractured origins of its material, "All This Useless
Beauty" holds together remarkably well. The album's core consists of a
half-dozen songs originally written for (and in some cases rejected by) other
artists, including Johnny Cash and June Tabor. In a way, then, this makes two
albums of covers in a row, following his 1995 collection of obscure soul
chestnuts "Kojac Variety"---except this time, Costello is covering other
artists covering him.
     Since he's reclaiming songs he gave away, the obvious exercise is to mix
and match them with Costello albums. "The Other End of the Telescope"
(recorded by 'Til Tuesday in 1988) would have sounded right at home on 1986's
folksy "King of America". "Why Can't A Man Stand Alone," a slow-burn soul
ballad written for Sam & Dave's Sam Moore, sounds tailor-made for 1980's "Get
Happy!!" And the sweeping "You Bowed Down" (recorded by Roger McGuinn in
1991) would have added some accessibility to 1991's impenetrable "Mighty Like
A Rose."
     While that's a fun game for Costello fans, it also makes "All This
Useless Beauty" perhaps the ultimate preaching-to-the-converted item in his
catalog---and he doesn't seem to care a whit about it. If he weren't such an
obvious crank, you'd be tempted to describe Costello as sanguine.