Review of Rhino re-release of My AIm Is True, Spike and All
This Useless Beauty
Uncut, 2001-11-01
- Peter Doggett
BRILLIANT MISTAKES
ELVIS COSTELLO
MY AIM IS TRUE *****
SPIKE **
ALL THIS USELESS BEAUTY ****
All Edsel
Yellow, but far
from mellow |
|
|
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Three reissues from Beloved Entertainer with extra tracks and copious
sleeve-notes
The golden rule of rock archaeology is that no-one is worse equipped
to handle their catalogue than the artist. Allow a musician to control
his history and he'll either fake it (McCartney), misread it (Springsteen)
or bury it (Young). Most can't explain how they do what they do, and
wouldn't want to if they could.
The exception is Elvis Costello, rock's most articulate chronicler
of his own creativity. In the Nineties, he subjected his pre-1986 catalogue
to ordeal by self-analysis, unearthing painful memories and embarrassing
outtakes for each of his first 12 albums. Now the flagellation begins
again, only this time the whip cuts deeper - longer sleeve-notes (more
space for self-mocking anecdotes), a bonus disc of outtakes for each
album (more exhibitions of creativity stalled or misdirected). He's
become a snake consuming his own tail: soon he won't be able to write
a song without penning an explanatory note to disembowel it.
Yet the benefits to his own psyche aside, this process is a boon to
admirers and ambulance-chasers, accentuating both the strengths and
weaknesses of his oeuvre. My Aim Is True - which adds vastly extended
annotation to the previous reissue plus four extra tracks, among them
a beautifully chaotic first shot at "No Action" - remains
as classic a pop album as A Hard Day`s Night or Parade. Costello's debt
to his heroes, from Spector to The Band, may be easier to recognise
than in 1977; so, too, is the self-confidence of his loser persona.
None of the virtues of that debut - brevity, precision, directness
- survived on 1989's Spike. It was over-written (check the demo version
of "Miss Macbeth" against the finished master), over-arranged
(so filled with subtle touches that it was like being trapped in a wind-chimes
store during a hurricane), over-sung, over-felt and over-long (the anti-Thatcher
rant "Tramp The Dirt Down" seems to last longer than the Evil
`Soon he won't be able to write a song without penning
a sleeve-note to disembowel it'
Empire itself). My Aim Is True created a new universe in 30 minutes;
.Spike drowned you in excruciating detail for an hour. For once, the
bonus material is less a pleasure than a penance. Almost wilfully uncommercial,
.Spike sabotaged Costello as a commercial force. Since then, it's taken
hype to remind the world of his existence - an Attractions reunion,
or the Bacharach collaboration. Ironically, both those projects pale
alongside 1996's unheralded All This Useless Beauty, now extended to
epic status with an extra disc of experiments as intriguing as the album
itself. Costello unveiled the best singing of his career here, purring
and insinuating where he'd once hectored and rasped. And though his
songs lacked the cultural significance he'd assumed by right in the
Eighties, they carried an internal truth that was more affecting. The
final track, "I Want To Vanish", echoed "Riot Act"
on Get Happy 16 years earlier as an artistic suicide note. Costello
hasn't made an orthodox `solo' album since, yet All This Useless Beauty
proved that his aim could still be true. As Joni Mitchell once wrote:
"The times you impress me most are the times when you don't try."
Peter Doggett