Goldmine, September 6, 1991: Difference between revisions
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While one might point to the wrong choice of single as one reason for this ("The Other Side Of Summer" tries to sound like the Beach Boys, but succeeds only in sounding like Squeeze, while "Georgie And Her Rival" is the obvious "Veronica" sound-alike and would have made a more familiar lead-in to casual fans), there's really no second-guessing public taste. What can be said is that, while as ambitious as ever, Costello seems to be selling some pretty tired goods this time around, both lyrically and musically. | While one might point to the wrong choice of single as one reason for this ("The Other Side Of Summer" tries to sound like the Beach Boys, but succeeds only in sounding like Squeeze, while "Georgie And Her Rival" is the obvious "Veronica" sound-alike and would have made a more familiar lead-in to casual fans), there's really no second-guessing public taste. What can be said is that, while as ambitious as ever, Costello seems to be selling some pretty tired goods this time around, both lyrically and musically. | ||
The artist has always had an acid tongue, and his vitriol is no sweeter here, even when mouthing the puns of "So Like Candy," one of a series of boy-hates-girl songs that make this the most conflicted set of compositions by an apparently happily married man since Bruce Springsteen's ''Tunnel Of Love''. Costello has frequently been compared to Bob Dylan in this regard, a comparison he continues to justify by re-writing "One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later)" as "How To Be Dumb," but the relevant pessimist here seems to be Leonard Cohen, whose well-known self-pity is evoked in such lines as "Well I'm the lucky goon/Who composed this tune from birds arranged on the high wire." | The artist has always had an acid tongue, and his vitriol is no sweeter here, even when mouthing the puns of "So Like Candy," one of a series of boy-hates-girl songs that make this the most conflicted set of compositions by an apparently happily married man since Bruce Springsteen's ''Tunnel Of Love''. Costello has frequently been compared to Bob Dylan in this regard, a comparison he continues to justify by re-writing "One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later)" as "How To Be Dumb," but the relevant pessimist here seems to be Leonard Cohen, whose well-known self-pity is evoked in such lines as ''"Well I'm the lucky goon / Who composed this tune from birds arranged on the high wire."'' | ||
One can almost feel the obsessively allusive Costello nudging his listener and hear him saying, "Bird on a wire, get it?" especially since he drops such references everywhere on the album, whether he's borrowing bass lines from "Don't Let Me Down" or "I Want You (She's so Heavy)" or, in "Invasion Hit Parade," revising Gil Scott-Heron: "Incidentally the revolution will be televised." | One can almost feel the obsessively allusive Costello nudging his listener and hear him saying, "Bird on a wire, get it?" especially since he drops such references everywhere on the album, whether he's borrowing bass lines from "Don't Let Me Down" or "I Want You (She's so Heavy)" or, in "Invasion Hit Parade," revising Gil Scott-Heron: "Incidentally the revolution will be televised." |
Revision as of 19:24, 10 October 2014
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