The Elvis Costello Home Page

Awards

1. 1986
1. Q: The Best Albums of 1986
   #46 - Blood And Chocolate
   Costello made two LPs in ’86, but where the first (King Of America) was sweetness and light, Blood And Chocolate was a dark brooding and wounded brute of a thing. From the bilious rumble of Uncomplicated to the festering jealously of I Want You, or the paranoid cynicism of Tokyo Storm Warning, he wallowed in themes of raw revenge and curdled love. The Attractions, to cap it all, played like some crudely inebriated garage band, belligerently sloppy. A weirdly murky album, this, and Costello’s most compelling in years.
   
2. 1989
1. Q: The Best Albums of 1989
   #4 - Spike
   In which the Beloved Entertainer finds new friends (McCartney, McGuinn, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Donal Lunny, Davy Spillane), new vehemence (if that's possible) and some of his best songs for years. The McCartney/McManus collaboration Veronica gave EC his biggest hit since his Next Big Thing days, but the scarifying Let Him Dangle, the vituperative This Town, the aching Baby Plays Around and the bloodily ironic God's Comic are among the highlights of an album densely packed with good things.
   
3. 1991
1. Q: The Best Albums of 1991
   #5 - Mighty Like A Rose
   It's possible that, 30 years hence, when they write the book about '90s pop, 1991 will emerge as the year Costello crossed over. Having been a critics' darling and cult hero since the mid-70s, he widened his appeal with 1989's brilliantly eclectic Spike, then surfed atop the mainstream with the dense arrangements, chunky playing and impassioned vocals of Mighty Like A Rose. Intriguingly, the classical music he has been enjoying for the past two years surfaces in cleverly integrated trumpet flourishes, spinet continuos and chamber music-like embellishments. Despite incorporating contributions from half the musos in America plus Paul McCartney, it stands as perhaps his most coherent and personal album yet.
   
4. 1994
   1. Grammy Awards:
      1. Album Of The Year: MTV Unplugged - Tony Bennett
      2. Best Traditional Pop Vocal Perfromance: MTV Unplugged - Tony Bennett
         
   2. Mojo: The 25 Best Albums of 1994
      #19 - Brutal Youth
      A pragmatic move this reunion with the Attractions may have been, but it was as much of a relief to hear El singing taut, punchy pop songs again as it was to see the removal of his beard. At least half the tracks were as good as anything he's written.
   3. Q: The 50 Best Albums of 1994
      #25 - Brutal Youth
      Putting aside the fact that his collaboration with The Brodsky Quartet actually worked rather well, Costello with strings is ultimately about as attention-grabbing as Botham with a fishing rod. Sure, the man is free to do whatever he wishes but what is he actually good at? The answer is that he's best at rage, revenge and rock'n'roll. Brutal Youth wasn't just Costello giving his long-suffering fans what they'd been longing for but a return to essentials - a sweating man in glasses spontaneously combusting in front of The Attractions' turbuent powerhouse of sound. Armed Forces was never this loud nor this brutal.
      
5. 1996
1. Mojo: The 25 Best Albums of 1996
   #19 - All This Useless Beauty
   Elvis's collection of songs for other people falls loosely round the theme of masculinity and sexual pride. A vocal tour de force, he has never sounded so intimate, so confiding, or (on one occasion) so contemptuous as he does on this excellent Geoff Emerick production.
   
6. 1997
1. Grammy Award
   Best Traditional Soul Gospel Album: I Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray - Fairfield Four
   
2. Grammy Nomination
   Grace Of My Heart
   
7. 1998
1. Mojo: The 25 Best Albums of 1998
   #18 - Painted From Memory
   Lost love is recalled in middle age, its wreckage tidied into exquisite art-pop songs. Elvis strains for Burt's sublime, bittersweet highs, but only hard heartstrings could remain untugged.
2. Q: The 50 Best Albums of 1998
   #15 - Painted From Memory
   A marriage made, if not in heaven then a superior sort of supper club. In the orchestral pop veteran's safe melodic hands Costello turns in a batch of soaring vocal performances while, prompted perhaps by Bacharach's easeful classicism, the lyrics are Costello's most natural ever. They're love songs, some delighted, many confused and sad, but stoic, framed by delicate piano, lonely trumpets and sudden whooshes of grandiosity and cheese only Bacharach can pull off. "I'm not saying there will be violins," sings Costello, "but don't be surprised if they appear." We won't.
   
8. 1999
1. Grammy Awards
   1. Category: Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals
      Song: I Still Have That Other Girl
      Artist: Elvis Costello & Burt Bacharach
      Track from: Painted From Memory
   2. Category: Best Traditional Folk Album
      Long Journey Home - The Chieftains
      Elvis Costello sang and co-wrote the title track.
      
2. Edison Award
   Best International Male Singer
9. 2000
1. Grammy Nomination
   Category 71 - Best Soundtrack Album: Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
   
2. Brit Awards, 2000
   Best Soundtrack/Cast Recording: Notting Hill
10. 2001
1. Grammy Nominations
   Best Soundtrack Album:
   
   1. High Fidelity soundtrack, contains Shipbuilding
   2. The Sopranos soundtrack, contains Complicated Shadow
2. Q Awards
   Q Merit Award
11. 2002
• Edison Award for 2001
  Best Classical Album: awarded to Elvis Costello and Anne Sofie von Otter for For The Stars (both failed to attend)
12. 2003
    1. Grammy Award nominations
       1. Field 4 - Rock, Category 15: Best Male Rock Vocal Performance (For a solo vocal performance. Singles or Tracks only.) Song: 45
          Artist: Elvis Costello
          Track from: When I Was Cruel [Island Records]
          
       2. Field 4 - Rock, Category 21: Best Rock Album (Vocal or Instrumental. Includes Hard Rock and Metal.)
          Album: When I Was Cruel
          Artists: Elvis Costello [Island Records]
       3. Field 5 - Alternative, Category 22: Best Alternative Music Album (Vocal or Instrumental.)
          Album: Cruel Smile
          Artist: Elvis Costello & The Imposters [Island Records]
       4. Field 13 - Blues, Category 65 - Best Contemporary Blues Album (Vocal or Instrumental.)
          Album: Don't Give Up On Me
          Artist: Solomon Burke [Fat Possum Records/Anti], contains The Judgement, written by Elvis Costello.
    2. ASCAP Pop Music Awards
       • ASCAP Founders Award presented to Elvis Costello on 2003-05-20.
13. 2004
• Academy Award Nomination
  Original Song: Scarlet Tide - music & lyrics by T Bone Burnett and Elvis Costello
14. All Time

• Mojo: The 100 Greatest Albums Of All Time
  #69 - This Year's Model
  • The first album cut by Elvis with the Attractions, This Year's Model was recorded in the two-week gap between the band's first and second US tours. Many of the songs were written as the band were forming, the rest written in hotel rooms or on the tour bus and arranged at sound checks. The songs were played so well, both on the first US tour and the preceding Live Stiffs tour, that the band was able to record all the backing tracks in three days. Many of these songs, such as Pump It Up, were recorded live, first take, with very few or no overdubs. If the album sounds dated it is due to the quirky drum sound that was the forte of the French hair stylist who engineered the album. Despite such genuinely original tracks as Lipstick Vogue and I Don't Want To Go To Chelsea, TYM was intended as a 'beat group' album and modelled on the Stones' Aftermath, with obvious references to The Who and The Small Faces. It was an effortless album to make, in the sense that Elvis and band were doing what they did every day - a typical day being one in which Costello and Steve Nieve would end up sleeping on the floor at Bruce Thomas's flat. Its greatness is due mostly to the fact none of them could stop to think about it for too long. No agonised concepts here, and very few arguments. "We were full of the exports of Russia and Peru," says Bruce Thomas today, "and full of ourselves." How long could it last?

- Edison (Holland) 199?: w. BrodskyQ

- Noritoff-Robbins Silver Clef 1995?

- 2• Ivor Novello awards

- Q