University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Post, March 27, 1980

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Neurotic creates fourth smash album


Rich Kirchen

Neurotic rock and roller Elvis Costello is disconcerting for a number of reasons, a major one being that you never know what to expect from his albums.

Each of Costello's first three albums took a different approach to presenting his songs of emotional facism.

His 1977 debut, My Aim Is True, had a spare sound that fit the punk craze; This Year's Model fleshed out his sound and rocked harder and last year's Armed Forces was a tour de force that used Costello as a tool in producer Nick Lowe's machine. All three albums are excellent.

Costello's new album, Get Happy, like the others, shifts gears in presentation. Also like its predecessors, Get Happy is excellent. Costello's metamorphic approach continues to click.

Thts time out, Costello has chosen 20 brief tunes as his vehicle. Only five of the numbers on the album last longer than 2½ minutes, and seven are in the two-minute range. The album clocks out at an unusually long 48 minutes.

Of course, when Costello calls an album "Get Happy," the lyrics will be just the opposite. Costello always writes from a negative point of view about women, but this album tops his others in that respect and in its sheer quantity of songs about women.

The general theme of the lyrics could be summed up in this line from "Love For Tender": "Tell me how you made your selection / Are you ready for correction?"

Costello's progression as a clever lyricist is evident on Get Happy. A couple of his cuter lines include "You lack lust / You're so lackluster" and "Do I step on the brake to get out of her clutches?"

The sound of the album is closer to the spare sound of My Aim Is True than to the monumentally produced Armed Forces.

On Costello's past albums, his exuberant singing and the melodic or rocking musical backdrop were ironic compared to his lyrics of male insecurity. On Get Happy, Costello's voice, jagged and subdued in some numbers, is painfully at the forefront. Instead of sticking to the successful sound of Armed Forces (which sold over 600,000 copies), Costello has taken a step backward.

The brevity of the songs leaves space only for Costello's singing: there is only one guitar break on the album. This further puts the spotlight on the subdued Costello.

In spite of a more stripped-down sound, Get Happy contains more of Costello's endless arsenal of melodic, attractive musical and lyrical refrains. A couple of the tunes, such as "King Horse," "New Amsterdam" and "Riot Act," use the memorable keyboard-based music lines that characterized Armed Forces.

Twenty tunes and 48 minutes of Costello is a little hard to absorb at first, but once it sinks in, you will realize that Costello is one of rock music's geniuses. He has proved it in a different, if slightly disconcerting, way on each of his albums.

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The UWM Post, March 27, 1980


Rich Kirchen reviews Get Happy!!.

Images

1980-03-27 University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Post page 07 clipping 01.jpg
Clipping.



Photo by Keith Morris.
1980-03-27 University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Post photo 01 km.jpg


Page scan.
1980-03-27 University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Post page 07.jpg

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