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I may be wrong, but if my memory serves me well, I was one of Winnipeg's earliest Elvis Costello fans — not the first, but I was listening to This Year's Model when most of my acquaintances were still head-banging to Some Girls way back in '78, and I did catch his show in Winnipeg, an occurrence which many of his current fans in town probably don't even know about. Incidentally, after that show Elvis and his band went to the St. Vital Hotel and jammed with The Fuse, local Boy Wonders of the music scene who are now starving out in Toronto, unjustly so, may I add.
Anyway, I digress. What I'm trying to get at is that, despite a fanatical start, Elvis and I haven't been all that close for the past couple of years. I think that it was Get Happy!, his fourth album, that did it to me. Sure, it was good, but 20 songs on one album proved to be beyond the limits of my rather limited retentive powers. And then, when he came out with the same trick just a few months later, on Taking Liberties, it became far too much for me to assimilate. Forty songs in a period of little more than six months caused me to reach my E.S.P. (Elvis Saturation Point), As a result, I hadn't bought another Costello album until this last week, when I bought all three missing albums, Trust, Almost Blue, and the newest, Imperial Bedroom. The latter is to be the subject of this essay, should I ever get around to it.
Imperial Bedroom is the first non-C & W (Codfish and Waffles?) album Elvis has done without Nick Lowe producing, and the difference is stunning. Lowe comes from the school of bash 'cm out musicians, and believes in second takes only if the band falls down drunk in the middle of the first take.
New producer Geoff Emerick, on the other hand, is somewhat of a craftsman, with years of experience. As a result, the new album is more polished and less adrenalin-crazed than anything Elvis has done previously. No "Pump It Up" here, folks. Instead, what we have are moments of beauty, sensitivity, emotion, and still enough of a rock 'n' roll feeling to keep you humming the tunes and snapping your fingers.
If Elvis Costello was as big as the Beatles (and he really should be a lot closer than he is), people would call this his Sgt. Pepper, the only difference being that, for the most part, Sgt. Pepper stunk. (If you want to talk to me about great Beatles albums, talk about Revolver, Rubber Soul, or any of the old ones, but leave the Mister-Rogers-on-acid weirdness of Sgt. Pepper in the closet).
The parallel between the two albums has to do with the feeling that the artist is reaching beyond the scope of anything he has previously done. For the Beatles, this resulted in a certain amount of pomposity and pretentiousness, but for Elvis Costello, the result is an album which can be listened to with satisfaction regardless of the atmosphere.
His early albums are among the best to slap on at a party, when active, physical participation is desired (they make you dance). Imperial Bedroom loses very little in this regard. Don't for a minute get the idea that it's mellow music. The difference is, this album may also be listened to with equal satisfaction at 3:00 u.m. with the headphones on. Rock 'n' roll music has always been about moving, but an album that you can move to OR stand still to is an accomplishment, one which has been matched by few others (Otis Redding, Van Morrison and the Band come to mind, although the styles are not similar).
With the musical maturity has come a lyrical maturity. You don't get the feeling that Costello wants to kill you anymore. He's still pissed off a lot of the time, but he no longer seems so intent on revenge. Indeed, sometimes he's even willing to share the blame. This may not be as much fun, but after all, this is his eighth(!) album, and how long can one recycle the same old ideas? (Forever, if you're Journey).
More so with Imperial Bedroom than with any of his previous albums, Elvis Costello shares a common ground with another exceptional British band, Squeeze. This is not surprising, since the two bands not only have toured together, but also work on each other's albums. Between them, they represent the absolute pinnacle of rock 'n' roll as pop music with something intelligent behind it. If you like the Beatles, there is no good reason why you would not enjoy Elvis Costello (or Squeeze, for that matter). If you like the Beatles but don't like Elvis Costello or Squeeze, some soul-searching may be in order; either you like the Beatles without really listening to them, because you're "supposed to," or you don't like Costello or Squeeze because you think they're New Wave (they aren't), and you're not supposed to like New Wave this year.
One further possibility exists; you don't like the Beatles or Elvis Costello. This is a valid opinion, and none of my business. The only question I would have to that, then, is why are you wasting your time reading this?
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