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Costello comes to terms with technology
Dave Marsh / Rolling Stone
Elvis Costello and the Attractions
Imperial Bedroom
 
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Costello's most pop-oriented album since Armed Forces is also the first album by any new-wave heavyweight to come to terms with modern recording technology without abandoning Top 40 song form. Costello's made an '80s attempt at a Beatles album ambitiously conceived and constructed, with forays into aural montage and orchestral effects which sometimes works ("Shabby Doll," "...And In Every Home," "Pidgin English," "You Little Fool") and sometimes flops. In the end, the successes are the result of Costello's flair for pop composition meeting with a competent producer in Geoff Emerick, and the beautiful keyboard work of Steve Nieve. The failures are the product of Costello's limited vocal ability and the narrowness of his vision, which tends to make the universal insular, rather than expanding upon the personal. The
difference is between the timeless but trivial and a genuine masterpiece, but that doesn't mean that you don't want to spend some time with this music, anyhow.
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