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Throughout his long, eclectic career, Elvis Costello has retained his marvelous dramatic phrasing and gorgeous sense of melancholy. However, if you feel as I do that some of his recent albums lacked a focused sense of creative pop songwriting, then you will want to rush down to your favorite record vendor for All This Useless Beauty. It's the most varied, unpretentious batch of tunes he's released in years.
Opening with "The Other End of the Telescope," we hear the Elvis of years past with a bright, scaling piano and a lost love flair, Graham Parker style. The slow, sardonic title track finds him still getting into the heads of his characters. "It is times like this / She's tempted to spit / If she wasn't so ladylike." Heavy keyboards are offset by a silly mellotron in "Distorted Angel," which sports the same flat production we always hear in his records.
The quick, bright "Shallow Grave," written with Paul McCartney, has tight harmonies and a sharp show tune feel. This collaboration could easily write a Broadway musical. The tender piano waltz "Poor Fractured Atlas" contains more bitterness so eloquent: "I'm almost certain / he's trying to increase his burden." A cover of Roger McGuinn's "You Bowed Down" is accented by that classic Costello sneer.
The whole set is so magical and touching, it may even recruit new fans for the old master. And as Oscar Wilde said, "All art is completely useless," so get yourself a free afternoon to indulge in fruitless awe of this beauty.
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