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King of America (Columbia) is not the place to start your Elvis Costello collection. Oh, it's a good record, occasionally an exciting one, but at least some of its pleasure depends on a considerable knowledge of the singer-songwriter's career. This is not encouraging in an artist still struggling, 10 years on, to break the confines of cult stardom.
The ironies and in-jokes begin with the album title. Costello is an Englishman who adores American pop music; he began his career in the wake of British punk rock circa 1976, but was never a punk himself — his sense of craft and veneration for his forebears did not permit him to become as willfully crude as the punks. No, Costello did want to be a "king of America" in the sense that he desired rock stardom as a way to prove that his intricate style could be popular, that his music had appeal to the country that invented rock 'n' roll.
But except for "Everyday I Write the Book," a Top 40 hit single in 1983 and a song Costello now professes to despise ("a kind of a hack pop song," he recently described it in Musician magazine), Costello has never achieved stateside success beyond attracting rave reviews and a devoted cult following.
In a not-so-roundabout way, it is this situation to which Costello returns again and again on King of America. "He was a fine idea at the time / Now he's a brilliant mistake," he croons on the album's opening song, "Brilliant Mistake," and it's nearly impossible to think that Costello isn't referring, on one level, to himself, to the wayward turns his career has taken.
Costello concludes the first side of the album with "I'll Wear It Proudly," in which he murmurs, "If they had a King of Fools, then I could wear that crown," and over the course of these 15 songs, there are many thinly veiled references to botched opportunities and failed ambitions.
Although he does his share of whining and offers his by-now-usual amount of precious puns, Costello's gifts haven't left him by any means. Many of the melodies here — from "Brilliant Mistake" to "Indoor Fireworks" to "American Without Tears" — are lovely. Then, too, the music on the album is more interesting than that on Costello's past few releases. He employs his usual back-up band, the Attractions, on only one cut; the rest of the time his accompanists include players as various as jazz bassist Ray Brown and Elvis Presley's former guitarist, James Burton.
For all this, however, the best new Elvis Costello music isn't on this album at all — it's to be found on the B-side of Costello's new single. The A-side is a cover of the Animals' old hit "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" (as it appears in the context of King of America, it is just another supplicating howl to his fans). But the flip side is "Brand New Hairdo," a raw rocker that is completely, gloriously unlike the impeccable pop that dominates King of America.
Clearly, Costello is an artist in transition. Having broken with the Attractions and employed a new producer (the L.A.-based singer-songwriter T Bone Burnett), he is searching for a new sound. And in recent interviews he has announced that he has legally changed his name, back to the one he was born with: Declan MacManus. It's doubtful that King of America will alter Costello-MacManus' commercial standing in this country — his music's combination of passion and fussiness is at odds with everything else on the radio — but no matter what he does next, it will be worth hearing.
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