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I used to like — even love — Elvis Costello, the ex-new wave star from England. But lately his records have gotten really rotten. The latest one is pompous, narrow-minded, pseudo-literary hooey mired in incoherent, desultory musical forms, boring, lifeless melodies and log-jammed lyrics.
Sample of just one swatch from a solid wall of purple prose: "I'm just the oily slick on the windup world of the nervous tick in a very fashionable hovel / I hang around dying to be tortured."
So go torture yourself somewhere else, Elvis, and stop bothering us. You wanna be the '80s Celine? Live in Paris and write a sick novel? Your record company will be very happy because then it won't have to indulge your morbid fantasies with another losing album.
Costello's previous one, Almost Blue, was a pointless country-Western affair, some kind of muddled salute to Patsy Cline/George Jones, and was savaged in these quarters.
Costello was a great rock innovator once — "I Don't Want to Go to Chelsea" remains one of the finest rock efforts of the past decade — and he has certainly produced many other gems of that quality. But his new mellow, Tin Pan Alley style doesn't suit me at all.
He doesn't have the voice for it — too moody and depressing and of slight musical timbre — or the lyrical instincts for the mass audience. Great writers never write about themselves. And Costello's noted reputation for being aloof and downright nasty in public reeks of artistic arrogance.
So get off your high horse and start rockin' again, Elvis, or you'll soon be looking for a day job.
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