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Elvis Costello, arguably the most daring, incisive rock performer to emerge in the last decade, now appears to be at an artistic impasse of his own making. His new album, Goodbye Cruel World, is easily his most conventional, least satisfying work to date.
Still only 29, Costello has produced several certifiable pop masterpieces — most notably the audacious Imperial Bedroom. Nevertheless, the English singer-songwriter has realized only moderate commercial success in the United States.
This isn't surprising given the idiosyncratic nature of many of Costello's songs and the unrelenting rigidity of most American radio programmers. After all, a man who delivered a scathing indictment of the American broadcasting industry in "Radio, Radio" can hardly expect his targets to welcome him with open arms.
To most radio programmers, Costello's often vicious lyrical essays and quirky blend of rock, country, reggae and Cole Porter-ish ballads are anathema. Never mind that he has influenced everyone from Billy Joel to Linda Ronstadt or that scores of pale imitators have sprung up — many of whom have surpassed Costello in popularity.
Last year, in an ill-advised effort to crack the American market, Costello released Punch the Clock, a shallow, distressingly unadventurous album that failed commercially. Now, with Goodbye Cruel World, he has reached his nadir.
Gone, for the most part, are the snarling salvos and cutting epithets that gave his pre-Punch the Clock outings their electrifying current of tension and anguish. Worse still, where previous Costello albums shifted musical focus from biting, guitar-driven rock to delicate, keyboard-dominated ballads to out-and-out country kitsch, Goodbye Cruel World is nothing more than a shallow recapitulation of the facile pop that made most of Punch the Clock forgettable.
Costello's songwriting and singing have become overly mannered and stylized, and what were once endearing quirks are now employed as stock devices. Granted, Costello continues to show significant improvement as a vocalist. But, given the trite nature of the majority of Goodbye Cruel World's selections, his progress as a singer is nowhere as satisfying as it might have been if he were dealing with more substantial material.
Of the record's 14 tracks, only "Worthless Thing" and "Peace in Our Time" match the peerless quality of Costello's Imperial Bedroom, his most triumphant album. The former song is as oblique and mysterious as anything the enigmatic composer has ever produced. The latter number is a deeply moving plea for sanity from our world leaders that recalls "Shipbuilding," Punch the Clock's most evocative cut.
The remaining dozen songs on Goodbye Cruel World are a triumph of style over substance. Uncomfortably straightforward, they lack the subtle twists and unexpected turns that made Costello's earlier works such a delight. By streamlining his music, Costello has unintentionally robbed his work of much of its essence. "Sour Milk-Cow Blues," for example, is a trifle that sounds similar to one of Paul McCartney's saccharine odes to the foibles of love, even if Costello's lyrics are loftier than those of the ex-Beatle.
"The Deportees Club" is the hardest rocking track, a pointless throwback to Costello's late '70s work. "Room with No Number" deals with betrayal and love gone astray, favorite Costello themes, but his lyrics seem forced and self-conscious. Worst of all is the feckless and ordinary "The Only Flame in Town."
A misguided quest for mass attention, Goodbye Cruel World is not the first instance of an artist willingly suppressing his most appealing qualities. But given Costello's talent, it's certainly one of the most disappointing.
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