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In the three years since the release of his first album, My Aim is True, rock-and-roller Elvis Costello has been labeled by many rock critics and fans as one of the genre's major trend-setters. But Costello's latest release, Get Happy, defines him more as a follower of current musical fashion than a leader.
Costello has culled a collection of 20 tunes, mostly toe-tappers, in what seems to be a musical sampler for the Eighties. The variety of influences skips from uptempo Jamaican reggae to the Sixties soul sound of the Four Tops and The Jackson Five.
Twenty songs on one record is quite a challenge for an artist of Costello's ambition; he's never been one to fill in a lot of "yeah-yeahs" to carry a catchy melody. Because of space limitations, each point must be stated in succinct, unambiguous terms, in three minutes or less. If the listener feels that the point should be further explained to be understood, then the artist has obviously undershot the mark.
On each offering of Get Happy, Costello quickly makes his point, then gets off it before it stabs him. Most of the melodies are catchy and danceable, like those on Top 40 radio. But unlike Top 40 tunes, each of Costello's carries its own particular message, delivered through the caustic barbs of an unrequited lover.
Nick Lowe, the Milton Berle of pop, produced Get Happy, and Costello seems to have acquired Lowe's penchant for "borrowing" melodic riffs from Top 40 hits of the past 20 years. Get Happy has enough hooks to hang the hats of Parliament.
Costello blends the various influences effectively: "5ive Gears in Reverse" is a funky, upbeat tune akin to Lowe's current "Cracking Up." "I Can't Stand Up for Falling Down" and "High Fidelity" are cuts that trade on the rhythms and melodies of the Four Tops. Costello's aim is true on these and on "Secondary Modern," a Temptations-style ballad. But "Possession," "Black and White World," "New Amsterdam," and "Riot Act," a cheap melodrama, miss their marks. Unlike Lowe, Costello continues to draw heavily on the upbeat, syncopated reggae rhythms that are the backbone (or is it backbeat?) of the current trend in British pop music. "Opportunity" and "B-Movie" are cuts of prime example, as is "Human Touch," which has a bouncy, vibrant quality, like that of music now being produced by such British acts as the Specials and the Clash.
Costello's backup band, the Attractions, joins him for the fourth time on Get Happy, his fourth LP, and they form a tight, soulful backup troup with a spare but insistent sound. The carnival-organ embroidery of the Attractions' Steve Naive dances in and out of nearly every tune less obviously — hence more effectively — than on Costello's two previous LP's, Armed Forces and This Year's Model.
Although Lowe's production causes Costello's voice to sound muddled at times, what is discernible is the continued bite of a bitter man who seems bent on projecting a blood and rusted nails image. In the past he has written caustic lyrics of revenge, and many were literally menacing ("Don't ask me to apologize / I won't ask you to forgive me / If I'm gonna go down, / You're gonna come with me," from This Year's Model). He hasn't let up on this decade's model, either, with lines like, "If you've got nimble fingers, then you'd better count me out" and "B-movie, that's all you are to me / Just a sad soap story / Don't want no woman to act on me." Get Happy seems a tongue-in-cheek exhortation.
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