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All caught up in the various and sundry complexities of being such a witty and passionate singer-songwriter-performer, Elvis slipped into a virtually unparalleled artistic decline (see Bob Dylan) landing face first in trench rot. After 1981's Imperial Bedroom, an album that culminated his previous concerns, Costello meandered dumbly into muddy horn sections, questionable duets, and empty numbers bogged down in magnetic fields of supposedly sophisticated tune-smithing that registered precisely one notch below unbearable on the grand listening scale. Such is the danger of creative peaks — after hitting one, it takes a while, if ever to regain that originally existing quality.
Imperial Bedroom was, for a pop album, a perverse leap into the sordidness of the metaphysical bedroom which delved into the grim facts of mattress dilemmas: the thin line between love and hate, deceptions, and pervasive fucked-upness bordering on dangerous. The work finally finished the point that took the fellow seven albums to make and though responsible for lots of good music, too ridiculous to be mentioned here. After this masterwork, in terms of material, singing, arrangements and what ever else makes an album tap, Elvis couldn't go any further with his resident topics.
Even the music changed. Punch the Clock, and Goodbye Cruel World had their moments but were essentially disposable products of postured emotions by a fat millionaire. The foamy New Wave Elvis had surfed in on had strangled itself to death and resuscitations occurred rarely, if at all. Crunch the Brock and I'm Rich and Miserable combined to make a fitting epitaph.
But through the gloom, up ahead with Italian dancing shoes, Elvis persisted. Struggling with sound, searching for soul, scratching at silence, he embarked on a solo acoustic tour that must have helped to renew and reform his sound. (Note to wiseguys: the tour happened before the release of Goodbye Cruel World, but after the recording and production of it and included no songs, not one, from the album.) He formed an alliance with Texan-rocker, whiz roller, record-contractless T-Bone Burnett, ace produce; all around great guy, and even released a single with him under the name Coward Brothers. Costello then essentially dropped the Attractions, though not entirely, and enlisted a fantastic compendium of seasoned studio and professional musicians; jazz greats Ray Brown and Earl Palmer, the core of Elvis Presley's TCB band, James Burton, Jerry Scheff and Ron Tutt, plus L.A. session master Jim Keltner, and took over a California recording studio.
The Costello show — King of America album results in launching Elvis back into the trusty cassette deck on an extraordinarily regular basis while beginning a new period of transition that will probably take him another seven albums to conclude. Striking because its good and problematic because it's not like anything he's done before, not even remotely. Bounce synthesizers, funk rhythms, and lyrics aimed towards textbook recognition have been obliterate& are now extinct. Studio wizardry has been kept to a minimum. Distraught confessionals with dubious realities have been abandoned. Replacing these once thrilling qualities on King of America are new, and yes, also thrilling qualities — more adjectives — acoustic emotionalism, controlled ambiguities, scathingly perceptual docu-dramas, and exiled political reveries.
Costello plays acoustic guitar on .the entire album, stand-up bass is used an occasional snare drum and mandolin to add color, and sings like a cold coyote cries. The sound has always been there, it was always the basis of his works, so it's like going backwards to go forwards in a way because all the while it is a progression. More exactly, these are his beginnings. However, he isn't beginning here, he's returning there after never really being here in the first place and infusing the entire effort with a zealot's relish and professional's polish.
Word on the street has it that Costello, through this album, is unburdening his soul about some of his past endeavors and brilliant mistakes. In interviews he says that the image he once worked so diligently to cultivate was in fact a farce born from false considerations and mistaken calculations. He got caught up in the affair and lost sight of what really is. Songs like "American Without Tears" and "Brilliant Mistake" seem to focus on this subject but not in any sort of grand or pretentious way. Just matter of factly.
The mattress dilemmas and love politics that make for the countrified weepers, "Poisoned Rose" "Indoor Fire Works" and "Jack of all Parades" afford Costello the room to move and all work real well The faster cuts on the album are also successful, "Glitter Gulch" and "The Big Light," as is the cover of the Animal's "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood." In "Loveable" particularly, the number sounds as if it might fall flat after the initial movement ends and the heart of the song takes over. But 3/4 of the way down the chorus picks up and arrives at an unanticipated swing summit top with help from David Hidaglo's back-up vocals.
To be sure, Costello is the most prolific mainstream composer around today, and for some time now. King of America reinstates Elvis back to a form he's never had but was always capable of. And while the Attractions only play on a few cuts, the band he's assembled works perfectly to assure a. great listening album by any standards. More importantly, it represents a step in the direction towards another peak somewhere down the line. And while the artificial products of the Record Companies and Radio Radio stations fall flat at footsteps too swift to be captured, trying to anaesthetize the kinds of ways people feel. Elvis may indeed be just another battered and packaged product convenience, like two-ply trash bags, but still, even if, there is a visceral intensity present that makes him seem a little more worthwhile and memorable. Besides, Elvis is a prophet.
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