Spin, December 2008: Difference between revisions
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<center><h3> Elvis Costello </h3></center> | <center><h3> Elvis Costello </h3></center> | ||
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<center> Chris Norris </center> | <center> Chris Norris </center> | ||
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'''He's tackled nearly every form of contemporary music over 27 albums. Now Elvis Costello is taking his cultural ambassador skills to their Logical conclusion... as a talk-show host. "''Inside the Actor's Studio''," he says. "Is that the guy with the extraordinary beard?" | |||
{{Bibliography text}} | {{Bibliography text}} | ||
In December 1977, ''Saturday Night Live'' introduced America to a man who would become one of the most iconic and enduring figures in rock history: a spindly, pissed-off-looking Brit with oversize specs and a palsied stance who (as a last-minute sub for the Sex Pistols) halted a performance of "Less Than Zero" mid-verse to instead race through the uncleared anti-censorship screed "Radio, Radio" in a torrent of pressured speech and incendiary playing, winning himself the scorn of the network and a fiery rep as the new hyperverbal bard of punk. | |||
In December 1977, ''Saturday Night Live'' introduced America to a man who would become one of the most iconic and enduring figures in rock history: a spindly, pissed-off-looking Brit with oversize specs and a palsied stance who (as a last-minute sub for the Sex Pistols) halted a performance of "Less Than Zero" mid-verse to instead race through the uncleared anti-censorship screed "Radio Radio" in a torrent of pressured speech and incendiary playing, winning himself the scorn of the network and a fiery rep as the new hyperverbal bard of punk. | |||
Thirty-one years and a few string quartets and jazz suites later, Elvis Costello sits at a booth in Harlem's Lenox Lounge, preparing to reclaim the small screen. He just finished taping the 13th episode of ''Spectacle'', his Sundance Channel talk show, premiering in December, down the street at the Apollo Theater and is soon to board a plane to Vancouver with his wife, jazz singer-pianist Diana Krall, and their twin two-year-old sons. Though clearly exhausted, with graying scruff and a sleepy gap-toothed smile, the 54-year-old born Declan Patrick MacManus still looks camera-ready — his trademark glasses set off by the silk scarf, black shirt, gold bracelets, and dark duster coat of an urban troubadour. He sips ice water to nurse a voice hoarsened by weeks of talking and singing and humbling himself with everyone from Tony Bennett to the Police to Lou Reed to soprano Renee Fleming to Bill Clinton. "Every show," Costello says, "has a moment where your head nearly falls off." | Thirty-one years and a few string quartets and jazz suites later, Elvis Costello sits at a booth in Harlem's Lenox Lounge, preparing to reclaim the small screen. He just finished taping the 13th episode of ''Spectacle'', his Sundance Channel talk show, premiering in December, down the street at the Apollo Theater and is soon to board a plane to Vancouver with his wife, jazz singer-pianist Diana Krall, and their twin two-year-old sons. Though clearly exhausted, with graying scruff and a sleepy gap-toothed smile, the 54-year-old born Declan Patrick MacManus still looks camera-ready — his trademark glasses set off by the silk scarf, black shirt, gold bracelets, and dark duster coat of an urban troubadour. He sips ice water to nurse a voice hoarsened by weeks of talking and singing and humbling himself with everyone from Tony Bennett to the Police to Lou Reed to soprano Renee Fleming to Bill Clinton. "Every show," Costello says, "has a moment where your head nearly falls off." | ||
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It isn't like a political-slogan song as such. It's more about a sense of amorality that runs through some of the decision-making now. It's not a mystery what's going on. But I've never been one for trying to write the obvious political song. My first single ["Less Than Zero"] was about a chance viewing of a 1930s Fascist, Oswald Mosley, being tolerated on late-night television. That started a way of writing about things that happen to us all. Even [''Punch the Clock'''s] "Shipbuilding" [about shipyard workers during England's Falklands War] came out of very specific events, but I still sing it, because we still make the same mistake. | It isn't like a political-slogan song as such. It's more about a sense of amorality that runs through some of the decision-making now. It's not a mystery what's going on. But I've never been one for trying to write the obvious political song. My first single ["Less Than Zero"] was about a chance viewing of a 1930s Fascist, Oswald Mosley, being tolerated on late-night television. That started a way of writing about things that happen to us all. Even [''Punch the Clock'''s] "Shipbuilding" [about shipyard workers during England's Falklands War] came out of very specific events, but I still sing it, because we still make the same mistake. | ||
You ended one episode of Spectacle with "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding," a song Nick Lowe wrote as a tongue-in-cheek snipe at hippies. It sounds pretty irony-free when you play it, whether on your '79 album Armed Forces or today, five years into the Iraq War. | ''You ended one episode of Spectacle with "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding," a song Nick Lowe wrote as a tongue-in-cheek snipe at hippies. It sounds pretty irony-free when you play it, whether on your '79 album Armed Forces or today, five years into the Iraq War. | ||
When Nick sang it, it wasn't long after the idealism of the late '60s, when people were thinking, "Well, it didn't work out, did it? We don't have a dream world where we're all getting along." The only thing you can do about that is laugh. At one point we're singing, ''"Everybody get together / Smile on your brother,"'' and the next we're beating each other to death with billiard cues. But now it is a serious time. You can't apologize for songs being serious. That's not a bad thing. | When Nick sang it, it wasn't long after the idealism of the late '60s, when people were thinking, "Well, it didn't work out, did it? We don't have a dream world where we're all getting along." The only thing you can do about that is laugh. At one point we're singing, ''"Everybody get together / Smile on your brother,"'' and the next we're beating each other to death with billiard cues. But now it is a serious time. You can't apologize for songs being serious. That's not a bad thing. | ||
For years, one of your calling cards was the bait-and-switch pop song, a sweet melody enclosing a cynical message, like "Oliver's Army," a twinkly Abba-esque pop tune assailing British imperialism. Can you think of other recent artists who work that kind of duality? | ''For years, one of your calling cards was the bait-and-switch pop song, a sweet melody enclosing a cynical message, like "Oliver's Army," a twinkly Abba-esque pop tune assailing British imperialism. Can you think of other recent artists who work that kind of duality? | ||
I think there's a similar juxtaposition in some of the Kurt Cobain songs. You won't find exactly the same type of juxtaposition of words and music, but there's almost a romanticism, an extreme vulnerability, in the midst of all that distortion and aggression. And really, when [Nirvana] did ''Unplugged'', it sort of proved that. In a funny sort of way — you talked of James Taylor being antithetical to my presumed sensibility — but really Kurt Cobain at a different time would have been a singer-songwriter, not a rock 'n' roll singer. | I think there's a similar juxtaposition in some of the Kurt Cobain songs. You won't find exactly the same type of juxtaposition of words and music, but there's almost a romanticism, an extreme vulnerability, in the midst of all that distortion and aggression. And really, when [Nirvana] did ''Unplugged'', it sort of proved that. In a funny sort of way — you talked of James Taylor being antithetical to my presumed sensibility — but really Kurt Cobain at a different time would have been a singer-songwriter, not a rock 'n' roll singer. | ||
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I don't think I was ever particularly mean. I can certainly think of some idiotic exchanges I've had. I was accused of destroying pop music, like Wagner destroyed opera — a guy in Germany started ranting that at me. People tend to repeat the same quotes at me that I said when I was 23. And of course, you say things then, and sometimes they're ill-advised. | I don't think I was ever particularly mean. I can certainly think of some idiotic exchanges I've had. I was accused of destroying pop music, like Wagner destroyed opera — a guy in Germany started ranting that at me. People tend to repeat the same quotes at me that I said when I was 23. And of course, you say things then, and sometimes they're ill-advised. | ||
''You recently topped one of your most famous quotes — "The only things that matter to me are revenge and guilt" — with a much funnier one in a British newspaper: "Shall I tell you something? That much-repeated quote was said after 14 Pernods." | ''You recently topped one of your most famous quotes — "The only things that matter to me are revenge and guilt" — with a much funnier one in a British newspaper: "Shall I tell you something? That much-repeated quote was said after 14 Pernods." | ||
Which it was. A lot of those very sharp quotable things were said in similar circumstances and were also said by a 23-year-old who was very insecure about what might happen next. You're trying to create an impression and also trying to create a bit of space around yourself. People back off when you say things like that. | Which it was. A lot of those very sharp quotable things were said in similar circumstances and were also said by a 23-year-old who was very insecure about what might happen next. You're trying to create an impression and also trying to create a bit of space around yourself. People back off when you say things like that. | ||
''You certainly created an impression with your ''SNL'' debut. But some people have suggested that the pressure to perform "Less Than Zero" was coming from your record label, not the show, and that the producers were just fine with you doing "Radio Radio." Were you actually banned, or is that a myth? | ''You certainly created an impression with your ''SNL'' debut. But some people have suggested that the pressure to perform "Less Than Zero" was coming from your record label, not the show, and that the producers were just fine with you doing "Radio, Radio." Were you actually banned, or is that a myth? | ||
Banned? I don't think they would ever give you the benefit of publicity by banning you; they just didn't book us. I wasn't on NBC again until the mid-'80s. It was seven years before I was on NBC again, 12 years before I was on ''SNL'' again. | Banned? I don't think they would ever give you the benefit of publicity by banning you; they just didn't book us. I wasn't on NBC again until the mid-'80s. It was seven years before I was on NBC again, 12 years before I was on ''SNL'' again. | ||
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{{Bibliography images}} | {{Bibliography images}} | ||
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<br><small>Photo by [[Terry O'Neill]].</small> | <br><small>Photo by [[Terry O'Neill]].</small> | ||
[[image:2008-12-00 Spin page 76.jpg| | <small>Page scans.</small><br> | ||
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<br><small>Page scans.</small> | <br><small>Page scans.</small> | ||
{{Bibliography box}} | |||
<center><h3> Elvis Costello Discography </h3></center> | |||
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<center> Chris Norris </center> | |||
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'''Picking a mere six albums to represent his long, varied career is a fool's mission. As if that would stop us. | |||
{{Bibliography text}} | |||
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Elvis Costello | |||
My Aim Is True | |||
**** | |||
Stiff/Columbia, 1977 | |||
An acerbic love song ("Alison"), a dysfunctional sex jam ("Mystery Dance"), and a mood piece on modern amorality ("Less Than Zero") were just three calling cards from a brilliant 23-year-old songwriter with issues. | |||
Elvis Costello And The Attractions | |||
This Year's Model | |||
***** | |||
Columbia, 1978 | |||
Enter the Attractions. One of the tightest-wound rock combos of all time turned the early-E.C. palette of envy and paranoia into amphetamine-charged portraits of modern lives coming apart. Sex angst never rocked harder than on "Pump It Up." | |||
Elvis Costello And The Attractions | |||
Almost Blue | |||
*** | |||
Columbia, 1981 | |||
Released with the warning Label ''This Album Contains Country & Western Music'', this covers record (a precursor to 1995's Kojak Variety) essayed Hank Williams, Gram Parsons, and others, marking a break with new-wave doctrine and his full-blown entry into multigenre fluency. | |||
The Costello Show | |||
King of America | |||
**** | |||
Columbia, 1986 | |||
A back-to-the-roots record, complete with original Elvis (Presley) sidemen. Stately country-folk overtones lend the heartrending songs "Brilliant Mistake," "American Without Tears," and "Jack of All Parades" a grandeur that feels timeless. | |||
Elvis Costello AND Burt Bacharach | |||
Painted From Memory | |||
**** | |||
MERCURY, 1998 | |||
Not even Paul McCartney brought such sweet yang to the E.C. yin as Bacharach, auteur of breezy martini pop, did, striking a balance between melodic sophistication and emotional directness, as on the stunning "God Give Me Strength." | |||
Elvis Costello AND THE IMPOSTERS | |||
Momofuku | |||
*** | |||
LOST HIGHWAY, 2008 | |||
A rousing family affair, dashed off in the afterglow of working on Jenny Lewis' solo album—she's on this, too—and abetted by Costello satellites old and new (like drummer Pete Thomas' daughter). A dozen tracks as sharp and lively as any he's recorded in years. | |||
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<small>Photos.</small><br> | |||
[[image:2008-12-00 Spin photo 02.jpg|360px|border]] | [[image:2008-12-00 Spin photo 02.jpg|360px|border]] | ||
[[image:2008-12-00 Spin photo 03.jpg|360px|border]] | [[image:2008-12-00 Spin photo 03.jpg|360px|border]] | ||
<br><small>Photos.</small> | <br><small>Photos.</small> | ||
<small>Photo by [[John Atashian]].</small><br> | |||
[[image:2008-12-00 Spin photo 04 ja.jpg|360px|border]] | [[image:2008-12-00 Spin photo 04 ja.jpg|360px|border]] | ||
<small>Photo by [[Scott Gries]].</small><br> | |||
[[image:2008-12-00 Spin photo 05 sg.jpg|360px|border]] | [[image:2008-12-00 Spin photo 05 sg.jpg|360px|border]] | ||
<small>Photo by [[Stephen Lovekin]].</small><br> | |||
[[image:2008-12-00 Spin photo 07 sl.jpg|360px|border]] | [[image:2008-12-00 Spin photo 07 sl.jpg|360px|border]] | ||
<small>Photo.</small><br> | |||
[[image:2008-12-00 Spin photo 06.jpg|200px|border]] | [[image:2008-12-00 Spin photo 06.jpg|200px|border]] | ||
<small>Cover and contents page.</small><br> | |||
[[image:2008-12-00 Spin cover.jpg|x120px|border]] | [[image:2008-12-00 Spin cover.jpg|x120px|border]] | ||
[[image:2008-12-00 Spin page 08.jpg|x120px|border]] | [[image:2008-12-00 Spin page 08.jpg|x120px|border]] | ||
{{Bibliography notes footer}} | {{Bibliography notes footer}} |
Revision as of 22:11, 20 July 2020
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