New Musical Express, April 5, 1980

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NME

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High Fidelity

Elvis Costello

Tony Parsons

Elvis himself is a changed man these days: rumour has it that as soon as he started flying through the air with a grin and a wire on Top Of The Pops (in our house we reckoned it was a kept promise to his pantomime-age son) cocoa plant shares plummeted on the stock market. But we don't want no Stills-noses round here...

You've got to admire Costello. He could have played safe and grown richer by being nothing more than a superior Jags. Instead he chose to stick his horn-rims out and become the only person with sufficient ego and guile to plunder '60s soul with the honourable intention of improving on it. Everybody else is content to stick it up on a pedestal, or in a glass case, or hanging from the wall in some museum, just dusting it off and wheeling it out to worship and name-drop in interviews like it was Holy Mary Mother of God instead of the greatest music ever made. Costello doesn't waste it. He might even pull it off. But not here; "High Fidelity" can't stand up for lolling about, going nowhere. It feels like the wee small hours when you don't feel speedy any more but it's still in your system and you're jaw-clicking sleepless. They should have stuck out the overwhelming "King Horse." It could have been his second number one and Berry Gordy Junior would have been round within the hour with the contract and black-face make up.

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New Musical Express, April 5, 1980


Tony Parsons reviews the single for "High Fidelity."


A full page ad for the single runs on page 13.

Images

1980-04-05 New Musical Express page 20 clipping 01.jpg
Clipping.

Advertisement.
1980-04-05 New Musical Express page 13 advertisement.jpg


1980-04-05 New Musical Express cover.jpg
Cover.

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