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Or perhaps it should be called Now That's What I Call Schizophrenia Volume One, for here we have the idiot/genius, mad/not mad Declan MacManus taking the piss out of those nasty lumpen-pop compilation LPs with an album of old B-sides and lesser known singles, recorded under a variety of pseudonyms, from the Coward Brothers to the Emotional Toothpaste.
The 17 tracks span the years of Our Idiot 1979-87, including such oddities as "The People's Limousine" with T-Bone Burnett, "Seven Day Weekend" with Jimmy Cliff, "Walking On Thin Ice" by Yoko Ono, and the previously unreleased "So Young" (1979). From the peppy, acerbic pop of "Baby's Got A Brand New Hairdo" through the imitation Stax soul of "Blue Chair" to the country style "Shoes Without Heels" this, then, is a splendidly eccentric, eclectic album, brilliant in parts ("Black Sails In The Sunset") and occasionally average. As a collection of obscure Costello, it's powerful enough to make claims that George Michael is "the complete pop craftsman of the decade" look rather ridiculous.
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