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Two artists who have been inextricably linked since the beginning of their recording careers are British singer-songwriters Elvis Costello and Graham Parker. Both began recording in the early days of new wave (Parker in 1976, Costello in 1977), and were associated with the movement, less because they had an affinity with it than because they didn't have an affinity with the pompous, overproduced sludge that ruled the airwaves at the time.
Their styles are similar, and these two are probably living proof that just because one act sounds like another, doesn't mean anyone is copying and it doesn't discredit either artist. Their rough, emotional voices are similar, both in sound and phrasing. Both write succinct, well-crafted tunes with clever yet deeply felt lyrics. Both avoid using unnecessary musical pyrotechnics; they both prefer to go for the jugular.
And both have long been critics' darlings, deeply respected by people in the music business. Both have been almost totally ignored by the public. Both have just released new albums. Costello's is Punch the Clock, Parker's The Real Macaw. (If my counting is correct, this is the ninth album for each.) It would be nice to be able to state: "This is the one that will do it for him, blah blah blah ..." But after a few years in the business, you know better than to make predictions like that.
Costello probably should have been a major hit-maker years ago. Despite early acceptance by album-oriented radio, it never happened. He acquired a none-too-savory reputation for hostility and abusiveness and many people in the music business found manager Jake Riviera's personality a little too interesting for their taste.
Costello also became known as a writer of hostile, anti-female songs, which was largely a bum rap. Certainly he was never a sweetness-and-light writer — why do you think there is an Air Supply? But his songs have always been too specific and personal to claim that they express such generalized attitudes.
On Punch the Clock, Costello has lightened up. He has added jaunty horns that give an old-timey flavor to his basic bank. He continues to be a strong melodist and an original lyricist — though many of his lyrics are a little too specific. They read like scenes from a script that the listener hasn't heard the rest of. One picks up the meanings of songs like "The Element Within Her" and "Shipbuilding" by inference from Costello's vocal attitude.
Despite Costello's reputation as an "angry" songwriter, mad at all the women who loused him up, he has included a powerfully affirmative love song here called "The Greatest Thing." In it Costello plays his own mistrustfulness off an almost childlike sense of wonder, with the latter the winner by a nose.
Parker also has come around from an angry victim stance to a more positive one. On "Anniversary," he actually sings the line, "Darling, can't you see, how much I love you on our anniversary." Did he steal that from Air Supply?
Yet Parker, like Costello, has that torn, close-to-the-bone vocal quality that lets him get away with it and not sound corny. And most of the other tunes retain some of his familiar, nearly amelodic fierceness. "Glass Jaw" and "Sounds like Chains" still project some of the danger Parker has always seen in love relationships (though he's always been a bit gentler than Costello). And "Life Gets Better" is very similar in approach to Costello's "The Greatest Thing," playing real-life obstacles off a fulfilled hopefulness. Both songs depict the bitter, negative things the writers have sung about in the past and then go beyond and above them.
The Real Macaw is a dramatic commercial advance over last year's Another Grey Area. (I'm still not saying it will sell!) For that one, he employed producer Jack Douglas who makes artists sound like mush. Parker has a furious, hard-to-digest style that needs clarification, not muddling.
He gets that here. The Real Macaw is a clean album with some neat music touches, such as some distinctive guitar work courtesy of Brinsley Schwartz. The songs are allowed to come through, in focus. The biggest difference between Costello and Parker is that Costello has always known instinctively how to wed a raw musical sound and a well-structured song. Parker is less consistent in his results.
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