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Popular Music
Wendy James
Now Ain't The Time For Your Tears
DGC 24507 (38 min)
Performance: Pop-punk redux
Recording: Ragged but right
Parke Puterbaugh
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What a strange collection; Elvis Costello writes the tunes, then conveys them to Wendy James (with no apparent face to face meeting), the former voice of Transvision Vamp. The songs are the kind of short, sweet, pop-punk nuggets Costello can't or won't sing at this point in his career--he's far too dense and complex for that now--so he's put them in the hands of a singer whose sense of irony and intellect are far less developed. The songs have the wit, succinctness, and drive that have been missing from Costello's own records of late, and James, hovering vocally somewhere between Debbie Harry's pop diva and Wendy O. Williams's porn-punk tramp, does them justice. This Is a Test, clocking in under 2 minutes. and Puppet Girl, with its Who-like stutter ("cut-cut-cut-cut your strings"), are instant standouts, but London's Brilliant has got the best line: Making reference to "digging up the bones of Strummer and Jones." it's a Clash-back to 1977 that will put a smile on the face of anyone who nightclubbed and pogo'ed through punk's heyday.
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Clipping.
Page scan.
Cover.
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