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After a two-year layoff following King of America and Blood and Chocolate, Elvis Costello is back on the charts with another album crying out for social consciousness. His latest album Spike, presently the number 3 college album in Rolling Stone, has rifled up the charts after its debut at number 19 in the April 6 issue.
Anyone who follows Costello's music will argue that his making another album of social consciousness is about as dramatic as McDonalds making another Quarter Pounder with Cheese; it's not as if the content of any one album (or burger for that matter) has been that radically different from the first one made. Spike is different though. It's better.
Throughout his career, Costello has received some acclaim from the critics but has never enjoyed incredible commercial success. His albums have always made a statement socially but have sometimes fallen down musically. Spike shouldn't be another near miss. If Castello is ever going to achieve commercial success, Spike will be his ticket.
Very simply, Spike is by far one of the finest works of music released this year. Costello pushes his musical abilities to the limit showing us his incredible range of musical styles without ever "selling out."
As though his musical talent wasn't enough, Costello enlists the help of Paul McCartney, Pretenders lead Chrissie Hynde, T Bone Burnett who helped produce the album, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Michael Blair and Marc Ribot from Tom Waits band and members of The Chieftains, an Irish ensemble whose recent album Celtic Wedding has won incredible acclaim, to help him on what is certainly the most ambitious project of his career. As a result, Spike is pure genius by Costello's and anyone else's standards.
The listener's first impressions of Costello's new work will certainly come from the album cover which feature's Costello's sinister clown painted head mounted on a field of baby blue satin with a sign underneath that reads "The Beloved Entertainer." The sign and the first cut off the album, "...This Town..." are both subtle jabs at those who have never given him the acclaim he most certainly deserves.
"You're nobody 'til everybody in this town thinks you're poison / Got your number, knows it must be avoided / You're nobody 'til everybody in this town thinks you're a bastard" Costello sings in the opening cut. In social statement number one Costello points out the fallacy in equating money with happiness and how sad it is that genius has to be threatening before it is recognized.
"Let Him Dangle," an eerie disturbing song whose chorus of "let him dangle, let him dangle" follows every four lines, is a morbid song about a man who gets convicted of a murder he didn't commit and hangs as a scapegoat anyway. In social statement number two Costello asks why those who oppose murder always call for the death penalty as punishment.
Costello utilizes the talents of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band on the third track, a Costelloesque tune that reminds us we will all have to face our pasts someday in the "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror." Following "Mirror" is "Veronica," the first hit from the album and one of the four best on it, deals with an old woman who has slipped from the realm of reality. It's upbeat and has a catchy memorable melody.
The fifth song on Spike is "God's Comic," a haunting song with chilling lyrics about a man who dies and goes to meet God. Musically, "God's Comic" is easy-going and features both a jazzy pizzicato double bass and cello score and a percussionist who remembers the art of playing the snare with brushes. It's a song that Cab Calloway would have been proud of.
As beautifully musical as "God's Comic" is, however, the genius of the song comes through the lyrics. God's fool dies and goes to heaven where he secs God sitting "on a waterbed / drinking a cola of an mystery brand / Reading an airport novelette, listening to Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem. He said, before it had really begun, 'I prefer the one about my son' / 'I've been wading through all this unbelievable junk and wondering if I should have given the world to the monkeys."
When listening to "God's Comic," listen for the manipulation of the lyrics in the chorus following each verse. It is wonderful.
The next track, which again employs help from the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, is "Chewing Gum" which has a jazzy feel somewhat reminiscent of an early Boz Scaggs sound.
The final track on the first side of Spike may be the best cut off the entire album. In "Tramp the Dirt Down" Costello shows how very little he thinks of British Prune Minister Margaret Thatcher, her foreign policy and her tactics of defense.
"When England was the whore of the world, Margaret was her madam" is the lyric that opens the second verse. "Well I hope that she sleeps well at night, isn't haunted by every tiny detail / 'Cos when she held that lovely face in her hands all she thought of was betrayal."
The song is musical genius using the beautifully melodic Uileann pipes that make The Chieftains music so wonderful and pleasant. Add the disturbing lyrics to the beautiful music and Costello has set up the juxtaposition between sincerity and deception that he blasts Thatcher for in the song. It's perfect.
Side Two opens with "Stalin Malone," an instrumental featuring the talents of trumpeters Gregory Davis and Efrem Towns who perform throughout the album. The tune has a very tight, almost fusion jazz feel to it and basically sounds like what a trumpet competition between Maynard Ferguson and Doc Severinsen might sound like.
"Satellite" slows everything down with a sweet melody using vibraphone, marimba, tympani, glockenspiel and piano. "Pads, Paws and Claws" sounds a little like Prince trying to perform the Stray Cats but offers some catchy lyrics and sonic interesting musical licks.
The slowest and probably most beautiful of the ballads on Spike is "Baby Plays Around," a wonderful, easy going song that Linda Ronstadt could easily include on her next Nelson Riddle album. Most of the song's beauty comes from its musical simplicity though; that is, the sweet mix between Costello's voice and his guitar.
Costello picks up the tempo in "Miss Macbeth," a frightening song full of sweeping circus melodies that asks whether school teacher Miss Macbeth is truly evil or just bitter because no one has ever really loved her. The cut is kind of sing-songy but is put together well utilizing the circus melodies to build the macabre-like tone.
"Any King's Shilling" again showcases the talents of The Chieftains in another slow, melodic song while "Coal Train Robberies" explodes into the thickest, loudest cut on the entire album. It's upbeat and it's pulsed but it's probably the worst track on the album if you can really say there is a "worst" track on such a brilliant album.
Spike ends with another slow and beautiful but sad track called "Last Boat Leaving" that deals with a man's having to leave his wife and child to fight in a war he doesn't want to fight. As he leaves he knows he'll never return and he tells his small child to take care of his mother.
The man then questions the government that is making him go. " You've had my innocence, you've had my heartbreak / You've taken the place where I once belonged / Now what more can you take'?" the soldier asks. It is a sad, but perhaps fitting conclusion to an album laced with thick chords of social awakening.
Elvis Costello proves on Spike that his is certain musical genius and that one need not be a commercial wonder to achieve such a status. He examines more than ever before the taboos and topics that strike at the heart of societies largest concerns but he does so using a plethora of musical styles that both complement and often juxtapose the topics about which he is singing.
It is very seldom that I buy popular music on compact disc but Spike is music I knew I had to have on CD the second I heard it. Costello's musical magic is tireless and will offer the same listening enjoyment and excitement on the fiftieth play that it does on the first. Spike is simple genius. Perhaps that's why it makes such a jarring statement.
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