A.V. Club, April 24, 2008: Difference between revisions
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Costello 101 | Costello 101 | ||
By the time Elvis Costello released his 1977 debut album, ''My Aim Is True'', rock 'n' roll radio on both sides of the Atlantic was mired in an identity crisis, torn between the snooty bloat of progressive rock and the heavy thud of glorified bar bands. Meanwhile, in New York and in the UK, the pub-rock, art-rock, and punk scenes were providing an outlet for musicians and audiences looking for something smarter and more tuneful than what the major labels were paying DJs to play. But like Tom Petty in the U.S., Costello didn't really want to become a cult act or an obscurantist. He was writing catchy songs pitched directly to the pop charts. | By the time Elvis Costello released his 1977 debut album, ''My Aim Is True'', rock 'n' roll radio on both sides of the Atlantic was mired in an identity crisis, torn between the snooty bloat of progressive rock and the heavy thud of glorified bar bands. Meanwhile, in New York and in the UK, the pub-rock, art-rock, and punk scenes were providing an outlet for musicians and audiences looking for something smarter and more tuneful than what the major labels were paying DJs to play. But like Tom Petty in the U.S., Costello didn't really want to become a cult act or an obscurantist. He was writing catchy songs pitched directly to the pop charts. <i>My Aim Is True</i>'s "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes" is a perfect case in point: With the American country-rock band Clover loping behind him, Costello delivers a jaunty, hummable song that calls back to doo-wop, Buddy Holly, and The Byrds, while painting a picture of romantic abandonment that anyone can relate to. Much of the material on ''My Aim Is True'' is moody, pained, and even downright dark, but "Red Shoes" exemplifies how Costello turned that disgruntlement into something snappy. | ||
For Costello's second album, 1978's ''This Year's Model'', he assembled The Attractions, the backing band that would be with him steadily through the next decade. A tough, tight, melodic outfit, the Attractions served as able interpreters of Costello's songs, with ''This Year's Model'' serving as an especially fine showcase. Keyboardist Steve Nieve and bassist Bruce Thomas deliver lines that could practically be melodies for other songs, but it all works anyway. ''This Year's Model'' arrived at a time which almost demanded that musicians declare their allegiances to punk or new wave. The song answered the question by refusing to answer it, apart from combining punk energy with the best new wave's attention to songcraft, a fusion never more pronounced than on the show-stopping "Pump It Up." | For Costello's second album, 1978's ''This Year's Model'', he assembled The Attractions, the backing band that would be with him steadily through the next decade. A tough, tight, melodic outfit, the Attractions served as able interpreters of Costello's songs, with ''This Year's Model'' serving as an especially fine showcase. Keyboardist Steve Nieve and bassist Bruce Thomas deliver lines that could practically be melodies for other songs, but it all works anyway. ''This Year's Model'' arrived at a time which almost demanded that musicians declare their allegiances to punk or new wave. The song answered the question by refusing to answer it, apart from combining punk energy with the best new wave's attention to songcraft, a fusion never more pronounced than on the show-stopping "Pump It Up." | ||
Following the compressed, punchy near-punk of ''This Year's Model'', the more florid pop of 1979's ''Armed Forces'' was a relief, even though more than ever, Costello's lyrics were preoccupied with the impossible choice between human cruelty and a lifetime of loneliness. (The album was originally going to be called ''Emotional Fascism'' — and with good reason.) | Following the compressed, punchy near-punk of ''This Year's Model'', the more florid pop of 1979's ''Armed Forces'' was a relief, even though more than ever, Costello's lyrics were preoccupied with the impossible choice between human cruelty and a lifetime of loneliness. (The album was originally going to be called ''Emotional Fascism'' — and with good reason.) <i>Armed Forces</i>' MVP is Steve Nieve, who fleshes out arrangements by Costello and producer Nick Lowe, helping them realize they could attempt more ambitious song structures without losing any essential catchiness. Just listen to Nieve's work on "Oliver's Army," a catchy mid-tempo number that satirizes British empire-building. While Costello spits lines like ''"Only takes one itchy finger / One more widow, one less white nigger,"'' Nieve's piano ripples elegantly behind him, linking the arrogance behind colonialism to cocktail party chatter. | ||
With 1982's ''Imperial Bedroom'', Costello tried to channel Beatles-esque ambition into sonic reality, swapping longtime producer Lowe — who had overseen all of Costello's albums apart from the Nashville side trip ''Almost Blue'' — for Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick. A strangely hesitant promotional campaign featured the word "masterpiece" followed by a question mark, and though time hasn't quite removed that punctuation, it remains one of Costello's best albums. The sonic boundary-pushing meshes nicely with a set of songs united by the themes of doubt and romantic insecurity, nowhere more spectacularly than on the mini-suite "Man Out Of Time." | With 1982's ''Imperial Bedroom'', Costello tried to channel Beatles-esque ambition into sonic reality, swapping longtime producer Lowe — who had overseen all of Costello's albums apart from the Nashville side trip ''Almost Blue'' — for Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick. A strangely hesitant promotional campaign featured the word "masterpiece" followed by a question mark, and though time hasn't quite removed that punctuation, it remains one of Costello's best albums. The sonic boundary-pushing meshes nicely with a set of songs united by the themes of doubt and romantic insecurity, nowhere more spectacularly than on the mini-suite "Man Out Of Time." | ||
Taking a break from the soon-to-disband Attractions, who appear on one track, Costello paired with producer T-Bone Burnett for the 1986 album ''King Of America''. A love letter to American roots music as filtered through the record industry in the middle of the 20th century, the album finds Costello playing beside top-tier session musicians like James Burton and Jerry Scheff (both best known for playing with another Elvis) and keyboardist Mitchell Froom (later to serve as Costello's producer). It also continued the deepening of an emotional palette that he once limited to, as he told journalist Nick Kent, "revenge and guilt." King's songs range widely, from a soulful cover of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" — which is more Nina Simone than The Animals — to the romantic lament of "Indoor Fireworks" to "American Without Tears," a melancholy waltz filled with images of cross-cultural attraction and romantic imperialism. Mature in the best sense, it's the sound of a songwriter realizing he doesn't have to prove himself any more. | Taking a break from the soon-to-disband Attractions, who appear on one track, Costello paired with producer T-Bone Burnett for the 1986 album ''King Of America''. A love letter to American roots music as filtered through the record industry in the middle of the 20th century, the album finds Costello playing beside top-tier session musicians like James Burton and Jerry Scheff (both best known for playing with another Elvis) and keyboardist Mitchell Froom (later to serve as Costello's producer). It also continued the deepening of an emotional palette that he once limited to, as he told journalist Nick Kent, "revenge and guilt." <i>King</i>'s songs range widely, from a soulful cover of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" — which is more Nina Simone than The Animals — to the romantic lament of "Indoor Fireworks" to "American Without Tears," a melancholy waltz filled with images of cross-cultural attraction and romantic imperialism. Mature in the best sense, it's the sound of a songwriter realizing he doesn't have to prove himself any more. | ||
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After ''Punch The Clock'' and ''Goodbye Cruel World'', a pair of flawed LPs that, somewhat perversely, featured some of his biggest hits, Costello returned to critical respectability with a pair of 1986 records: ''King Of America'' and ''Blood & Chocolate''. (It's hard to believe now that these two were cited as "comeback" albums, given that they came a mere half-decade after Costello's most popular work.) ''Blood & Chocolate'' marked Lowe's return to the producer's chair, and it was also Costello's final album with The Attractions for a long stretch, and his final album for CBS/Columbia in the U.S. Though hailed at the time as a welcome return to the edgy rock sound of ''This Year's Model'', ''Blood & Chocolate'' now sounds messy, as if Costello couldn't reconcile his increasingly abstract song structures with his band's straight-ahead bash. Still, it's an invigorating, tuneful mess, and a hard record to dislike. Naturally, one of the album's best songs is also one of its shortest: "I Hope You're Happy Now," which keeps Costello's absurdist, Dylan-esque imagery to a minimum (well, aside from ''"like a matador with his pork sword… in his turquoise pajamas and motorcycle hat"''), while keeping the rhythm punchy and the vocals slightly wrecked. And as always, the hero of the song is Nieve, laying on an organ that sounds like it was sampled from a horror movie projected inside of a roller rink. | After ''Punch The Clock'' and ''Goodbye Cruel World'', a pair of flawed LPs that, somewhat perversely, featured some of his biggest hits, Costello returned to critical respectability with a pair of 1986 records: ''King Of America'' and ''Blood & Chocolate''. (It's hard to believe now that these two were cited as "comeback" albums, given that they came a mere half-decade after Costello's most popular work.) ''Blood & Chocolate'' marked Lowe's return to the producer's chair, and it was also Costello's final album with The Attractions for a long stretch, and his final album for CBS/Columbia in the U.S. Though hailed at the time as a welcome return to the edgy rock sound of ''This Year's Model'', ''Blood & Chocolate'' now sounds messy, as if Costello couldn't reconcile his increasingly abstract song structures with his band's straight-ahead bash. Still, it's an invigorating, tuneful mess, and a hard record to dislike. Naturally, one of the album's best songs is also one of its shortest: "I Hope You're Happy Now," which keeps Costello's absurdist, Dylan-esque imagery to a minimum (well, aside from ''"like a matador with his pork sword… in his turquoise pajamas and motorcycle hat"''), while keeping the rhythm punchy and the vocals slightly wrecked. And as always, the hero of the song is Nieve, laying on an organ that sounds like it was sampled from a horror movie projected inside of a roller rink. | ||
Costello brought Nieve and the rest of The Attractions back eight years later for ''Brutal Youth'', by which time he'd developed a better notion of how to use his old friends to bolster his new songwriting style, which leaned heavily on moony ballads and freeform rock. ''Brutal Youth'' relies too much on the former, but it also contains one of Costello's all-time best fist-pumping stingers, "13 Steps Lead Down," a snarky take on addiction and recovery that features what's easily Costello's most blazing guitar solo. When The Attractions performed the song on David Letterman, the host — long a Costello booster — was so knocked out by the performance that he booked the band again just a couple of months later, and urged the audience to "watch that fella play guitar." | Costello brought Nieve and the rest of The Attractions back eight years later for ''Brutal Youth'', by which time he'd developed a better notion of how to use his old friends to bolster his new songwriting style, which leaned heavily on moony ballads and freeform rock. ''Brutal Youth'' relies too much on the former, but it also contains one of Costello's all-time best fist-pumping stingers, "13 Steps Lead Down," a snarky take on addiction and recovery that features what's easily Costello's most blazing guitar solo. When The Attractions performed the song on ''David Letterman'', the host — long a Costello booster — was so knocked out by the performance that he booked the band again just a couple of months later, and urged the audience to "watch that fella play guitar." | ||
Advanced Studies | Advanced Studies | ||
Even Costello diehards tend to pick and choose tracks from the basically solid 1983 album ''Punch The Clock'' and its downright dodgy '84 follow-up ''Goodbye Cruel World'', both of which continue | Even Costello diehards tend to pick and choose tracks from the basically solid 1983 album ''Punch The Clock'' and its downright dodgy '84 follow-up ''Goodbye Cruel World'', both of which continue <i>Imperial Bedroom</i>'s pop ambition without really building on it. ''Punch The Clock'' features some of Costello's surest pop efforts, such as "Let Them All Talk" and "Everyday I Write The Book," but its claim to immortality comes from the devastating eve-of-the-war song "Shipbuilding," a songwriting collaboration with producer Clive Langer, featuring a heartbreaking Chet Baker trumpet solo. | ||
Costello took a couple of years off and switched record labels, following the one-two punch of ''King Of America'' and ''Blood & Chocolate''. He made a high-profile return with ''Spike'', a solo effort featuring a rotating cast of guest stars (Chrissie Hynde, Roger McGuinn, The Dirty Dozen Band, and Paul McCartney, who served as Costello's songwriting foil for a stretch in the late '80s). The album suffers from a lack of focus and a bit too much of the production sheen so in favor at the time, plus some duds so deadly that it's hard to reckon why they were included in the first place. It also sports the heartbreaking hit single "Veronica," inspired by Costello's grandmother's dementia, and enough gorgeous songs like the sad, cybersex-anticipating "Satellite" that it's easy to forgive the skippable tracks. All that goes double for | Costello took a couple of years off and switched record labels, following the one-two punch of ''King Of America'' and ''Blood & Chocolate''. He made a high-profile return with ''Spike'', a solo effort featuring a rotating cast of guest stars (Chrissie Hynde, Roger McGuinn, The Dirty Dozen Band, and Paul McCartney, who served as Costello's songwriting foil for a stretch in the late '80s). The album suffers from a lack of focus and a bit too much of the production sheen so in favor at the time, plus some duds so deadly that it's hard to reckon why they were included in the first place. It also sports the heartbreaking hit single "Veronica," inspired by Costello's grandmother's dementia, and enough gorgeous songs like the sad, cybersex-anticipating "Satellite" that it's easy to forgive the skippable tracks. All that goes double for <i>Spike</i>'s 1991 follow-up ''Mighty Like A Rose'', home to three of Costello's best songs (The dark-side-of-the-Beach Boys "The Other Side Of Summer," and the devastating ballads "So Like Candy" and "Couldn't Call It Unexpected No. 4") and some of his worst. (The title "Hurry Down Doomsday (The Bugs Are Taking Over)" pretty much says it all.) | ||
When ''All This Useless Beauty'' was released in 1996, it was pitched as a collection of older songs that Costello had never gotten around to recording — some of which he'd written for other artists to perform — so it was dismissed in some quarters as underbaked and somewhat dreary. But it's actually a linchpin album, featuring Costello's most eclectic, accomplished set of material since the early '80s, as well as marking a clear transition toward Costello becoming primarily a torch singer working in collaboration with others, as opposed to a fiercely independent, rock-minded singer-songwriter. As Costello ballads go, few can top "The Other End Of The Telescope," written with (and for) Aimee Mann, and built around the central image of smallness as a way of expressing how it feels to be jilted. The song's repeated phrases and lilting melody represent Costello's then-fullest homage to the work of Burt Bacharach and Hal David, whose songs he'd been covering since his earliest days on the stage. (This was also the apparent end of the line for The Attractions. Drummer Pete Thomas and keyboardist Steve Nieve have continued to play with Costello, but tensions between Costello and bassist Bruce Thomas developed into full-blown estrangement.) | When ''All This Useless Beauty'' was released in 1996, it was pitched as a collection of older songs that Costello had never gotten around to recording — some of which he'd written for other artists to perform — so it was dismissed in some quarters as underbaked and somewhat dreary. But it's actually a linchpin album, featuring Costello's most eclectic, accomplished set of material since the early '80s, as well as marking a clear transition toward Costello becoming primarily a torch singer working in collaboration with others, as opposed to a fiercely independent, rock-minded singer-songwriter. As Costello ballads go, few can top "The Other End Of The Telescope," written with (and for) Aimee Mann, and built around the central image of smallness as a way of expressing how it feels to be jilted. The song's repeated phrases and lilting melody represent Costello's then-fullest homage to the work of Burt Bacharach and Hal David, whose songs he'd been covering since his earliest days on the stage. (This was also the apparent end of the line for The Attractions. Drummer Pete Thomas and keyboardist Steve Nieve have continued to play with Costello, but tensions between Costello and bassist Bruce Thomas developed into full-blown estrangement.) | ||
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5. ''Armed Forces'' (1979) | 5. ''Armed Forces'' (1979) | ||
Calling ''Armed Forces'' a dry run for ''Imperial Bedroom'' isn't meant to be dismissive, but still — there's a maturity to the later record that the cocky 24-year-old of 1979 couldn't yet conceive. On the other hand, there's something to be said for immaturity, too. ''Armed Forces'' sees Costello starting to move out of his own flat, looking for subject matter, and his first extended take on contemporary soul-sickness is bracing in its anger and cynicism. The album is packed with uptempo songs, but it would be tough to call "Senior Service," "Green Shirt," "Busy Bodies," or "Moods For Moderns" uplifting, given their portrait of people being used and discarded by the culture at large. The American version of ''Armed Forces'' ends on a fairly positive note, with Costello's rollicking cover of producer Nick Lowe's "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding," but the record is really better summed-up in its UK edition, which ends with "Two Little Hitlers," a song about how when two bad impulses fight each other, nobody really wins. | Calling ''Armed Forces'' a dry run for ''Imperial Bedroom'' isn't meant to be dismissive, but still — there's a maturity to the later record that the cocky 24-year-old of 1979 couldn't yet conceive. On the other hand, there's something to be said for immaturity, too. ''Armed Forces'' sees Costello starting to move out of his own flat, looking for subject matter, and his first extended take on contemporary soul-sickness is bracing in its anger and cynicism. The album is packed with uptempo songs, but it would be tough to call "Senior Service," "Green Shirt," "Busy Bodies," or "Moods For Moderns" ''uplifting'', given their portrait of people being used and discarded by the culture at large. The American version of ''Armed Forces'' ends on a fairly positive note, with Costello's rollicking cover of producer Nick Lowe's "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding," but the record is really better summed-up in its UK edition, which ends with "Two Little Hitlers," a song about how when two bad impulses fight each other, nobody really wins. | ||
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Latest revision as of 06:09, 14 July 2019
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