Miami Herald, March 14, 1980

From The Elvis Costello Wiki
Jump to navigationJump to search
... Bibliography ...
727677787980818283
848586878889909192
939495969798990001
020304050607080910
111213141516171819
202122232425 26 27 28


Miami Herald

Florida publications

Newspapers

University publications

Magazines and alt. weeklies


US publications by state
  • ALAKARAZCA
  • COCTDCDEFL
  • GAHI   IA      ID      IL
  • IN   KSKYLA   MA
  • MDME   MIMNMO
  • MSMTNC  ND  NE
  • NHNJNMNVNY
  • OHOKORPARI
  • SCSDTNTXUT
  • VAVTWAWIWY

-

A step backward into excellence


Bill Ashton

Elvis Costello
Get Happy!!

Elvis Costello and the Attractions take a giant step backwards with their new album Get Happy!! (Columbia Records).

Not that it's not good. It is very good. But everything about the LP reminds one of the pop scene of the 1960s.

The album cover is in garish Day-glo colors befitting a 13th Floor Elevators record, with an itsy-bitsy note from producer Nick Lowe on the back, promising the listener that despite the large number of songs on the LP, there will be no loss of sound fidelity.

How many songs are we talking about? Twenty of them, ten to a side, like one of those Tee Vee Records collections. Costello always writes short and to-the-point songs, but almost every number on Get Happy!! clocks in at 2½ minutes or less. No room for drum solos here.

There's lots of room for a rinky-dink organ, and Steve Naive's keyboards punctuate Costello's songs in the best tradition of the immortal Question Mark and the Mysterians. Each Costello album has made keyboards a bit more prominent than the last, and Get Happy!! finds virtually everything on side one (or, as the cover says, side two) delightfully dripping with Naive's work. Songs like "Opportunity," "Love for Tender," "Clowntime Is Over" and "The Imposter" should do for organ shops what the other Elvis did for guitar stores.

The happy organ isn't all there is to Get Happy!!. The best songwriter to come out of the New Wave manages to come up with something for everyone here, and proves time and time again that he really can sing. He's melancholy, of course, and bitter, as usual, but the format gives him room to try new things, albeit for two minutes at a time.

Like two nonoriginals, the first ones Costello has recorded for an album. "I Can't Stand Up for Falling Down" (a current U.K. single) is a raucous version of an old Sam and Dave flipside and "I Stand Accused" is a British Invasion rocker that Costello has done in concert for some time. Much of the material here has the feel of good Motown/Stax soul and the simpler rock of the '60s.

The usually frantic Costello successfully slows down with "Motel Matches" (another con-cert standard) and the beautiful "Secondary Modern." Basically, Get Happy!! is fine Elvis Costello, with good, tight songs and sometimes indecipherable lyrics (if only they could have enclosed a lyric sheet). Only two of the songs leave me cold ("Black and White World" and "Men Called Uncle"); but how many albums have 18 good songs on them?


Tags: Get Happy!!The AttractionsColumbiaSteve NaiveQuestion Mark & the MysteriansOpportunityLove For TenderClowntime Is OverThe ImposterI Can't Stand Up For Falling DownSam & DaveI Stand AccusedMotownStaxMotel MatchesSecondary ModernBlack And White WorldMen Called UncleLinda RonstadtMad LoveAlisonLiving In The USAParty GirlGirls TalkTalking In The Dark

-
<< >>

The Miami Herald, March 14, 1980


Bill Ashton reviews Get Happy!! and Linda Ronstadt's Mad Love.

Images

1980-03-14 Miami Herald page 6D clipping 01.jpg
Clipping.


Mad Love

Linda Ronstadt

Bill Ashton

Linda Ronstadt's new Mad Love has just 10 songs, but most of them are the hardest rock she has ever done. Mad Love (Asylum Records) is Ronstadt's salute to the New Wave, particularly Costello, whom she feels is to songwriters what Jerry Brown is to governors.

The world's most famous Costello groupie recorded his "Alison" on 1978's Living in the U.S.A. and didn't let the critical jibes dissuade her from putting three E.C. songs on Mad Love: "Party Girl" (not so hot), "Girls Talk" (pretty good) and "Talking in the Dark" (an excellent interpretation — and more keyboards!).

Ronstadt also does three songs from Los Angeles' Mark Goldenberg, leader of the New Wavish Cretones. "Cost of Love" and the title song stand out as powerful screamers, with heavy rock guitars by Goldenberg dominating as they do through most of the album. Ronstadt's regular L.A. session guitarist, Danny Kortchmar, only plays on one song, a remake of the vintage sob-song "Hurt So Bad" that fits the "pitiful victim" image of most of her other albums.

But, "Hurt So Bad" aside, Linda is in charge on Mad Love; she's tough and she's rocking, with everything from Neil Young's "Look Out for My Love" to the amazing single "How Do I Make You." And she has never sounded better.


Page scan.
1980-03-14 Miami Herald page 6D.jpg

-



Back to top

External links