Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, May 13, 2001

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Elvis Costello aims For the Stars, and
gets there, in another unlikely collaboration


Arthur Paul Bowen

It was with a great deal of anticipation that I bought the recently released collaboration between rock legend Elvis Costello and Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie Von Otter titled For the Stars. To begin with, I am a huge Elvis Costello fan who very much enjoyed Painted From Memory, Costello's previous collaborative effort with the legendary songwriter Burt Bacharach. It was generally a hoot to hear Costello's hard-boiled lyrics filtered through Bacharach's excessively lush, if not downright campy, arrangements. It was a mess, but what a delightful mess.

Here, the two artists could not be more dissimilar. Costello, his stage name an amalgam of the monikers of Elvis Presley and Lou Costello, is best known for his work with his band — The Attractions — which featured crashing rhythm lines and rat-a-tat lyrics riven with mordant cynicism. It is almost disconcerting to see his homely mug, framed by the trademark black-rimmed glasses and porkpie hat, beaming from the cover shot on a recording issued by Deutsche Grammophon, the stuffy label of Herbert Von Karajan and other practitioners of High German Art.

Von Otter, on the other hand, regal and beautiful, possesses an extensive classical repertoire ranging from baroque to 20th century and is known also for her strong physical presence on the stage, something Costello has rarely been accused of having. An odder pairing can scarcely be imagined, a problem both performers evidently realized going into the studio.

As Costello puts it in the press notes accompanying the release, "There have been some fairly wretched records made by classical singers doing popular repertoire. Sometimes I feel that the singers don't really believe in the music. They do it in a frivolous frame of mind, and they don't pay enough respect to the composition."

On the other hand, Von Otter describes her background as being "very old school classical training."

"I am very fixed on the music page and I tend to stick very closely to what's written there," she says. "When you try to sing pop or jazz like that, you can't do it because it sounds very corny. And Elvis is from the opposite end where he learns it all by ear."

Further complicating the task was the fact that whereas pop performers can spend months in a studio "fine-tuning" a product (Lucinda Williams comes to mind), most classical recordings usually take no more than five days or so. This is because the more highly acclaimed classical performers have schedules that the average professional tennis player would find formidable and they simply don't have time to fool around. That, and you could finance the colonization of space with what it would take to pay union-scale musicians for much beyond that time frame.

Most of the time, the outcome is even worse when a popular artist takes a stab at classical music. This is because performing classical music requires at least a passing acquaintance with technique. Two tools an "old school," classically trained singer like Von Otter has in her DNA are breath support and diction. The gifts Costello brought to the project are intelligence, a respect for production values and the good sense to stay the hell out of the way while Von Otter did all of the heavy lifting.

The end result is nothing short of wondrous. For the Stars is a collection of ballads and torch songs written by the likes of Kate McGarrigle, Tom Waits, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson, Costello and others. The frothy, insulin shock-inducing arrangements featured in the earlier collaboration with Bacharach are sensibly junked in favor of sparse yet beautiful playing by a small ensemble of strings (the Swedish foursome Fleshquartet), horns, guitars, percussion and keyboards.

"Go Leave," "The Other Woman" and Costello's "Baby Plays Around" are classic "he done me wrong" tear-jerkers, with Von Otter's voice sounding as much like an alto sax as a human being. The old ABBA song "Like An Angel Passing Through My Room," a lovely if melancholy piece, has a chord progression that Felix Mendelssohn would have been proud to have called his own. Which would have been only fair, seeing as how he pretty much wrote it to begin with.

"For the Stars," the last song on the recording, is a bubbly duet between the performers. I ought to hate it, but I can't. "Green Song" is a haunting piece evocative of Celtic music in its mood and the beauty of its lyrics.

Speaking of lyrics, one of the remarkable aspects of the recording is the consistent beauty of the text in all of the songs. One of the problems with Painted From Memory was that Bacharach's music forced Costello way out of his vocal range fully a third of the time. This pushed him into an overwrought, highly stylized performance of what should have been the best works on the recording. Dionne Warwick, he ain't.

This is no knock on Costello. The woods are full of rock stars who are not great singers Lou Reed, Neil Young, and anyone in the B-52's come immediately to mind. The problem was that by hyperventilating all over the place on Painted From Memory instead of singing, Costello obscured the beauty of his text.

As if to make amends, the excellent "This House Is Empty Now" reappears on this latest recording. In Costello's earlier reading of the piece, you could practically picture him with a gun at his head, so worked up is he. Which is fine. He wrote it, he can sing it any way he wants to.

However, Von Otter, relying on — guess what? — breath support, phrasing and technique, slows the piece way down. She has read the ending of this achingly sad story and is in no hurry to take us there with her. Her languid rendition gets out of the way of Costello's bitter lyrics, to great effect. By the time she sings the final line, "This house is empty now" a cappella at triple piano, you realize that you have been shot in the heart.

But my favorite song on the CD is a rapturous love song titled "Take It With Me" by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, which features the following lines: "In a land there's a town, and in that town there's a house, and there inside that house lives a man. And in that man there's a heart that I love, I'm gonna take it with me when I go."

In less capable hands, these lines could be reduced to utter schmaltz. Von Otter's rendition is nothing less than a profound testament to the steadfast hope of human love.

It is rare in these times, where the bottom line governs practically every aspect of the business of making music, that a couple of artists are given free rein to go for the moon. It is rarer still when they hit that sucker right in the forehead. For the Stars does just that.

Arthur Paul Bowen is a lawyer, writer and failed music major who lives in Little Rock.


Tags: For The StarsAnne Sofie von OtterPainted From MemoryBurt BacharachElvis PresleyThe AttractionsDeutsche GrammophonLucinda WilliamsKate McGarrigleTom WaitsJohn LennonPaul McCartneyBrian WilsonFleshquartetGo LeaveThe Other WomanBaby Plays AroundABBALike An Angel Passing Through My RoomFor The Stars (song)Green SongDionne WarwickLou ReedNeil YoungThis House Is Empty NowTake It With MeKathleen Brennan

Copyright 2001, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

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Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, May 13, 2001


Arthur Paul Bowen reviews For The Stars.

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For The Stars album cover.jpg

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