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Elvis Costello. Let the name roll around on your tongue for a while. It's one you'll be hearing a lot of.
Anyone with the arrogance to call himself "Elvis" so close on the heels of the King's passing; anyone with the brass to etch "Elvis" onto the Escher-like patterns of his album cover; anyone so clod-like in appearance had better be good.
He is.
This 22-year-old Englishman — a computer programmer, yet — has produced a debut album packed with fundamental, memorable music. He looks like a cross between Buddy Holly and Woody Allen. He sounds like a mix of early Beatles, Stones, early 60s American rock, plus a dash of Bruce Springsteen.
Lyrically, he's a lot rougher than Buddy Holly ever was and he's nuts compared to Woody Allen. Songs that at first listening seem to be just crazed, teenaged I-need-a-girlfriend plaints turn out to be mysterious mosaics of humor, lust and sometimes homicide. I think.
The thing about Elvis is — you're not quite sure what he's up to. While his group, Clover, pounds out a dingy backup, Costello bawls forth nearly unintelligible lyrics. Which is good. Remember when Mom and Dad used to complain, "What is he singing?" Well, if and when Elvis hits the airwaves parents are sure to crank up that lament anew.
And what is Elvis singing?
In the blues-based "Blame it on Cain," one fears, Elvis says it all:
"I think I been living too long on the outskirts of town
I think I'm going insane from talking to myself for so long."
And in the chorus of the song, which proves to be about scapegoats, Elvis sings:
"Blame it on Cain, don't blame it on me
It's nobody's fault, but we need somebody to burn."
When he sings "fault" it sounds as if his vocal cords unravelled into a tangled ball.
In "Mystery Dance," a pure rocker cut in the mold of "Jailhouse Rock," Costello starts off with an excitingly rhythmic vocal section:
"Romeo was restless, he was ready to kill
Jumped out the window 'cause he couldn't sit still
Juliet was waiting with a safety net
She said "Don't bury me cause I'm not dead yet."
As Costello moves with ease from style to style — reggae, blues, pop, rockabilly — one is tempted to label his sound "nostalgic." But that's really not the case. The music is compelling, combining old rhythms with new chord structures. The lyrics are bizarre and personal — certainly not imitative.
And the album, which appeared originally on a small British label, is produced crudely. If the ballad "Alison," the album cut most likely to be a hit, ever gets much AM airplay, listeners will note that the track has no solid bass frequencies nor, for that matter, is it crisp in the upper ranges.
The record sounds like you wished your high school rock band had at all those parties.
Amazingly enough, Costello has produced 13 listenable, hummable songs. He sounds like a genius from the 60s, just now emerging from a time warp to remind us what fun rock 'n' roll is. And on top of that, this guy with the pimply face and obsolete guitar is interesting.
With Elvis Costello, it's not just a question of hamburgers, cars, love and dancing. For, as he sings in "Less Than Zero":
"Your mother won't detect it
Father won't know
Everything means less than zero."
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