Elvis Costello has given his fans a gift in the form of All This Useless Beauty, (Warner Bros.) a ballad-heavy collection of Costelloian gems that are quite useful, when all is said and done.
Costello, at the Mann Music Center tomorrow night along with The Attractions and Ron Sexsmith as the opener, hasn't sounded better. His discourses on urban and social decay are comfortably familiar, his love songs gently bewildered. While this may be the mildest mannered album he's ever made, Costello stirs the soup with gently biting lyrics.
He takes to task the protagonist of the title song for her failed modesty and pale compromise. It's just the way he does it that is so tender. He can tell you to go to hell, and it doesn't sting a bit.
Costello, who first performed under his given name Declan MacManus in 1969, has had many of his 300 songs recorded by other artists, including Roger McGuinn (McGuinn did "You Bowed Down" which is on Costello's latest), George Jones and Roy Orbison. He's produced The Specials, Squeeze and the Pogues, as well as recording and performing with the likes of Neil Young, Dylan and the Count Basie Orchestra.
But somehow, Costello is at his best stripped bare. Sans cellos and full of the smoldering verve that he's so good at. Two decades after his record debut, Costello's aim is as true as ever.
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