Spin, February 1993

Bibliography   72 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 UK & Ireland weeklies UK & Ireland magazines UK & Ireland newspapers US newspapers US rock magazines US music magazines US magazines US alternative weeklies European magazines European newspapers Canada  •  Mexico  •  Asia Australia  •  New Zealand South America  •  Africa Blogs  •  Fanzines  •  Books Online publications Spin   1986 May 1986 November 1986 December 1988 February 1989 April 1989 May 1991 May 1993 February 1993 May  1993 December 1994 April 1998 December 2002 May 2005 March  2008 December 2009 February 2009 June 2009 November 2010 December 2013 September 2023 February 10 2023 February 11 2023 February 12 2023 February 14 2023 February 15 2023 February 17 2023 February 18 2023 February 20 2023 February 21 2023 February 23 Magazines  Concerto Details Entertainment Weekly Esquire Forbes Il giornale della musica GQ Interview magazine Life Music Maker The Nation New Yorker Newsweek Nöjesguiden Opera News People Spy Time Total Guitar Uncut Vanity Fair Village Voice Vox The Word — The Juliet Letters The Brodsky Quartet & Elvis Costello Hal Willner Had I not already worked with Elvis Costello. I would immediately seek him out for a possible future collaboration, based on the beautiful and moving Juliet Letters. Inspired by the true story of a Veronese professor who answered letters written to Juliet Capulet, Costello has joined forces with the Brodsky Quartet to produce an hour-long suite for voices and strings, his voice working beautifully with the exquisite string arrangements. The Juliet Letters is an incredible journey, enjoyable without being highbrow, and ranks as one of Costello's best. A short, almost fanfarish, instrumental opening ("Deliver Us") perfectly announces the setting. The arrangement recalls many moods, from Schubert to the movie scores of Miklos Rozsa The musical influences often touch off childhood nostalgia, moments in my life decades ago when the simplest melodies permanently ingrained themselves in my psyche. Yet despite the vast references, Costello and the quartet have composed something very much their own. A long cello note sets up Costello's first vocal: "I don't know what I would do / If this letter should fall into / Other hands than it should pass through / for other eyes" As he sings, Costello suggests an almost Lux Radio Theatre quality — if you let yourself enter the narrator's world, you'll be in that old radio land. "Swine" is Gilbert and Sullivan in a Brecht-Weill mode, with Costello's voice cutting through almost unrecognizably: "You're a swine / and I'm saying / that's an insult to the pig." Yet there is no novelty or gimmickry involved; this is simply an extraordinary pop-classical record. Costello's voice is incredibly strong throughout The Juliet Letters. He uses it to stunning effect on numbers such as "Expert Rites" and "Taking My Life in Your Hands," which would be a hit record on a more rational planet. "This Offer Is Unrepeatable" captures the golden age of musical theater perfectly, which is the happiest music around even if you're not a sentimental old Jew like me. And the pure emotion and total lack of pretension of "Dear Sweet Filthy World" is sure to test your cynicism quotient. Somehow I feel strange writing about this album's separate tracks as I have; the record works best as a whole, from the beautiful "Sad Burlesque" and "Romeo's Seance" (the danceable string parts make me feel like Bugs Bunny dressed as Casanova strutting through the Piazza San Marco) to the near finale of "Damnation's Cellar" (combining the ghosts of Danny Kaye and Bing Crosby) The album's closing "The Birds Will Still Be Singing" provides a dark yet hopeful ending. With LP number 14, Costello has taken his artistry to a new great place. At a time when most artists are playing it safe and repeating themselves over and over again, there are still some (such as Lou Reed with Magic and Loss) who understand that record-making can be on equal ground with literature and film as an art form. In the horrible '90s, we are lucky to have The Juliet Letters. Spin, February 1993 Hal Willner reviews The Juliet Letters. Lorne Michaels recalls EC's SNL appearance. Images Cover and page scans. Lorne Michaels interview Bob Guccione, Jr. Extract: Is there actually a lot of spontaneity in the show like that Steve Martin example? Yeah, well, as you saw with Sinead O'Connor — there was a spontaneous moment. There is a lot, there arc moments that are fortuitous. List year Dana Carvey had a piece called "Massive Head Wound Harry" where a dog ate a bandage off his head the dog was only supposed to lick the bandage but started to unravel it and Carvcy had to struggle to keep his wig on]. Those kinds of things happen, you know. How do you feel about moments like Elvis Costello changing a song in midsong? I remember exactly where I was at the time, I was sitting at home base, here, with Dan Aykroyd. Costello had, of course, picked his own two songs to do, so it wasn't as if we'd forced him. And all he did was another song from the same record. I guess when he started to perform, he just decided that he didn't want to do that song. And the only reason we rehearse them is so that we can set shots and lighting so that they look decent. But we never coerce people, we don't say, you must do your hit, or whatever. But I remember Danny and I sitting there and he looked at me and I said, "I think we're being hijacked here." And my attitude was there's nothing I can do about this. You know, he didn't burst into some right- or left-wing advocacy, he didn't sing "kill all the niggers" or "kill all the Jews," he just sang another song from his album. There have been incidents where people have behaved badly on the show. I don't consider his behavior bad. What do you consider bad — Sinead? Sinead I thought was sort of the wrong place for it, I thought her behavior was inappropriate. Because it was difficult to do two comedy sketches after it, and also it was dishonest because she didn't tell us she was going to do it, she told us she was going to be holding up a picture of a war refugee child from Bosnia, which she'd done at dress rehearsal. And even that was really stretching it because her album was just a big-band classics album. So we had 42 musicians, strings, all these things which she'd required, which we don't normally do for someone. And suddenly she wanted to sing a Marley tune a cappella. This is an album which features "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" twice. So you keep walking further down the road with her. It's not a hot album. I have a real respect for her as an artist, I think she's a great singer. And then the final moment was, of course, stunning. I know that what she does plays differently in Ireland than it does in America. I know she has what she sees as very valid reasons for doing it, and I have to admire her for doing the exact same thing at the Dylan concert. So no one can question that there's anything cynical about what she did. I find at the end of the day wc treated it as if things were normal. We asked her to come up for the "good nights," we didn't shun her. We were sort of shocked, the way you would be shocked at a houseguest pissing on a flower arrangement in the dining room.

External links

• Wikipedia: Spin magazine