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Ten years. Twelve U.S. albums. Hundreds of rave reviews.
And people in America are still asking, "Elvis who?"
Elvis Costello. Extraordinary songwriter; enigmatic star. A British rocker who has put out three or four of the better albums in rock's last decade and who still is viewed by mainstream music types as some kind of cult hero.
Example: A local radio announcer, promoting Costello's concert Tuesday at Duke University, identified him by noting that Dave Edmunds (an artist with his own claim to obscurity) has recorded some of Costello's songs.
Example: The Durham performance, one of just a few dates on a rare Costello solo tour with Nick Lowe (who produced his early albums and his latest one) as the opening act, was not an immediate sellout. There were still roughly 1,300 of about 5,000 tickets available for the show as of Wednesday, though concert organizers expected a sellout by showtime.
The secret of Elvis Costello's non-success, commercially speaking, is one of the biggest riddles in the pop music business.
It's not exactly a problem of being unknown — he has millions of fans all over the world, and his albums always make the Billboard charts. Nor is it a lack of respect — Costello is regularly lauded in the music press as one of the most talented and important rockers of his generation. And the fact that his songs aren't on TV commercials might be part of his appeal.
"Where Bruce Springsteen has become public property," wrote Robert Hilburn in the Los Angeles Times last year, "Costello still enjoys the intense relationship with fans who consider him a personal — and private — treasure. His writing reflects a compassion and fury perhaps unmatched since early Dylan in its relentless vision and compelling bite."
But Costello has yet to score a No. 1 album, a string of radio hits, a sellout coliseum tour. He has yet to become part of what's called the mainstream — in other words, what America's commercial rock radio stations will play.
Not that he seems to mind.
"If this record isn't a hit, then I'll make another one that is even more willful," he told one interviewer after the release of his album King of America last year.
Which is what he did.
King of America was a carefully crafted, emotionally generous set of songs, some tinged with country and folk music styles. On it, Costello (who was trying to reclaim his own name, Declan Patrick MacManus) went beyond the clever double-edged lyrics and punchy pop stylings that had become his trademarks. He was more thoughtful; he worked harder on simplicity and directness.
The successor to King of America, Blood & Chocolate, was a baleful and black-edged album. Its surgically precise songs of jealousy, despair and anger, delivered with a punk-tinged fervor, reminded many of Costello's early albums. Blood & Chocolate sold well.
It has never been easy to predict Costello's next move.
Example: After last year's two-album performance, he parted ways with his American record company, Columbia. Neither Columbia nor Costello's manager is saying much about the split.
Example: Last year, Costello came up with a new concert toy called the "Spectacular Spinning Songbook," a 12-foot wheel that audience members would spin periodically to decide the next song for the show. He used the wheel in some of the shows on a tour that included a five-night stand in Los Angeles and a three-show stint in Philadelphia. And then he announced that he'd never use it again.
The wheel is back; Costello is expected to use it Tuesday in Durham.
Example: After he recorded King Of America, Costello said he was going back to being Declan MacManus. On the album, MacManus was credited as co-producer and songwriter. He recorded without the Attractions, his longtime band, and worked with musician-producer T Bone Burnett and session players including some former sidemen for the other Elvis — that Presley fellow.
Elvis Costello, decided MacManus, was an image more than a person: "I was tired of the way people saw Elvis Costello: they saw this funny pair of glasses and a load of mannerisms, and they had all these preconceived ideas of what I was and who I was," he told Rolling Stone's David Fricke.
A few months later, Columbia released Blood & Chocolate. by Elvis Costello and the Attractions. This time, the singer and songwriter was listed as Napoleon Dynamite. Other credits were written in Esperanto.
Costello made a name for himself as a cocky, articulate leader of punk's literary left after he burst into rock 'n' roll's vanguard in 1977 with the album My Aim Is True. His next two albums, This Year's Model and Armed Forces, established his style — tough, smart, punchy and occasionally tender. His ballad "Alison" was even recorded, in a syrupy fashion, by Linda Ronstadt.
After he released the 20-song album Get Happy in 1980, Costello appeared determined to make up for his inability to achieve mass success by writing more songs and doing more albums than anyone else. Taking Liberties came out later in 1980, and "Trust" followed in early 1981.
And then Elvis Costello, whose Buddy Holly glasses and knock-kneed stance seemed to illustrate so-called New Wave rock, made a country album. Almost Blue was released later in 1981.
In last year's Musician interview, Costello even seemed to shrug off some of his best-loved albums and songs, causing one reader to sigh, in a letter to the editor, "Elvis Declan may feel like he wasted all those years, but I think that he's produced many wonderful songs."
But reviews of Costello's six-city 1986 tour hint that he's still willing to reach back into the Elvis archives for some of his fans' old favorites.
Writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer after last October's shows there, critic Ken Tucker offered the opinion that Costello has "accepted the fact that he is more of a professional entertainer than a fan — he's crossed the line."
"And while he's still fond of indulging his fannishness (this is an obvious reason for the Spectacular Spinning Songbook — a way to make renewed contact with his followers, to feel their enthusiasm onstage with him), his professionalism has freed him to create his most ambitious work."
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