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In Elvis Costello's first two albums, a host of Sixties influences combined with the British new wave and an acerbic lyrical attack to create a compelling yet foreboding new force in pop music.
Songs like "Alison," "Watching the Detectives," and "Red Shoes" were so catchy and enjoyable that it became easy to forget that Costello sounded much like Graham Parker, looked like Buddy Holly. and performed through spastic body contortions.
His debut album, My Aim Is True (Columbia), was as impressive as any rock album in years. Working within the four-man band framework, Costello created stark moods within which his sarcastic, cynical, and sometimes amusing songs came to life. There were few subtleties in his stories of teenage conflict, working class misery. and lovers' frustrations (most memorably his description of his attempts to seduce a girlfriend who was enraptured by a detective story on television).
Costello's lyrics are angry and forceful but their ultimate targets are elusive. On This Year's Model, his second album. Costello's melodies weren't as consistently entertaining as they were electric and alive, The album seemed to be self-effacing as much as it struck out at British radio and modern society He seemed to use his lyrics like Dylan did in "Positively Fourth Street."
Yet Dylan's scathing attacks were immensely personal, and it was easy to have empathy. Costello's emotional twists seem to come through his driving beats — the stop and go, the use of short vocal phrases for emphasis.
While This Year's Model seemed a natural outgrowth of the first album, Costello's increasing contempt for his audience, the press, and his own lifestyle also seemed to flow from his punkish lyrics. He has reportedly walked off the stage several times before the end of his act, and he is said to freeze his emotion, a la Van Morrison, when he's dissatisfied with audience reaction.
Costello is touring again (he will appear at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic March 30) to mark the release of his newest recording, Armed Forces.
The album features 12 songs and an extended play disc with three additional songs recorded live at Hollywood High (The EP was released several months ago to radio stations.) It is probably the biggest record bargain in years.
Admitting that I favored the first album, and was mildly disappointed with the second, I approached Armed Forces with a bit of trepidation. Such feelings were unnecessary.
Armed Forces assertiveness strikes you immediately — a Miro-type painting on the cover and an elephant graveyard on the reverse; song titles like "Oliver's Army," "Goon Squad," and "Two Little Hitlers." Musically, it is Costello's most imaginative and diverse effort.
The sharp edge of his lyrics are now placed against a cushion of sound, sometimes evoking Phil Spector, but more likely resulting from the tremendous influence of his producer, Nick Lowe, whose own work has drawn substantial critical praise.
Lowe's barrage of sound is at its best on a song that asks a lyrical question. I never thought I'd hear Costello ask, "What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love and Understanding?" On "Green Shirt," we hear harpsichord, horns, and diffusing drum beats in a most likable ode to seduction. The cushion of sound becomes a haunting echo and vocal arrangement on "Goon Squad." A piano version of "Accidents Will Happen" on the EP works the same magic using a more subdued tack.
It is hard to take Costello's music all that seriously. Sometimes it comes on with so much self-righteousness that one is almost forced to shut out the lyrics and simply absorb the song's emotional thrust. Oftentimes, too, Costello seems to taunt us with musical gimmicks we've heard before from the Moody Blues ("Goon Squad"), Cream ("Busy Bodies") and even Tommy James ("Green Shirt").
But he uses these gimmicks sparingly and rarely falls into the trap of repetitiveness that could have slowed his success after album two.
Armed Forces is not Costello's abandonment of the new wave, as some critics maintain. He was simply on the fringe of a resurgence of new and interesting British music. The new album retains the air of surprise, contempt, and anger, Costello first brought to us on My Aim, adding musical depth that will probably accelerate his rise toward seemingly unwanted superstardom.
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