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"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture," Elvis Costello is rumored to have said. And writing about Costello is an equally daunting task. To begin to understand him, you first must ask yourself the question: How can an artist who did everything possible to commit musical hara-kiri for the past 25 years still be viable in the music industry? The answer is simple. Costello's influences are varied, his collaborators distinguished, his catalog strange, and his attitude toward music — psychologically speaking, schizophrenia and attention deficit disorder wrapped up in a not-so-neat bow — markedly different from the plethora of '70s artists mounting yet another we're-only-in-it-for-the-money tour. He is the complete and total opposite of a sellout, as his not-so-stellar record sales attest.
Costello has managed to remain a creative force despite — or maybe because of — his confrontational and seemingly self-destructive nature. He landed his first major record deal with Columbia by getting arrested for busking in front of the CBS offices in London. In 1977, when appearing on Saturday Night Live, he cut his band off during the first few bars of "Less Than Zero" and performed the anti-media rocker "Radio, Radio," prompting a ban from the show until 1989. Add fights with Rolling Stone, MTV, and Warner Bros. Records, and Costello is lucky he was not blacklisted altogether.
Costello has worked with legendary producer T Bone Burnett and received his first commercial success with the Paul McCartney collaboration "Veronica" in 1989. He learned to read and write sheet music to record The Juliet Letters, an album of classical tunes with the acclaimed Brodsky Quartet.
North, his latest album, is an attempt at quasi-jazz standards, divided between melancholy descriptions of the end of a love and optimistic hopes for a new one. Hear Costello sing songs from this and some of his 23 other albums at Mizner Park Amphitheatre (Federal Highway at NE Mizner Boulevard, Boca Raton) at 8 p.m. Tickets cost $43 to $55.
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