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Appearing on Saturday Night Live last December, Elvis Costello strummed the opening chords of "Less Than Zero," stopped suddenly, sputtered a terse "There's no sense in playing this now," whirled around to make sure his band caught the cue, turned back, glared at the camera and launched into "Radio, Radio" — a bitter indictment of "progressive" FM radio, the medium that played a key part in turning his debut album, My Aim Is True, into a commercial success.
Doesn't matter. Costello views the radio as an anathema scarcely living up to its potential. While his music was heavily played, new wave compatriots like the Sex Pistols were offhandedly rejected. Too loud, too offensive, too controversial. So with faintly concealed vehemence, Costello spat out "I want to bite the hand that feeds me / I want to bite that hand so badly / I want to make them wish they'd never seen me." Following that was a damning, "the radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools trying to anesthetize the way that you feel."
Strong stuff, but as anyone who enjoyed My Aim Is True knows, Costello is not one to mince words. Now This Year's Model (Columbia JC 35331) continues where the first album left off and rest assured Elvis' success has not tempered his iconoclasm one iota. Of the 11 songs, only "Radio, Radio" is targeted at an institution; the other 10 (particularly "No Action," "Hand in Hand" and "Lip Service") are directed at individuals who have rejected the singer in some way. For Costello, the rejection is rechanneled into resentment, revenge and spite — at times chillingly so. Costello leers about "changing someone's facial design."
Yet, Costello's rather narrow-minded themes are guised as wondrously tight rock 'n' roll — upbeat, punchy keyboard frills, driving bass lines and propulsive tom toms keep the songs charging ahead, each unique in itself. Costello himself plays sparse guitar, entirely rhythmic, and reserves the spare instrumental breaks for the others. Vocally, he is reminiscent of Springsteen, but the comparisons end at that point. Springsteen envelopes his scenarios with embellished characters and a variety of contrasting themes and images. Costello will have none of it; his songs are manicly urgent, and to the point, as if he's eager to get on with it and attack another subject.
Still, for all his speed, Costello is careful with phrasings; words placed in and around the beat and melody work expertly. This juxtaposition of vibrant rock (with influences as varied as the pub scene and reggae) and taut expressive vocals make This Year's Model a success on par with My Aim Is True. Costello may, in the future, have to expand his concerns beyond his current preoccupations, but he is now an inventive and creative artist who will achieve an even wider audience with this album. Look for heavy FM airplay.
The time is now for Nick Lowe. Besides producing both Costello albums, Lowe is a musician in his own right. A master pop craftsman, Lowe told Trouser Press, "I think of everything in terms of 2½, 3 minute pictures. It's like painting a picture; every spare bit, every bit you don't need, dump it. You've just got the idea of a song, you've got the vocal good, a little bit of arrangement a clever bit in the solo or something like that; so everything is needed. I'm good at doing that. I know I am. There's not many things I'm good at but I know I'm good at that."
Indeed he is. Singing and playing bass (with backing from Dave Edmunds Rockpile), Lowe's long awaited album Pure Pop For Now People (Columbia JC 35329) is finally available. Twelve boppers that gain inspiration from virtually every sub-division of British pop, Lowe's debut LP is a veritable cornucopia of distinct infectious melodies coupled with an insightful sense of irony. Lowe shifts effortlessly in and out of hard rock, ballad, reggae and light funk, leaving no rough edges. But he is no diletante; Lowe has an astute and consummate knowledge of the idiom, and like Paul McCartney at his best, Lowe has the intangible ability to bang out incredibly simplistic songs, based around one or two ingenious hooks. a few chords, and (unlike Big Mac) some cryptic and witty lyrics.
The tunes that make up Pure Pop are only a fraction of the Lowe catalog, but they are representative. Power pop is etched with Lowe's double A side single from 1976, "So It Goes / Heart of the City." The former is a light jab at the rock business and life in general with the bouncy "and so it goes" refrain overcoming more cynical stanzas. And the latter contains in 2:02 some perceptive lyrical quirks. Our hero finds himself thrown into a new city and goes from "Lookin' for a lover in the heart of the city" to "Checkin' the meat in the heart of the city." All to a buoyant mid-sixties structure that bristles with life.
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