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The advent of Elvis Costello — from where? — revealed marvelous talents that eluded total dissection. Volatile Elvis (who took his name while Presley was alive) appeared as a seamless, full-blown phenomenon; although the songs on My Aim is True were simple enough on the surface, they had lines pulled from another, unknown language. "I used to be disgusted / But now I try to be amused," and "You never asked me what I wanted / You only asked me why," didn't so much strive for accessibility as emit a tantalizing aura that made the tunes stick in the mind but good. And Costello flaunted a perfect chemistry of opposites: the eager-to-please look of a nerd vs. acid-tongued vocals. No revelation about the "real" Elvis — true name (Declan Patrick MacManus), background (computer operator) — dispelled the fascinating and opaque sense of Other that gave even his failures ("No Dancing") a glow.
This Year's Model, as per its title, was not so much a progression as a refinement. Banished were the loping backup and the confused jerk. In come the Attractions, an aggressive three-piece dominated by a "96 Tears" organ, and a new image for Elvis: He was a hardened hit-man, who'd exchanged callow sexual neuroses for untempered bitterness. Costello rampaged his terrain like a monster looking for some sort of unholy revenge. This was coherence: tough guy, tough songs, tough delivery.
This is also the stuff with which graves are dug. In concentrating his attack, Elvis was leaving himself no way out, no alternatives. As the sour Costello persona swelled, obscuring even the cleverness of his melodies, so did the likelihood that he wouldn't be seen in any other light. What might he sound like by the fifth album — a nihilistic roar of white noise? Unmistakable warning signs to that effect come from his rendition of "I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself" on Stiffs Live, in which Elvis sounded more pissed-off than put-down. A great performance in its own perverse way, but distinctly wrong for the material.
Armed Forces offers plenty more of the deranged sicko that Elvis fans have come to expect. For your pleasure: hostility ("I wanna chop off your head and watch it roll into the basket"), paranoia ("She's listening in to the Venus line and taking down names / Hope none of them are mine") and, ho-hum, romantic rejection ("So you belong to someone else and I will be your stranger just pretending"). If possible, the Costello line regarding sex has become even more disdainful; "Busy Bodies" offers this jaundiced observation of "casual" (in Elvis' mind, anyway) relations: "You do the dirty business with your latest sleeping partner." There are even new wrinkles on the abhorrence of fascism displayed in "Less Than Zero" and (on the British This Year's Model) "Night Rally." From the examination of militarism in "Oliver's Army" to the neo-Nazi horrors (or is he describing the rock world?) of "Goon Squad," Elvis manages to preserve his political correctness, if not his good taste — "You'll never get to make a lampshade out of me." In short, dodgy business as usual. Bang your head, or somebody else's, against the wall!
What rescues these bellicose, if energetic, proceedings from the danger of being "just another Elvis album" and makes Armed Forces something startling is Nick Lowe's inspired production. In the past, Lowe's job at the knobs has been to set the meters and come back a week later. But now he's decided to share the little tricks he used on his own lp with someone else: Phased vocals, panning backgrounds, unexpected echoes and massed choruses move in and out of the mix in rapid succession. In place of Elvis' disappearing guitar comes an onslaught from Steve Naive's keyboards, overdubbed in profusion until they fairly spill out of the arrangements. "Oliver's Army," with a different voice, could be a tinkly Abba song; "Green Shirt" uses a synthesizer to flute about in a Renaissance manner harking directly back to Magical Mystery Tour. (Sometimes Lowe goes too far: The studio-complex "Accidents Will Happen" doesn't approach the impact of the simple, piano-and-voice live version.) Were it not for Elvis' commanding presence, it might be possible to wallow in the shifting textures of Armed Forces without paying any heed to the words.
Given such stimulation, it's not surprising that Costello has responded with an album that for once doesn't seem cut from a single cloth. With Naive's battery of instruments at the ready, the tone of the music varies sharply from one song to the next. "Accidents Will Happen" has a Procol Harum stateliness; "Moods for Moderns" is an R&B steamer akin to "Pump It Up," but with a humorous novelty edge that destroys any lyrical pretensions; "Two Little Hitlers" is reggae reborn as rock. Blasphemy of blasphemies, Lowe's production often renders the vocals unintelligible. The songs work fine regardless.
"Party Girl" indicates that Costello is feeling his oats as a writer, rather than as a personality. The musical references are unavoidable: Beginning like a lugubrious George Harrison song, the tune finally wends its way to a conclusion lifted straight from the Beatles' "You Never Give Me Your Money." Costello's arrogance is finally triumphant; he dares you to see the song as anyone's but his, and gets away with it. And the lyrics (as in "Accidents") hint at a new maturity of vision, one that requires him to be neither victim nor scornful avenger, but something in between. Regarding the party girl who will "settle for anything in disguise of love," he finally admits "I'm a guilty party and I want my slice," quite a concession from someone who's always been ready to draw up battle lines for World War III. Because he's an object of sympathy like the woman he pities, and condescends to, it's touching and poignant, a troubling shade of gray instead of Elvis' customary black and white.
Still, the cumulative effect of Armed Forces is like going through the washing machine of life on a heavy spin cycle — until the last number. "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding," done up Born to Run-style, is the sort of thing Elvis could never write; it took the cynical facility of Nick Lowe to lament "this wicked world" and issue a call for "sweet harmony." But only Costello can generate the unironic and righteous indignation necessary to lift the song out of hippie doubletalk. It's the logical culmination of an album's collaboration that brings out the best in both men, and it's the missing link, an explanation of why Elvis gets so hopped up about these troubled times. By rising above an Old Testament vindictiveness to a more positive form of aggression, Costello renounces all claim to being a deity, but opens up a whole new world of human, and humane, possibilities.
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