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What a difference a decade or two can make. Just about 20 years ago, Elvis Costello, to quote a certain Stereophile record reviewer, "howled and thrashed like an anti-matter Buddy Holly from a rejected Star Trek script." And 10 years ago, Paul Westerberg was fronting those Godfathers of Grunge, the Replacements, alternately channeling MC5 at their best and playing drunken, sloppy sets in which they'd do nothing but Rolling Stone covers. And now, as punk mounts yet another comeback and grunge makes millionaires of guys not worthy to sing "Tommy's Got His Tonsils Out," Costello and Westerberg are beginning to sound like elder statesmen.
EC's latest, All This Useless Beauty, feels like the culmination of a cycle. As on The Juliet Letters, his collaboration with the Brodsky Quartet, Costello's voice is front and center. Like Brutal Youth, the Attractions are again on board. And like Kojak Variety, this is an album of covers, sort of. This time EC is covering his own songs, about half of which first saw the light of day sung by the likes of Paul McCartney and Aimee Mann.
The original plan for the album was to do an All Costello Covers format recorded live on last year's tour — and if the Beacon Theatre stop was any indication, you shoulda been there. While that format was scrapped, the straightforward live-in-the-studio arrangements did make the final cut. The result is a deceptively easy-sounding album that an expensive boutique might play to entice its Armani-weary customers. But don't mistake melancholy for mellowness.
Useless Beauty is another Costello duet with the Grim Reaper, but he's nimble enough not to turn it into a dirge, and modest enough not to turn it into a sermon: "I cannot promise you I've said goodbye to childish things," he jibes on "Little Atoms." "There's still some pretty insults left / And such sport in threatening." From atmospheric trifles like the pseudo-noir "Complicated Shadows" to the more-than-a-breakup song "It's Time," this is an album full of endings. And if you didn't catch the first 121 times he asks The Big Question, he hammers the last nail into the metaphorical coffin on the album's delicate closer: "I want to vanish / This is my last request / I've given you the awful truth / Now give me my rest." Get it?
Speaking of dead media, All This Useless Beauty is available on vinyl, and if you've got a 'table, it's definitely the way to go. This is multimiked recording at its best; on "Poor Fractured Atlas" Pete Thomas seems to have set up his drum kit on my front porch, while on "Little Atoms" the soundstage extends not only outside my speakers, but outside the walls of my living room. And the surfaces are as quiet and the pressing as flat as any 180-grammer. The excellent CD pales only by comparison. My one gripe is that the vinyl version doesn't include a lyric sheet.
Eventually is Paul Westerberg's long-awaited (get it?) follow-up to 14 Songs, and it's been worth that wait. Employing restrained production that's the antithesis of the wretched (yet glorious) excess of the 'Mats, Westerberg is still writing hooks with the best of them, but chooses to put his message front and center: "I spend my time in Cottonwood / Looking for a sign," he begins. "Sitting by myself / And I'm running out of time."
As you can hear, Westerberg too has been preoccupied with thoughts of his own mortality, not surprising in the wake of former handmate Bob Stinson's death. Sure, sometimes Westerberg dances in the graveyard — Bob would have liked that. "Trumpet Clip," which features a guest appearance from Tommy Stinson, may be the first rock 'n' roll ode to the Unabomber, and "Ain't Got Me" takes on celebrity stalkers. Funny, yes, but the humor is black nonetheless.
But on "Good Day," Eventually's most plainspoken song, Westerberg lays it on the line. "Good day / Doesn't need to be a birthday / The next one, man, you won't survive," he sings, partly to Bob and not a little to himself. "Sing alone, all my life / A good day is any day that you're alive."
I'll drink to that, and I'd venture that Declan Patrick Aloysius MacManus would too.
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