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Years ago there was an album called Ten Bloody Mary's and Ten How's Your Fathers, on which Elvis Costello gave all the lost b-sides and wandering out-takes in his mammoth repertoire a lasting home and gainful employment on a proper LP. It was a sort of Now That's What Elvis Calls Music job and a jolly fine wheeze it was.
Now here comes its half-mad twin brother, drawn from the years in which Costello's gone through more names and personality changes than Dr Who — hence the 'various artists' tag.
And a perplexing beast it is. Spanning the 80s anal a galaxy of musical styles, it sounds like night-time radio from a parallel universe populated exclusively by King of the Belgians clones.
The quasi-marxist country duet (yes) "The Peoples Limousine" is here, and so's the sublime title track from Imperial Bedroom, a fairy tale vignette with a curdled centre.
There's 60s, 70s, and 80s pop, R'n'B, post-punk and the Langer-Winstanley sound, but through it all runs Costello's own poisonous note of wounded bile. Love's been unkind to most of us but poor old Elv's been singled out for special treatment.
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