Billboard, October 24, 2015: Difference between revisions
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<center><h3>Elvis Costello | <center><h3> Elvis Costello looks back </h3></center> | ||
<center> '''Elvis Costello ''' / Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink </center> | |||
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<center>Andy Lewis</center> | <center> Andy Lewis </center> | ||
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{ | Publisher Blue Rider Press touts Elvis Costello's ''Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink'' as on par with Patti Smith's ''Just Kids'' and Keith Richards' ''Life'', widely considered {along with Bob Dylan's ''Chronicles'') as the best rock memoirs. The brainy Costello — known for inventive albums (''Armed Forces'', ''Imperial Bedroom''), eclectic collaborations (Kid Rock to Ruben Blades) and deep-cut knowledge of music history — invites such comparisons. | ||
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''Unfaithful Music | ''Unfaithful Music'' doesn't live up to those expectations, though there are flashes of brilliance. Costello has an eye for capturing a person with one quick observation: Bruce Springsteen "laughed like steam escaping from a radiator"; lover Bebe Buell shows up on his doorstep "gift-wrapped [like] a mail-order bride" who "meant to do me harm"; David Bowie has a secret talent for party games. The parts about the making of his music are great, thoroughly dissecting his lyrics and influences (Jimi Hendrix's "[[The Wind Cries Mary]]" was in his head when he wrote "Alison"). He writes movingly of his conflicted relationship with his father, a musician and philanderer; indeed, the dominant thread here is Costello's attempts to come to terms with their relationship. | ||
' | It's a pity he doesn't bring the same depth and self-awareness to his other relationships. Buell gets barely a paragraph. His 16-year marriage to Pogues bassist Cait O'Riordan comes and goes in a blink, recounted in an impressionistic fashion that substitutes poetic turns of phrase for actual details. (Readers may find themselves repeatedly reaching for Google to clarify things.) Other well-known events — most notably, the infamous performance that got him banned from ''Saturday Night Live'' in 1977, and an out-of-character drunken, racist rant in 1979 — read more like dreams than real stories. Add to that neck-snapping time jumps — the book goes from the '70s to the '20s and back to the present in just a few short chapters — that are so erratic they practically induce vertigo. The whole thing is just a little too clever for its own good. As Costello sang on his 1977 debut, ''My Aim Is True'', "Imagination is a powerful deceiver." | ||
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{{Bibliography next | {{Bibliography next | ||
|prev = Billboard, | |prev = Billboard, November 22, 2014 | ||
|next = Billboard, April 3, 2016 | |next = Billboard, April 3, 2016 | ||
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[[Andy Lewis]] reviews ''Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink''. | [[Andy Lewis]] reviews ''Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink''. | ||
{{Bibliography images}} | {{Bibliography images}} | ||
[[image:2015-10-24 Billboard page 94.jpg| | [[image:2015-10-24 Billboard page 94.jpg|360px|border]] | ||
<br><small>Page scan.</small> | |||
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Revision as of 16:58, 8 January 2018
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