Melody Maker, July 13, 1991: Difference between revisions
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I who stand before you and faff around the point admit it because I honestly haven't the faintest clue what Costello, or whoever, thinks he's doing. This makes him (still) less tediously transparent than most, but it does not make tonight any good. Such searing essays in the art of the song as "Accidents WA Happen," "Suit Of Lights" and "Temptation" are delivered with an indifference which would have been perversely thrilling were it contemptuous, but it's just indifferent. "The Other Side Of Summer," arguably his best single ever, is stripped of the giddy fairground organs, as an acoustic waltz (someone's got the bootleg version of "like A Rolling Stone") and demonstrates that there's a thoroughly boring song in there struggling to get out; "Veronica" likewise, and the dreadful "So Like Candy" goes on for weeks and tails off into "I Want You," an outrageous waste of his killer punch. | I who stand before you and faff around the point admit it because I honestly haven't the faintest clue what Costello, or whoever, thinks he's doing. This makes him (still) less tediously transparent than most, but it does not make tonight any good. Such searing essays in the art of the song as "Accidents WA Happen," "Suit Of Lights" and "Temptation" are delivered with an indifference which would have been perversely thrilling were it contemptuous, but it's just indifferent. "The Other Side Of Summer," arguably his best single ever, is stripped of the giddy fairground organs, as an acoustic waltz (someone's got the bootleg version of "like A Rolling Stone") and demonstrates that there's a thoroughly boring song in there struggling to get out; "Veronica" likewise, and the dreadful "So Like Candy" goes on for weeks and tails off into "I Want You," an outrageous waste of his killer punch. | ||
Never, however, does it grind so close to a complete halt as it does when Costello feels it | Never, however, does it grind so close to a complete halt as it does when Costello feels it necessary, as he so often does, to take a tilt at the greatest hits of Blind Mango Chutney or somesuch and embarks on an excruciating blues epic with the band shuffling contentedly along behind him. (Any claims Costello has to a blues heritage are as fictitious and pointless as those U2 laid on ''Rattle & Hum''. ''Why'' this craving for such spurious notions of "authenticity"? ''What'' is he scared of? Transience, at this stage?) The band are at all times ''competent'', never as exclamatory and muscular as The Attractions or as versatile and wired as The Confederates) and Marc Ribot's guitar playing throughout is so relentlessly pub-rock one can only assume he's taking the piss. | ||
gorgeous, and octually sung with Costello's customary arresting passion. His voice, when he can be bothered to push it, remains serrated and scabrous, one of the most potent in pop. Pt's a great moment, and one that makes you wish there were more like it, but when Sends, as great things must, it's bock to tepid stomps through Lowe's " la•tis So Funny 'Bout) Peace Uwe And Understanding'?" and yet further butchery with blunt instruments. Tonight's was a wretchedly drab performance from one of the most compelling in the business. The temptation to announce that Costello has now gone irretrievably Over The Wal, that he's now as much a hollow, shelled-out old bore as those he's odopied as lis "contemporaries" of late (McGuinn, McCartney) is great, but it's not as simple as that. Wash a talent as deep, wide and tall as his, it never is. All I know is that the Elvis Costello whose records have sung to me louder over the years than almost anyone else's seems to have absconded and token the till with him. The old | |||
Costello's decision to take a turn at the piano provokes a speckxular stampede in the direction alike conveniences, which is a shame, btxouse "Couldn't Call It Unexpected" is gorgeous, and octually sung with Costello's customary arresting passion. His voice, when he can be bothered to push it, remains serrated and scabrous, one of the most potent in pop. Pt's a great moment, and one that makes you wish there were more like it, but when Sends, as great things must, it's bock to tepid stomps through Lowe's " la•tis So Funny 'Bout) Peace Uwe And Understanding'?" and yet further butchery with blunt instruments. | |||
Tonight's was a wretchedly drab performance from one of the most compelling in the business. The temptation to announce that Costello has now gone irretrievably Over The Wal, that he's now as much a hollow, shelled-out old bore as those he's odopied as lis "contemporaries" of late (McGuinn, McCartney) is great, but it's not as simple as that. Wash a talent as deep, wide and tall as his, it never is. All I know is that the Elvis Costello whose records have sung to me louder over the years than almost anyone else's seems to have absconded and token the till with him. | |||
The old man with the beard means nothing to me. | |||
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Revision as of 23:03, 25 March 2014
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