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I'm not ashamed to admit that, at age 27, I still enjoy certain loud rock 'n' roll bands as much as I did when I was 15.
Not exclusively, of course. I can appreciate a Rachmaninoff piano concerto, hoot along with Waylon and Willie and still feel exhilarated by a pounding beat, an unleashed electric guitar and a wailing vocal.
It's a taste I hope I never lose. rock 'n' roll is more than mere entertainment; it is an expression of a generation, a code of identification, to a certain extent a rebellion. The sneer, and the sense of sex and danger which it implied, has been a vital component of rock since Elvis Presley struck his defiant pose more than two decades ago.
Sadly, the 1970s have been a period in which music has become tamer, safer and more formulaic. The feeling of adventure has gone out of it; the idea that the music itself can make a positive (or negative) statement has nearly disappeared.
A few proponents of real rock remain: The Who, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Graham Parker. Add Elvis Costello and Patti Smith to that list as well. It's unlikely that their records will be played on any of the local limp rock stations, which is unfortunate, because Costello and Ms. Smith are producing some of the liveliest, most energetic yet challenging music on the popular scene.
Costello sprang out of nowhere last winter, riding the crest of the punk-rock wave with his first album, My Aim is True. In less than six months, he has produced his second record and it is even better than the first.
This Year's Model (Columbia JC 35331) is rock at its tightest, concise and high-powered musical statements condensed into songs that rarely exceed three-and-a-half minutes in length.
Costello's music is a biting blend of social satire, nihilism and just plain rancor. His love songs are invariably bitter or frustrated, using himself as an object of scorn as often as he does the women about whom he is writing.
His relationships are catch-as-catch-can, it seems, though Costello apparently has standards. In one song, he sings, "I don't want to be your lover / I just wanna be your victim." Yet he can turn around and reject affection with a calculated viciousness:
"I don't want to be a goody-goody
I don't want just anybody
I don't want anybody
To say you belong to me
Elvis Costello rarely plays it safe. Behind blazing barrages of well-crafted guitar and organ, he "bites the hand that feeds me" in a song attacking radio, appropriately titled, "Radio, Radio." In the tune, he sings, "Radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools / Trying to anaesthetise the way you feel."
The production by Nick Lowe is clear and enticing. He combines a host of instrumental effects, including bell-like guitar chords that remind one of the sounds of mid-1960s British rock. Yet the influences here are many, from Bruce Springsteen and Graham Parker to Van Morrison and the early Animals.
Costello puts the anger back in rock 'n' roll; Patti Smith does that, as well as injecting a real sense of poetry into hers.
On her third album, Easter (Arista AB4171), Ms. Smith brings to fulfilment the promises made on her first two outings. She combines the consciousness (tinged by her love of French expressionist poets and British rock) of a poetess with the soul of a street urchin to produce lyrics that use language for its feeling as well as its meaning.
On Easter, Ms. Smith has finally put together a sound that properly conveys her ideas, as well as being viable enough to perhaps make her a commercial hit. Producer Jimmy Iovine has succeeded where producers John Cale and Jack Douglas only came close: Making Patti Smith, who was a poet before she decided to marry her writing to rock, into a musical artist whose power is not diminished by musical shortcomings.
Easter is her most accessible album to date, containing a half-dozen cuts that stun with their clarity of vision and the energy of their performance. Tunes like "Till Victory," "25th Floor/High on Rebellion" and "Set Me Free" (from the movie, Privilege) establish compelling grooves and don't let go. The guitar work of Lenny Kaye and Ivan Kral drives the songs on, with searing runs blazing through.
Though all of the above are highly charged rock anthems, Ms. Smith's likeliest shot at radio success is "Because the Night," co-written with Bruce Springsteen. It is a truly infectious song, with a chorus that embodies the sexual electricity which rock 'n' roll generates.
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