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Four individual pop artists with careers in transition will appear this weekend at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia. British stars Elvis Costello, with the Attractions, and Nick Lowe, with His Cowboy Outfit, will play at 7:30 p.m. Friday, while American singer-songwriters James Taylor and Randy Newman take the Merriweather stage at 7:30 p.m. Saturday.
All four men find themselves at crossroads after long careers as composers and performers of intelligent pop music. But a couple of questions must now be asked of these guys. How much have they been affected by burnout? And, what can they do to revive the spark?
Costello, who may be the hardest-working man in rock, releases an album every 10 months and tours almost constantly. Maybe that's his problem.
Goodbye Cruel World, his latest LP, was the first Costello record that could be accused of containing filler. It wasn't bad filler, mind you, but more is expected from a composer of his stature. One got the impression from the album that some of the songs were included only because Elvis was meeting some deadline.
Then again, he might just be running out of ideas; he certainly wouldn't be the first pop composer to tap out. But it seems too early, after one relatively sub-par album that still had much to recommend it, to pull the sheet over Costello's career. Perhaps all he needs to do is relax—not his standards, just his schedule, particularly his schedule for releasing new albums. Instead of putting out a record every year, he ought to try holding off for 18 months to two years. His fans wouldn't mind. They know that, after all, good things are worth waiting for.
Fans of Nick Lowe, who opens for Elvis Costello tomorrow night, have been waiting for their hero to snap out of his doldrums for a few years. Known primarily as a producer of other artists' LPs (including Costello's first four), Lowe also has a knack for crafting his own clever tunes.
In 1979 his Labour Of Lust showcased Lowe at his best, and even boasted a hit single in "Cruel To Be Kind." Over the next four years, he put out two weak albums and worked on one LP by the first-rate but short-lived band Rockpile. After last year's Abominable Showman album, many people were writing off Nick Lowe, convinced that be had pole-vaulted that fine line between wittiness and silliness.
But, Lowe and behold, his punchy new Cowboy Outfit record indicated that Nick is on the rebound. Of course, one good disc doesn't mean full recovery, but it is a step in an encouraging direction. Maybe he's pole-vaulting back over that line.
At various times James Taylor has represented both the best and the worst of the introspective singer-songwriters school that surfaced circa 1970. Most of J.T.'s best came early in his career when he was penning solid if somewhat gloomy songs. His worst has come in recent years, with gloominess (and sometimes downright depression) dominating his compositions.
Taylor's last album was the utterly forgettable Dad Loves His Work in 1981. He's had enough time off to revamp his act, especially his songwriting skills. If he's done that, and mixes in his already formidable singing and guitar-playing skills, then people may again begin taking James Taylor seriously.
Randy Newman also came out of the early '70s singer-songwriter movement. Of that bunch, though, he was the least introspective, the wittiest, the most musically talented. Each of his albums through 1974's Good Old Boys was a gem.
Then he froze. Writer's block kept him from composing any new music for three years. He finally forced a half-hearted effort, Little Criminals, in 1977 (although it contained his first and last hit single, "Short People"), and an even less lustrous follow-up, Born Again. Newman admitted that on both of these albums he had, for the first time ever, forced himself to write to meet a deadline. If anything, the two discs proved that deadline work is not his strong suit.
After writing the musical score for the film Ragtime, Newman in 1983 released his first pop album in five years, Trouble In Paradise. It was his best album since Good Old Boys, but still didn't meet the measure of his early records.
Recently Newman wrote the soundtrack for the film The Natural. He has been quoted as saying that film scoring may become his main occupation in the coming years. That would indeed be a "natural" move for the classically trained Newman (his father and uncles have worked as Hollywood soundtrack composers), and might remove the pressure he apparently feels to put out a pop album and enable him to write tunes when the muse strikes.
Granted, if Newman, not renowned as the hardest-working man in pop or in any other field, waits for inspiration to hit, he may never put out another album of songs. But in that case, pop's loss would be Hollywood's gain.
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