New Musical Express, August 21, 1982: Difference between revisions
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But reality in its habitually turgid manner dictates otherwise, and as morale flounders so do sales of Elvis Costello's latest masterpiece, highlighting once again this most perplexing of phenomena: the fact that however stunning each successive Costello creation has proven itself to be as an aesthetic coup (discounting ''Almost Blue''), the general public simply doesn't want to know. | But reality in its habitually turgid manner dictates otherwise, and as morale flounders so do sales of Elvis Costello's latest masterpiece, highlighting once again this most perplexing of phenomena: the fact that however stunning each successive Costello creation has proven itself to be as an aesthetic coup (discounting ''Almost Blue''), the general public simply doesn't want to know. | ||
Recorded at Air Studios just before Christmas, ''Imperial Bedroom'' has thus far failed to ignite the fuse attached to the all-important commercial detente an artist of Costello's stature requires in order to blast him above the ho-hum sales notched up by predecessors ''Get Happy'' and ''Trust''. Also, although ''Almost Blue'' captured a new market as well as buoying up sales on the home front, over in America this gracious homage to country music's stoic sincerity fell foul of "marketing" and "categorization" to the point where much damage has been caused to Costello's prestige. Even though the receding US sales of ''Get Happy'' and ''Trust'' denoted the singer song writer's inability to break into the populist echelon of a Springsteen, he nonetheless couldn't be dismissed casually, demanding major league consideration from all other quarters. ''Almost Blue'' almost destroyed Costello's aesthetic momentum and demanded a severe reconsideration of ways in which to return. | |||
Thus the current two month US tour of East and West Coasts, with detours into the Midwest and South, concentrating on ''Imperial Bedroom'' material, some new unreleased songs, a clutch of old chestnuts plus the odd ''Almost Blue'' selection. Two days after the Attractions' return, EC and company embark on the lengthy British tour terminating in London this Christmas. | |||
Meanwhile, whilst heatedly promoting ''IB', through live gigs, Costello has apparently been considering the odd interview for the American market. ''Rolling Stone'', for example, have been negotiating with Riviera for a possible [[Rolling Stone, September 2, 1982|cover story]], although beyond simply backing up these rumours, F-Beat spokespersons became vague regarding concrete results. | |||
There is however ''A Conversation With Elvis Costello''; a two album set that diligently pairs IB's 14 tracks with lengthy explanations and details of everything from myriad techniques through to the exact meaning and inspiration of the song from the Master's Voice itself. With 300 copies pressed primarily for radio promotional purposes, Costello's good natured banter takes up a good hour of listening time, and affords anyone even vaguely intrigued by our pre-eminent pop composer's quirky genius a solid and agreeable insight into its workings. | |||
"The title — ''Imperial Bedroom'' — you really get the title when you announce it and everyone goes "ah yes." Titles are peculiar things in that they usually are phrases or words that come up in conversation and happen to ''evoke'' a particular mood. It was exactly the same with ''Get Happy'' and ''Trust'' which was originally going to be called ''Cats And Dogs''. ''(laughs)'' And that was it! Then someone at the sessions 'I really think we should have some trust here.' | |||
"The original title of ''IB'' ... it was going to be called ''This Is A Revolution Of The Mind'' ... which is a line from the fade out of James Brown's 'King Heroin.' ''(Quotes)'' ''"This is a revolution of the mind / Get your mind together and stay away from drugs."'' I thought it was a great thing to say, y'know. A great idea which was both a bit tongue-in-cheek but also denoting a "healthy change of attitude." Then some people said it sounded like a Moody Blues album title, considering it as deadly serious as though we'd gone to... Venus ''(laughs)''. | |||
"Then it was gonna be ''PS I Love You'' (the phrase crops up twice at the conclusion of "The Loved Ones" and "Pidgin English") until we discovered some dodgy K-Tel type compilation of — y'know '20 beautiful, silky, romantic hits' so we dropped that. | |||
"Then one day I thought up ''Imperial Bedroom'' and it was automatic, y'know: Ah perfect. Because the two words achieve just the right combination of 'faded splendour' and 'sleaze' to fit all the tracks on the album. It's 'Imperial Bedroom' music. That title evokes for me the perfect definition... I mean, I can just see the 'Imperial Bedroom' itself." | |||
"Recorded just before Christmas. it turned out to be the longest album to make, mostly because, as co-producer I had to keep running from the control room to the studio in order to hear the take we'd just completed. Geoff Emerick took care of ''all'' the sound and mixing whilst my side of things really involved y'know, "Is it a good take"? As a result of my being more directly involved in production, there was a part in the band to treat each track individually as opposed to going for an overall production 'feel' which had always been the case before. Like on ''Get Happy'' there was the 'soul' idea so that every song conformed to that concept. | |||
"Geoff Emerick (best known for being George Martin's lay engineer and thus having worked on most Beatles' cuts, not to mention a plethora of the most diverse recordings) was the perfect man for the job of producer. possessing as he does endles patience, great ideas, vast experience and — something we both share — a healthy suspicion with regard to some of the more dubious 'trends' in modern production. Like, I didn't want to make a '60s-sounding record but there are certain elements to the '60s production thing that have gradually been eroded. For example, the bass drum has got louder and louder to this ludicrous state where it drums out the whole rest of the kit, whilst voices have got quieter and quieter with more and more effects that are almost too subtle. I've always believed that an effect should be used solely to leap out and grab you, plus I wanted my voice mixed up loud so you can hear the words. | |||
"Some of the songs that I had ''(slight pause)'' in my 'bag', so to speak, around the time of ''Almost Blue'' didn't make it onto the album. I think in fact only one or two that were around before ''Almost Blue'' made it onto the record. This was all due to something of a radical change of attitude generally as regards my songwriting. Having chosen the particular clutch of songs I wanted to record, we (Costello and the Attractions) rented a cottage in Devon — very old fashioned ''(chuckles)'' — in order to rehearse for about a week exclusively without interruption. We ended up in fact with a double album's worth of material, though no one seriously considered that particular option. And the songs were too long for another 20-track effort — having been through that pantomime already. ''(laughs)'' | |||
"Once in the studio I had serious doubts, some fairly radical shifts of opinions, regarding the sound whilst certain songs changed dramatically — in structure — from their initial arrangements. In fact this album marked the first time I've ever rewritten material in the studio which probably had a lot to do with me being in control. | |||
"On 'Beyond Belief' the first track, I noticed that the backing track had this great ''conviction'' whilst my initial melody was weak and needed drastically rearranging. The original lyric was garbled because it was at more than twice the speed. So I halved the lyrics and halved the speed of my vocal delivery which make for a nicely ''disconcerting'' effect of calm vocals over this rattling back up, instead of yet another ''frantic'' track which we've done too often before. | |||
"Similarly 'Tears Before Bedtime' — there were something like four versions of that. A county version was recorded during the ''Almost | |||
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*[http://www.nme.com/ NME.com] | *[http://www.nme.com/ NME.com] | ||
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NME Wikipedia: NME] | *[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NME Wikipedia: NME] | ||
*[ | *[http://www.flickr.com/search?safe_search=3&sort=date-posted-desc&text=N.M.E.%2021%3A08%3A1982 Flickr: littletriggers] | ||
{{DEFAULTSORT:New Musical Express 1982-08-21}} | {{DEFAULTSORT:New Musical Express 1982-08-21}} |
Revision as of 16:19, 14 May 2014
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