Ultimate Music Guide, April 2022: Difference between revisions
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Released just eight months after his debut, ''This Year's Model'' proclaimed an altogether different pop animal to the geeky songwriter of ''My Aim Is True''. Its cover portrayed Costello not as oddball wannabe but as young meteor, poised behind a Hasselblad camera, pulling the strings, in control. The music had taken on an equally dramatic shift with the recruitment of The Attractions, whose well-schooled talents had slotted together cannily during 1977's frenetic gigging. In the studio, with producer Nick Lowe on inspired form, the quartet emerged with a record that sounded like no-one else, a masterpiece that alchemised Costello from aspiring songwriter to fully formed creator. Hereafter he was a player. | Released just eight months after his debut, ''This Year's Model'' proclaimed an altogether different pop animal to the geeky songwriter of ''My Aim Is True''. Its cover portrayed Costello not as oddball wannabe but as young meteor, poised behind a Hasselblad camera, pulling the strings, in control. The music had taken on an equally dramatic shift with the recruitment of The Attractions, whose well-schooled talents had slotted together cannily during 1977's frenetic gigging. In the studio, with producer Nick Lowe on inspired form, the quartet emerged with a record that sounded like no-one else, a masterpiece that alchemised Costello from aspiring songwriter to fully formed creator. Hereafter he was a player. | ||
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The change was not altogether unexpected. "Watching The Detectives" had already crashed the charts, and though Costello was not himself punk, the anger, confrontation and self-lacerating honesty of his songs, together with the absolute fury of his live shows, slotted sweetly into the mayhem of 1977. On or offstage, there was no spikier presence in town. | The change was not altogether unexpected. "Watching The Detectives" had already crashed the charts, and though Costello was not himself punk, the anger, confrontation and self-lacerating honesty of his songs, together with the absolute fury of his live shows, slotted sweetly into the mayhem of 1977. On or offstage, there was no spikier presence in town. | ||
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''"He drinks in self defence,"'' Elvis Costello sings on "Temptation," a fair indication of the point his life had reached in the months leading up to ''Get Happy!!''. Recorded in October 1979, Costello's uneasily cheery pastiche of Motown and Stax has a lighter tone than its immediate predecessors, with the quirky sleeve's integral ringwear designed to make the package seem like some well-thumbed 1965 Tamla release. However, it is all a cosy blanket covering an uneasy, and occasionally dissolute mess, smart lines sparkling in deep and muddy emotional waters. | ''"He drinks in self defence,"'' Elvis Costello sings on "Temptation," a fair indication of the point his life had reached in the months leading up to ''Get Happy!!''. Recorded in October 1979, Costello's uneasily cheery pastiche of Motown and Stax has a lighter tone than its immediate predecessors, with the quirky sleeve's integral ringwear designed to make the package seem like some well-thumbed 1965 Tamla release. However, it is all a cosy blanket covering an uneasy, and occasionally dissolute mess, smart lines sparkling in deep and muddy emotional waters. | ||
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''"Dying to be so bad is bad enough,"'' sings Costello, voice worn ragged on <i>Get Happy</i>'s wearily defiant closer, "Riot Act." ''"Don't make me laugh by talking tough."'' Costello's attempts at acting the big man, of course, had led to substantial problems. Goaded to no small extent by tough-guy manager Jake Riviera, who had actively encouraged the siege atmosphere that surrounded the singer as he broke America, Costello was reluctant to be an easy commodity. As he had growled on stand-alone 1978 single "Radio, Radio," a hate-letter to the music business: ''"I wanna bite the hand that feeds me / I wanna bite that hand so badly."'' | ''"Dying to be so bad is bad enough,"'' sings Costello, voice worn ragged on <i>Get Happy</i>'s wearily defiant closer, "Riot Act." ''"Don't make me laugh by talking tough."'' Costello's attempts at acting the big man, of course, had led to substantial problems. Goaded to no small extent by tough-guy manager Jake Riviera, who had actively encouraged the siege atmosphere that surrounded the singer as he broke America, Costello was reluctant to be an easy commodity. As he had growled on stand-alone 1978 single "Radio, Radio," a hate-letter to the music business: ''"I wanna bite the hand that feeds me / I wanna bite that hand so badly."'' | ||
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One man's hodge-podge is another man's ''White Album''. A close examination of ''Trust'', a third of a century after its release, indicates that it is neither the awkward misstep some perceived it to be at the time, nor an overlooked masterpiece, as revisionists have pronounced it to be in retrospect. Among the 14 tracks are a handful of subpar songs by Costello's standards, still valuable thanks to the tautness and invention of The Attractions, at the peak of their powers. But ''Trust'' also contains some of the finest songs Costello has ever written, brought to life by flights of vocal brilliance and jaw-dropping instrumental interaction. | One man's hodge-podge is another man's ''White Album''. A close examination of ''Trust'', a third of a century after its release, indicates that it is neither the awkward misstep some perceived it to be at the time, nor an overlooked masterpiece, as revisionists have pronounced it to be in retrospect. Among the 14 tracks are a handful of subpar songs by Costello's standards, still valuable thanks to the tautness and invention of The Attractions, at the peak of their powers. But ''Trust'' also contains some of the finest songs Costello has ever written, brought to life by flights of vocal brilliance and jaw-dropping instrumental interaction. | ||
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In the fall of 1980, Costello, Nieve, the Thomases and producer Nick Lowe began work on their fourth collaboration, no doubt hoping to add to their streak of instant classics. Once again, the prolific Costello had prepared a bounty of new material, drawing inspiration from the macro (the new, repressive political climate of the Thatcher regime) and the micro (his unravelling marriage), while also cherry-picking bits from a sheaf of notes and partly written pieces the 26-year-old artist had been accumulating since his late adolescence. | In the fall of 1980, Costello, Nieve, the Thomases and producer Nick Lowe began work on their fourth collaboration, no doubt hoping to add to their streak of instant classics. Once again, the prolific Costello had prepared a bounty of new material, drawing inspiration from the macro (the new, repressive political climate of the Thatcher regime) and the micro (his unravelling marriage), while also cherry-picking bits from a sheaf of notes and partly written pieces the 26-year-old artist had been accumulating since his late adolescence. | ||
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Talk about great expectations. For their promotional campaign for Elvis Costello & The Attractions' 1982 album ''Imperial Bedroom'', Columbia Records advertised the record with a simple tagline: "Masterpiece?" That question mark is the (doubtless unintentionally) telling moment. Critical reception of ''Imperial Bedroom'' was mixed but mainly positive; its two singles didn't do particularly well, but the public took to the album, sending it Top to in the UK. And yet Costello himself would come out, later, criticising the songs, telling ''Rolling Stone'' in the late '80s, "Some of the songs are just not written well enough," that they often were too "vague" and "theoretical." | Talk about great expectations. For their promotional campaign for Elvis Costello & The Attractions' 1982 album ''Imperial Bedroom'', Columbia Records advertised the record with a simple tagline: "Masterpiece?" That question mark is the (doubtless unintentionally) telling moment. Critical reception of ''Imperial Bedroom'' was mixed but mainly positive; its two singles didn't do particularly well, but the public took to the album, sending it Top to in the UK. And yet Costello himself would come out, later, criticising the songs, telling ''Rolling Stone'' in the late '80s, "Some of the songs are just not written well enough," that they often were too "vague" and "theoretical." | ||
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It was the first time Costello's own songs had been produced by someone other than Nick Lowe, another step outside the familiar, outside the psychological confines of the Stiff Records clique (Lowe wouldn't return to the Costello producer's chair until 1986's ''Blood & Chocolate''). Instead, Costello called in Geoff Emerick, perhaps best known for his engineering work on The Beatles' ''Revolver'', ''Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' and "Strawberry Fields Forever." Emerick would also follow through some of Paul McCartney's solo career, including co-production and engineering of ''Band On The Run'' and ''Tug Of War'', which he was engineering concurrently with the ''Imperial Bedroom'' sessions. In short, Emerick had good form. | It was the first time Costello's own songs had been produced by someone other than Nick Lowe, another step outside the familiar, outside the psychological confines of the Stiff Records clique (Lowe wouldn't return to the Costello producer's chair until 1986's ''Blood & Chocolate''). Instead, Costello called in Geoff Emerick, perhaps best known for his engineering work on The Beatles' ''Revolver'', ''Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' and "Strawberry Fields Forever." Emerick would also follow through some of Paul McCartney's solo career, including co-production and engineering of ''Band On The Run'' and ''Tug Of War'', which he was engineering concurrently with the ''Imperial Bedroom'' sessions. In short, Emerick had good form. | ||
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Chances are, despite Elvis Costello's enormous capacity for irony and vitriol, even he didn't mean for the title of his ninth album to be such a personal prophecy. Nonetheless, the wicked series of events swirling around him as summer 1984 beckoned — the final disintegration of his 10-year marriage, financial strife verging on bankruptcy — resulted in the release of ''Goodbye Cruel World'', essentially the bitter end of Elvis' first golden era. By the time he regained his artistic footing, shedding longtime co-conspirators The Attractions, writing and touring with both T{{nb}}Bone Burnett and The Pogues, he was taking on a passel of noms de plume (take a bow, Howard Coward). He had all but buried "Elvis Costello." | Chances are, despite Elvis Costello's enormous capacity for irony and vitriol, even he didn't mean for the title of his ninth album to be such a personal prophecy. Nonetheless, the wicked series of events swirling around him as summer 1984 beckoned — the final disintegration of his 10-year marriage, financial strife verging on bankruptcy — resulted in the release of ''Goodbye Cruel World'', essentially the bitter end of Elvis' first golden era. By the time he regained his artistic footing, shedding longtime co-conspirators The Attractions, writing and touring with both T{{nb}}Bone Burnett and The Pogues, he was taking on a passel of noms de plume (take a bow, Howard Coward). He had all but buried "Elvis Costello." | ||
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But, as they say, it seemed like a good idea at the time. "Everyday I Write The Book," the catchy, snap-step single from ''Cruel World'''s predecessor ''Punch The Clock'', returned Costello to the charts in a big way in 1983, recasting punk's most eloquent angry voice as among the new-fangled crop of MTV pop hopefuls. The escalated game of chart sweepstakes required a suitable follow-up. "The Only Flame In Town," a slinky slice of faux R&B, replete with supper-club horns, cooing vocals and blue-eyed-soul superstar Daryl Hall on harmonies, was Costello's response. Ultimately, the song may have skimmed the realm of the popular, but it was a million miles from the pure chutzpah, revved-up guitars and emotional bloodbath of, say, "(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea." | But, as they say, it seemed like a good idea at the time. "Everyday I Write The Book," the catchy, snap-step single from ''Cruel World'''s predecessor ''Punch The Clock'', returned Costello to the charts in a big way in 1983, recasting punk's most eloquent angry voice as among the new-fangled crop of MTV pop hopefuls. The escalated game of chart sweepstakes required a suitable follow-up. "The Only Flame In Town," a slinky slice of faux R&B, replete with supper-club horns, cooing vocals and blue-eyed-soul superstar Daryl Hall on harmonies, was Costello's response. Ultimately, the song may have skimmed the realm of the popular, but it was a million miles from the pure chutzpah, revved-up guitars and emotional bloodbath of, say, "(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea." | ||
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Barely six months after the finely etched songcraft of ''King Of America'' had suggested an artist in the throes of elegant reinvention, ''Blood & Chocolate'' arrived to subvert any notions that Elvis Costello might be easing into the armchair of respectability. Shorn of his beard and much of <i>King Of America</i>'s warmth and tenderness, Costello returned in the guise of Napoleon Dynamite with a song so primitive it had been written by banging his palms on a kitchen table and shouting what passed for a melody into a tape recorder. | Barely six months after the finely etched songcraft of ''King Of America'' had suggested an artist in the throes of elegant reinvention, ''Blood & Chocolate'' arrived to subvert any notions that Elvis Costello might be easing into the armchair of respectability. Shorn of his beard and much of <i>King Of America</i>'s warmth and tenderness, Costello returned in the guise of Napoleon Dynamite with a song so primitive it had been written by banging his palms on a kitchen table and shouting what passed for a melody into a tape recorder. | ||
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"Uncomplicated" is the perfect introduction to ''Blood & Chocolate'', an album of vandal rock 'n' roll, primal mono-rhythms, blunt-force attacks and words that take a masochistic delight in aggravating exposed emotional nerve-endings. Compared to the airy Hollywood professionalism of the ''King Of America'' sessions, ''Blood & Chocolate'' has the mood of a dysfunctional family summit in the back room of a West London bookie's, the atmosphere thick with unpleasant home truths and festering resentments. | "Uncomplicated" is the perfect introduction to ''Blood & Chocolate'', an album of vandal rock 'n' roll, primal mono-rhythms, blunt-force attacks and words that take a masochistic delight in aggravating exposed emotional nerve-endings. Compared to the airy Hollywood professionalism of the ''King Of America'' sessions, ''Blood & Chocolate'' has the mood of a dysfunctional family summit in the back room of a West London bookie's, the atmosphere thick with unpleasant home truths and festering resentments. | ||
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<center> Graeme Thomson </center> | <center> Graeme Thomson </center> | ||
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''' | '''The bold beginning of Costello's next phase or a dense and impenetrable wrong move? It's complicated.... | ||
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The long hair and the Catweazle beard seemed to instantly alienate critics and fans alike when Elvis Costello returned with his 13th studio album. But the changes that dictated the shape and sound of one of his most dense, complex and relatively unloved albums were far more radical. Between the recording of ''Spike'' and ''Mighty Like A Rose'', Costello had relocated to Dublin with Cait O'Riordan, a move partly predicated on his disgust at the Anglo-American political axis after 10 years of Tory rule and the beginnings of trouble in the Gulf. His rage would seep, none too coherently, into new songs such as "Invasion Hit Parade" and "Hurry Down Doomsday." | |||
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Costello was also enjoying an intense immersion in classical music. He had become an avid follower of pioneering string ensemble The Brodsky Quartet, and could also be heard raving about the varied charms of Schubert's sonatas, Schoenberg's ''Gurrelieder'' and Cecilia Bartoli. This new interest began to shape the way he approached his own music and the ambitions he harboured for it. When he was commissioned in 1990 to score, with Richard Harvey, the soundtrack to Alan Bleasdale's television drama ''GBH'', Costello found himself striving to communicate more sophisticated melodic and harmonic ideas without being able to read or write music. With the help of a computer, he began composing multiple, overlapping melodic lines, a methodology he used not only for <i>GBH</i>'s instrumental pieces, but also for arranging songs for his next album. | |||
If ''Spike'' was marked by a Tom Waitsian sonic adventurousness, ''Mighty Like A Rose'' was an even bolder step. The original plan had been to make an album rooted in live performances with The Attractions, but their participation foundered on financial disagreements (although both Steve Nieve and Pete Thomas appear on the record). Instead, Costello turned to the group of crack US sessions musicians he'd been working with, on and off, live and in the studio, since ''King Of America''. | |||
In the end, the idea of a tight pop record got lost beneath the kitchen-sink production style. Opening track and lead single "The Other Side Of Summer," an enjoyably manic surf-pop gem propelled by Costello at his most quotable (''"Was it a millionaire who said 'Imagine no possessions'?"'' snarls Paul McCartney's latest writing partner), featured 10 musicians playing live simultaneously. Their parts were then double-tracked, before three separate vocal harmonies were added to the main melody. | |||
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This ornate extravagance, typical of the album, was not random. All the vocal lines were carefully planned, the string and horn parts had been written on keyboard beforehand, and even the sequencing had been predetermined before a note had been recorded. ''Mighty Like A Rose'' was intended as a canvas for Costello to display more ambitious ways of writing and arranging, but the problematic result is that the more inviting songs — and there are several excellent ones here — arrive swamped by layers of stuff. | |||
Some of them are as dense and impenetrable as anything Costello has ever recorded. "Invasion Hit Parade," a huffing stop-start affair featuring a trumpet cameo from his father Ross, tackles the Cold War thaw so obliquely that its true purpose remains inaccessible. Co-producer Mitchell Froom later recalled a 25-minute conversation with Costello on the meaning of the song, at the end of which he wasn't any more enlightened. "Hurry Down Doomsday" takes aim at the Gulf War and cultural imperialism — ''"Mickey Mouse, Marlboro and Coca-Cola"'' — but lands closer to incoherent ravings. | |||
The idea of marrying rich, baroque orchestral pop to a bleak worldview was an interesting one on paper, but it often fails in execution. "Georgie And Her Rival" opens with the same chord sequence as "Oliver's Army," but its pop nous is buried in clutter. "All Grown Up" is a lovely song, but one hamstrung by Costello's decision to roar the words like an embittered drunk at a shotgun wedding. | |||
Even when all the busy-ness is stripped away, the results fail to convince. The stark "After The Fall" is drab and lifeless. "Broken," a Celtic dirge written by O'Riordan and recorded against a backdrop of ethereal aural wallpaper, remains a blot on Costello's catalogue. One of two McCartney co-writes, "Playboy To A Man" is a careening trifle, though its raw energy perhaps comes closest to the record's intent. | |||
At other times, the plan almost comes together. The elegant chamber setting of "Harpies Bizarre" conveys a mannered restraint utterly in keeping with the song's put-upon female subject. On "So Like Candy," the other McCartney collaboration, the minor-chord murk and Valium haze renders the sad mustiness of a vacated room palpable. "How To Be Dumb" — a coruscating riposte to the publication of Bruce Thomas' memoir ''The Big Wheel'', in which Costello, and indeed life itself, does not emerge with much credit — turns personal enmity into a rousing reprise of "Like A Rolling Stone." Best of all is "Couldn't Call It Unexpected No 4," a dark fireside tale of family secrets, lost faith and lingering regret on which the album's ambition at last pays tangible dividends, the gorgeous melody lifted by an ambitious, carnivalesque arrangement. | |||
''Mighty Like A Rose'' is not a record that often succeeds on its own terms, but it was one Costello clearly needed to make. With the benefit of hindsight it makes more sense, setting him on the path he would follow for much of the 1990s and beyond. His collaborations with the <!-- Brodksy --> Brodsky Quartet, Anne Sofie von Otter and Burt Bacharach, his curation of the 1995 Meltdown festival, his move into scoring opera and ballet, can all be traced back to this point. For good or ill, the roots of Costello as all-round musical renaissance man are planted here. | |||
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{{tags}}[[Mighty Like A Rose]] | {{tags}}[[Mighty Like A Rose]] {{-}} [[Hurry Down Doomsday (The Bugs Are Taking Over)|Hurry Down Doomsday]] {{-}} [[Invasion Hit Parade]] {{-}} [[The Brodsky Quartet]] {{-}} [[Franz Schubert]] {{-}} [[Cecilia Bartoli]] {{-}} [[Richard Harvey]] {{-}} [[Alan Bleasdale]] {{-}} [[GBH]] {{-}} [[Paul McCartney]] {{-}} [[Tom Waits]] {{-}} [[Steve Nieve]] {{-}} [[Pete Thomas]] {{-}} [[The Attractions]] {{-}} [[The Other Side Of Summer]] {{-}} [[Ross MacManus]] {{-}} [[Mitchell Froom]] {{-}} [[Georgie And Her Rival]] {{-}} [[Oliver's Army]] {{-}} [[All Grown Up]] {{-}} [[After The Fall]] {{-}} [[Broken]] {{-}} [[Cait O'Riordan]] {{-}} [[Playboy To A Man]] {{-}} [[Harpies Bizarre]] {{-}} [[So Like Candy]] {{-}} [[How To Be Dumb]] {{-}} [[Bruce Thomas]] {{-}} [[The Big Wheel]] {{-}} [[Like A Rolling Stone]] {{-}} [[Couldn't Call It Unexpected No. 4]] {{-}} [[Anne Sofie von Otter]] {{-}} [[Burt Bacharach]] {{-}} [[Meltdown|Meltdown festival]] | ||
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<center> Jon Dale </center> | <center> Jon Dale </center> | ||
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''' | '''The Attractions accidentally reform, as EC returns to the rough stuff. "His almost universal excellence is starting to disturb me!" | ||
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After the elaborations of 1991's ''Mighty Like A Rose'' and 1993's collaboration with The Brodsky Quartet, ''The Juliet Letters'', it felt a little like Costello was painting himself into a corner. An ornate one, where the songs were still enduring and compelling — ''The Juliet Letters'' in particular — but a corner nonetheless. One of the great myths of the record-release-tour cycle, though, is that of logical chronology, that x follows y follows z. In Costello's world, things tend to be a little less clear-cut. | |||
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So, in the same year as ''The Juliet Letters'', the dedicated Costello fan would have found themselves shelling out coin for the debut solo album by ex-Transvision Vamp lead singer Wendy James, ''Now Ain't The Time For Your Tears''. Costello had been approached to contribute a song to James' debut solo album, and countered with an offer to write the whole thing — a typically all-or-nothing gesture. Costello sent James 10 songs, some co-written with his wife Cait O'Riordan, on a tape where he'd blasted out rough versions with Pete Thomas on drums. Thomas carried over to the album, but what resulted was a bit of a curate's egg: the finished product, airbrushed and glossed, doesn't necessarily play to the immediate strengths of Costello's songs, but neither is it the debacle many claim — songs like "London's Brilliant" have a sweet snarkiness to them that James carries off with aplomb. | |||
Costello and Thomas had also been working on a project called ''Idiophone'', with roughs recorded back in Pathway Studios. (Costello's musical, which he was working on at the same time, is yet to see the light.) This project then mutated, slowly but surely, into ''Brutal Youth'', an album that brought back together, for the first time since 1986, The Attractions, with Nieve first joining the fold, while bass duties were filled out by Nick Lowe and then Bruce Thomas; producer Mitchell Froom had been working with the ex-Attraction on Suzanne Vega's elliptical folk-rock masterpiece ''99.9F°''. And if you're wondering why Lowe only appears on some of the songs, Costello's liner notes for ''Brutal Youth'' explain: "Nick, who has always remained understated about his instrumental abilities, claimed that [''the ballads''] simply contained 'too many Norwegians' for his style of playing. In other words: too many damn chords." | |||
It may have come about by a series of connections and fortuitous circumstances, but once you hear the songs on ''Brutal Youth'', it's hard to believe Costello wasn't writing with The Attractions in mind. Perhaps that was going on at a subconscious level, a return to the old gang after the different terrain he'd been traversing in recent years. Perhaps, too, there was something in Costello being around the corner from turning 40, and making peace with former selves. He wasn't above mocking his achievements as a genre-leaping, master-of-all-trades songwriter, either — "My Science Fiction Twin" features the quick-witted quips, ''"His almost universal excellence is starting to disturb me / They asked how in the world he does all these things / And he answered, 'Superbly'."'' | |||
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There's also a palpable sense of rejuvenation in the air throughout ''Brutal Youth'', an occasional moment of collective scores settled, and a simple roughhousing joy in playing the guitar rather fucking loud with an exceptional band in tow. Just don't call it "back to basics" — there's rather more going on here than you think at first blush. Opening with three songs that flood the sensorium with visceral playing, clanging guitars, spittle, invective, observational rage, humour — "Pony St.," "Kinder Murder" and "13 Steps Lead Down" — The Attractions are playing with fire under their feet as Costello reels off a catalogue of brutalities and indiscretions. The ageing hipster mother of "Pony St." is upbraiding her daughter for being a square, while playing the fly-by-night radicalism of the '60s for its shallow core: ''"If you're going out tonight / I won't wait up / Reading Das Kapital / Watching Home Shopping Club."'' | |||
Reflecting on the song while talking to Bill Flanagan, Costello confessed, "One of the things I got the story off was a review I read of Guns N' Roses in one of the English papers. The journalist asked this seven-year-old girl which one of Guns N' Roses she liked most and she said, 'I like Axl Rose 'cos my mummy says he puts a cucumber down his trousers.' And I thought, well, there it is — there's rock 'n' roll neutered forever." Some of ''Brutal Youth'' moves that moment of disappointment into other contexts, like the "fantasy afterlife" nightclub/ Don Juan nightmare of "This Is Hell," where "My Favourite Things" tortures the speakers — ''"It's by Julie Andrews / And not by John Coltrane."'' Or "13 Steps Lead Down," which pulls together a tale of visiting the tombs of Spanish kings, a pun on the 12-step programme, and a sinister bondage diorama. | |||
"13 Steps Lead Down," the album's second single after "Sulky Girl," was furious and thrilling. But then, after the regal "This Is Hell," Costello goes back to his soul roots with "Clown Strike," "You Tripped At Every Step" and then later, "Rocking Horse Road." These aren't quite as successful, feeling like Costello is revisiting some of the terrain of ''Get Happy!!''; but without the cohesive vision of that album, they're left feeling a little anomalous. Elsewhere, though, Costello leaps around with conviction and canniness: certainly, following up the melodramatic, melancholy poise of "Still Too Soon To Know," the arrangement naked and wilting, with the strained, warped rockabilly stroll of "20% Amnesia" is a confident move, proof of a group playing together near the peak of their powers. | |||
If ''Brutal Youth'' suffers from anything, it's a slight dip in quality in its second half — there are still good songs filling the album's back end, but "Just About Glad" and "All The Rage" recast stronger moments from earlier in the record. Closing with the beautiful piano-and-voice shiver and sigh of "Favourite Hour" helps to pull the album together, though, its dark intensity a late-night reflection of the ferocity of those three opening salvos. And there, <i>Brutal Youth</i>'s strangely circular logic reaches its destination, an album that reconnects Costello with his past and fires him off into a future uncertain, but with one of his more potent sets of songs in his back pocket. It's no real surprise that he would turn the corner and give us another set of covers — as if to say that, at least right now, he couldn't top <i>Brutal Youth</i>'s brutal pleasures. | |||
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{{tags}}[[Brutal Youth]] | {{tags}}[[Brutal Youth]] {{-}} [[Mighty Like A Rose]] {{-}} [[The Brodsky Quartet]] {{-}} [[The Juliet Letters]] {{-}} [[Wendy James]] {{-}} [[Wendy James: Now Ain't The Time For Your Tears|Now Ain't The Time For Your Tears]] {{-}} [[Cait O'Riordan]] {{-}} [[Pete Thomas]] {{-}} [[London's Brilliant]] {{-}} [[Idiophone]] {{-}} [[Pathway Studios]] {{-}} [[The Attractions]] {{-}} [[Steve Nieve]] {{-}} [[Nick Lowe]] {{-}} [[Bruce Thomas]] {{-}} [[Mitchell Froom]] {{-}} [[Suzanne Vega]] {{-}} [[My Science Fiction Twin]] {{-}} [[Pony St.]] {{-}} [[Kinder Murder]] {{-}} [[13 Steps Lead Down]] {{-}} [[Bill Flanagan]] {{-}} [[Musician, March 1994]] {{-}} [[This Is Hell]] {{-}} [[John Coltrane]] {{-}} [[Sulky Girl]] {{-}} [[Clown Strike]] {{-}} [[You Tripped At Every Step]] {{-}} [[Rocking Horse Road]] {{-}} [[Get Happy!!]] {{-}} [[Still Too Soon To Know]] {{-}} [[20% Amnesia]] {{-}} [[Just About Glad]] {{-}} [[All The Rage]] {{-}} [[Favourite Hour]] | ||
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<center><h3> Painted From Memory </h3></center> | |||
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<center> Rob Hughes </center> | |||
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Rob Hughes reviews Painted From Memory; Rob Hughes reviews Painted From Memory; Rob Hughes reviews Painted From Memory; | |||
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When ''My Aim Is True'' landed on the desk of American critic Greil Marcus, he "thought it was a hoax." In the rock world of 1977, nobody looked or sounded like the man on the cover, with bully-me glasses, gammy-legged stance, whiney voice and loud jacket. "I didn't believe anyone as geeky, who looked as if he were about to trip over his own feet, would have the nerve to appear in public under his own name," Marcus [[London Guardian, June 30, 2001|said]] when considering the 2001 reissue of ''My Aim Is True''. | When ''My Aim Is True'' landed on the desk of American critic Greil Marcus, he "thought it was a hoax." In the rock world of 1977, nobody looked or sounded like the man on the cover, with bully-me glasses, gammy-legged stance, whiney voice and loud jacket. "I didn't believe anyone as geeky, who looked as if he were about to trip over his own feet, would have the nerve to appear in public under his own name," Marcus [[London Guardian, June 30, 2001|said]] when considering the 2001 reissue of ''My Aim Is True''. | ||
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In a way, he was right. Costello was the creation of Declan MacManus, born in London in 1954. With a bandleader dad and a mum who ran a record store, MacManus was always going to take an interest in music, and by 1970 he was playing folk clubs before forming a pub rock band, Flip City. In 1975, MacManus had to take a desk job to support his wife and son, and rather than give up on a career in music, this seemed to ignite the single-mindedness that would illuminate his career. | In a way, he was right. Costello was the creation of Declan MacManus, born in London in 1954. With a bandleader dad and a mum who ran a record store, MacManus was always going to take an interest in music, and by 1970 he was playing folk clubs before forming a pub rock band, Flip City. In 1975, MacManus had to take a desk job to support his wife and son, and rather than give up on a career in music, this seemed to ignite the single-mindedness that would illuminate his career. | ||
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When an artist and the people around the artist are peaking — when their commercial and critical success is matched by their own confidence and ability to realise what they want to do — elements often seem to fall into place. So, for example, almost every song on ''Armed Forces'' seems to fit the main theme of human relationships as tiny wars, militarism as simile for love, and the whole linking up of love, war and fascism. | When an artist and the people around the artist are peaking — when their commercial and critical success is matched by their own confidence and ability to realise what they want to do — elements often seem to fall into place. So, for example, almost every song on ''Armed Forces'' seems to fit the main theme of human relationships as tiny wars, militarism as simile for love, and the whole linking up of love, war and fascism. | ||
[[image:2022-04-00 Uncut Ultimate Music Guide page 25.jpg|right|110px|border]] | |||
So, for example, it's a piece of sequencing wit that causes the first words sung on the record to be ''"Oh, I just don't know where to begin"'' and the last to be ''"I will return / I will not burn."'' So, for example, it's a record that sounds as 1979 and new wave as, say, The Boomtown Rats' ''Tonic For The Troops'' or the Stadium Dogs' ''What's Next'' or Squeeze's ''Cool For Cats'', but it's also a record that's confident enough to take on every pop music landmark from ABBA to ''Abbey Road'', but on its own terms. ''Armed Forces'' is an album that could only have been released in 1979, but — like ''Blonde On Blonde'', like ''Exile On Main Street'', like ''Innervisions'' — it's also an album that's of its time and stands outside its time. And it contains one of the greatest singles ever made. And it's a concept album. | So, for example, it's a piece of sequencing wit that causes the first words sung on the record to be ''"Oh, I just don't know where to begin"'' and the last to be ''"I will return / I will not burn."'' So, for example, it's a record that sounds as 1979 and new wave as, say, The Boomtown Rats' ''Tonic For The Troops'' or the Stadium Dogs' ''What's Next'' or Squeeze's ''Cool For Cats'', but it's also a record that's confident enough to take on every pop music landmark from ABBA to ''Abbey Road'', but on its own terms. ''Armed Forces'' is an album that could only have been released in 1979, but — like ''Blonde On Blonde'', like ''Exile On Main Street'', like ''Innervisions'' — it's also an album that's of its time and stands outside its time. And it contains one of the greatest singles ever made. And it's a concept album. | ||
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[[image:2022-04-00 Uncut Ultimate Music Guide page 36.jpg|right|110px|border]] | [[image:2022-04-00 Uncut Ultimate Music Guide page 36.jpg|right|110px|border]] | ||
If Elvis Costello had been toying with the idea of retiring from music prior to ''Trust'', its disappointing sales numbers hardly lightened the mood. His marriage was failing, he was drinking too much, and the collective tension within The Attractions showed little sign of easing up. | If Elvis Costello had been toying with the idea of retiring from music prior to ''Trust'', its disappointing sales numbers hardly lightened the mood. His marriage was failing, he was drinking too much, and the collective tension within The Attractions showed little sign of easing up. | ||
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As a consequence, he chose to take a break from songwriting altogether — though crucially, not from the studio itself. Costello had come to the conclusion that he could better articulate his current state through other people's songs. And what better medium to express his sorry disillusionment than country music? | As a consequence, he chose to take a break from songwriting altogether — though crucially, not from the studio itself. Costello had come to the conclusion that he could better articulate his current state through other people's songs. And what better medium to express his sorry disillusionment than country music? | ||
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You can probably get a handle on Elvis Costello's feelings for ''Punch The Clock'' by the fact that, when asked to write sleevenotes for a 2003 re-release, he claimed to be "unable to recall a single further entertaining incident that occurred during these sessions," so simply reprinted the essay that prefaced the 1995 reissue, complete with typing errors. ''Punch The Clock'' is an awkward entry in Costello's catalogue. Boasting an atmosphere of superficial jollity, but also two of his finest, most deeply felt, political songs, it's an album that has to be considered a success on its own terms. It's the nature of those terms that left the strange taste in his mouth. | You can probably get a handle on Elvis Costello's feelings for ''Punch The Clock'' by the fact that, when asked to write sleevenotes for a 2003 re-release, he claimed to be "unable to recall a single further entertaining incident that occurred during these sessions," so simply reprinted the essay that prefaced the 1995 reissue, complete with typing errors. ''Punch The Clock'' is an awkward entry in Costello's catalogue. Boasting an atmosphere of superficial jollity, but also two of his finest, most deeply felt, political songs, it's an album that has to be considered a success on its own terms. It's the nature of those terms that left the strange taste in his mouth. | ||
[[image:2022-04-00 Uncut Ultimate Music Guide page 51.jpg|right|110px|border]] | |||
In 1983, Costello needed a hit, to get "reacquainted with the wonderful world of pop music." As he admitted, "If you allow contact with the mainstream audience to be severed for too long, you lose the freedom to do what you want to do." America hadn't shown much interest in ''Almost Blue'' or ''Imperial Bedroom'', and the UK Top 30 hadn't been troubled since "Good Year For The Roses," so ''Punch The Clock'' has purpose and begins with gusto. "Let Them All Talk" and "Everyday I Write The Book" are frantic, full and ridiculously charming: the former is packed with crusading, peppy horns, the latter led off by a modern approximation of Motown backing harmonies. Slick, synthetic but by no means unpalatable, this was Costello embracing what he called the "passionless fads of that charmless time: the early '80s." | In 1983, Costello needed a hit, to get "reacquainted with the wonderful world of pop music." As he admitted, "If you allow contact with the mainstream audience to be severed for too long, you lose the freedom to do what you want to do." America hadn't shown much interest in ''Almost Blue'' or ''Imperial Bedroom'', and the UK Top 30 hadn't been troubled since "Good Year For The Roses," so ''Punch The Clock'' has purpose and begins with gusto. "Let Them All Talk" and "Everyday I Write The Book" are frantic, full and ridiculously charming: the former is packed with crusading, peppy horns, the latter led off by a modern approximation of Motown backing harmonies. Slick, synthetic but by no means unpalatable, this was Costello embracing what he called the "passionless fads of that charmless time: the early '80s." | ||
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Just when a trend seems to be established — undercooked songs meets overbaked production — ''Punch The Clock'' hits you with not just the best song on the album, but one of the best songs Costello has written. "Shipbuilding" started with a piano melody written by Clive Langer. Asked to supply lyrics, Costello went on tour in Australia, where he followed the Falklands war between Argentina and Britain through the tabloids, and produced a stunning, sad but above all wise meditation about war, industry, economy and class. Released as a single with Robert Wyatt supplying elegiac vocals, "Shipbuilding" had been a minor hit in April 1983, but Costello always planned to do his own version and, to distinguish it from Wyatt's version, called in Chet Baker to contribute mournful trumpet. Wynton Marsalis and Miles Davis were also considered, but Baker's solo is magnificent, even if he was "pretty spaced out" according to Langer, who pieced it together from three takes. | Just when a trend seems to be established — undercooked songs meets overbaked production — ''Punch The Clock'' hits you with not just the best song on the album, but one of the best songs Costello has written. "Shipbuilding" started with a piano melody written by Clive Langer. Asked to supply lyrics, Costello went on tour in Australia, where he followed the Falklands war between Argentina and Britain through the tabloids, and produced a stunning, sad but above all wise meditation about war, industry, economy and class. Released as a single with Robert Wyatt supplying elegiac vocals, "Shipbuilding" had been a minor hit in April 1983, but Costello always planned to do his own version and, to distinguish it from Wyatt's version, called in Chet Baker to contribute mournful trumpet. Wynton Marsalis and Miles Davis were also considered, but Baker's solo is magnificent, even if he was "pretty spaced out" according to Langer, who pieced it together from three takes. | ||
Side two kicks leads off with the horn-happy "TKO (Boxing Day)," with Costello ungallantly noting that ''"Now you don't look so glamorous, whenever I feel so amorous"'' and offering a bewildering litany of puns: ''"They put the numb into number, put the cut into cutie/ They put the slum into slumber and the boot into beauty."'' The tempo is sustained on the light funk "Charm School," with Afrodiziak contributing some of their best backing vocals, before "The Invisible Man," pulled together from discarded lyrics, struts into view like a Kinks outtake. The sequence of "Mouth Almighty" and "King Of Thieves" offer a | Side two kicks leads off with the horn-happy "TKO (Boxing Day)," with Costello ungallantly noting that ''"Now you don't look so glamorous, whenever I feel so amorous"'' and offering a bewildering litany of puns: ''"They put the numb into number, put the cut into cutie/ They put the slum into slumber and the boot into beauty."'' The tempo is sustained on the light funk "Charm School," with Afrodiziak contributing some of their best backing vocals, before "The Invisible Man," pulled together from discarded lyrics, struts into view like a Kinks outtake. The sequence of "Mouth Almighty" and "King Of Thieves" offer a low point, the former a half-hearted pop ballad, the second sprawling and shapeless. Given that the equally modest Squeeze-lite "The World And His Wife" is yet to come, the only thing saving the second half of the record from complete mediocrity is a song that, like "Shipbuilding," Costello didn't even write for the album. "Pills And Soap" was based on Grandmaster Flash's "The Message," with Costello delivering a tremendously cynical lyric, ostensibly about the iniquity of the tabloid press but also about political deceit and establishment hypocrisy, over a drum machine and Steve Nieve's dramatic piano. Stark and demanding, it came out before the general election of May 1983, with Costello styling himself The Imposter. He planned to bring it out on red vinyl in the event of Labour victory but, denied that satisfaction, instead covered The Beat's anti-Thatcher "Stand Down Margaret" on the BBC. Shortly after, ''Punch The Clock'' was released to a receptive public. Costello's calculated gamble had paid off, but it was a tightrope act he'd struggle to repeat. | ||
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We've become accustomed, 37 years into his career, to Elvis Costello's unpredictable waxes and wanes. However, around the time of the release of his 10th album, ''King Of America'', there was considerable muttering to the effect that Costello was no sure long-term proposition. He had gone up like a rocket, this argument went, releasing five nigh-flawless albums in as many years straight off the launchpad, and had since been wafting slowly back down through less rarefied stratospheres, via a country covers project, a somewhat overheated orchestral pop opus, a Philly soul digression and, most latterly, the muddled, portentously titled ''Goodbye Cruel World''. When he broke what was, by his standards, an epochal silence of two years with a hoarse, desperate swipe at The Animals' "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," many assumed that Elvis had, to all intents and purposes, left the building. | We've become accustomed, 37 years into his career, to Elvis Costello's unpredictable waxes and wanes. However, around the time of the release of his 10th album, ''King Of America'', there was considerable muttering to the effect that Costello was no sure long-term proposition. He had gone up like a rocket, this argument went, releasing five nigh-flawless albums in as many years straight off the launchpad, and had since been wafting slowly back down through less rarefied stratospheres, via a country covers project, a somewhat overheated orchestral pop opus, a Philly soul digression and, most latterly, the muddled, portentously titled ''Goodbye Cruel World''. When he broke what was, by his standards, an epochal silence of two years with a hoarse, desperate swipe at The Animals' "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," many assumed that Elvis had, to all intents and purposes, left the building. | ||
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The outward appearance of ''King Of America'' offered little reassurance. The LP was formally credited, somewhat bafflingly, to The Costello Show (one of few places his familiar pseudonym appeared at all, with songs credited to Costello's real name, Declan MacManus, and guitars to The Little Hands Of Concrete, owing to a predilection for in-studio string-breaking). The cover was a sepia headshot of Costello sporting a beard, brocaded jacket, crown, and expression of bored insouciance, of the sort that might well preface inquiring, of some simpering serf, "And what is it that you do?" The sleevenotes prompted further bewilderment. It was surprising enough that The Attractions appeared on only one track, rather more so that for much of the album Costello was backed by men who had, until a decade previously, been playing for another Elvis: the TCB Band themselves, James Burton, Jerry Scheff and Ron Tutt. Also aboard were supreme jazz bassist (and once Mr Ella Fitzgerald) Ray Brown, former Little Richard (and almost everybody else) drummer Earl Palmer, and such top-drawer sessioneers as T-Bone Wolk, Mitchell Froom and Jim Keltner. If Costello had submitted to hubris, he hadn't done it by halves. | The outward appearance of ''King Of America'' offered little reassurance. The LP was formally credited, somewhat bafflingly, to The Costello Show (one of few places his familiar pseudonym appeared at all, with songs credited to Costello's real name, Declan MacManus, and guitars to The Little Hands Of Concrete, owing to a predilection for in-studio string-breaking). The cover was a sepia headshot of Costello sporting a beard, brocaded jacket, crown, and expression of bored insouciance, of the sort that might well preface inquiring, of some simpering serf, "And what is it that you do?" The sleevenotes prompted further bewilderment. It was surprising enough that The Attractions appeared on only one track, rather more so that for much of the album Costello was backed by men who had, until a decade previously, been playing for another Elvis: the TCB Band themselves, James Burton, Jerry Scheff and Ron Tutt. Also aboard were supreme jazz bassist (and once Mr Ella Fitzgerald) Ray Brown, former Little Richard (and almost everybody else) drummer Earl Palmer, and such top-drawer sessioneers as T-Bone Wolk, Mitchell Froom and Jim Keltner. If Costello had submitted to hubris, he hadn't done it by halves. | ||
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As the 1980s dwindled, Elvis Costello found himself in the unusual position of not knowing what to do next. Amid a host of plans and projects, which was the one to pursue? By the end of 1987, his protracted break-up with The Attractions was (more or less) completed, while he had slotted in international dates with The Confederates. His marriage to Cait O'Riordan was still in its honeymoon and Costello was much in the orbit of The Pogues, with whom O'Riordan played bass. Further, he had been working with Paul McCartney, who had proposed the pair write an album together. By the start of 1988, he was also penning the soundtrack for ''The Courier'', an Irish film that featured O'Riordan in its cast. | As the 1980s dwindled, Elvis Costello found himself in the unusual position of not knowing what to do next. Amid a host of plans and projects, which was the one to pursue? By the end of 1987, his protracted break-up with The Attractions was (more or less) completed, while he had slotted in international dates with The Confederates. His marriage to Cait O'Riordan was still in its honeymoon and Costello was much in the orbit of The Pogues, with whom O'Riordan played bass. Further, he had been working with Paul McCartney, who had proposed the pair write an album together. By the start of 1988, he was also penning the soundtrack for ''The Courier'', an Irish film that featured O'Riordan in its cast. | ||
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Costello was in truth all over the place, his restlessness and dissatisfaction with his career arc reflected in the welter of soubriquets he had adopted over the previous couple of years, and in his ceaseless changes of musical approach. Was this desperation in the guise of a questing spirit, or simply a loss of direction? | Costello was in truth all over the place, his restlessness and dissatisfaction with his career arc reflected in the welter of soubriquets he had adopted over the previous couple of years, and in his ceaseless changes of musical approach. Was this desperation in the guise of a questing spirit, or simply a loss of direction? | ||
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<center> Andrew Mueller </center> | <center> Andrew Mueller </center> | ||
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''' | '''Rock 'n' roll, where art thou? A confounding, undervalued hook-up with The Brodsky Quartet. | ||
{{Bibliography text | {{Bibliography text}} | ||
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"This is no more my stab at classical music than it is the Brodsky Quartet's first rock and roll album," declared Elvis Costello in the (extensive) sleevenotes of the original release of ''The Juliet Letters''. A measure of defensiveness was understandable. As Costello had learned the hard way, over 13 previous albums of restless reinvention and innovation, and the often bewildered and/or outraged response to same, rock fans — for all their rebel posturing — are often extremely conservative and possessive people. | |||
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There was indeed reason to fear that those who would have preferred he never outgrew the sweaty, splenetic, knock-kneed, misanthropic punk rocker on the cover of ''My Aim Is True'' and ''This Year's Model'' might be other than welcoming of what was — and there was really no getting around this — an emotionally complex concept album made in cahoots with serious string players. Or, as a senior figure at one music weekly remarked when the first violin trills of the brief instrumental fanfare "Deliver Us" were broadcast across the office, "Has the King of Albania died or something?" | |||
The suspicions engendered by ''The Juliet Letters'' were mostly to the effect that Costello was being deliberately and obtusely whimsical and/or insane and vainglorious and/or was making a clumsy and faintly pitiable attempt to be taken seriously. The last of these was convincingly debunked by Costello himself in the (even more extensive) sleevenotes of the 2006 reissue of ''The Juliet Letters'' ("Clearly, anyone who made such a statement had little or no knowledge of critical hyperbole that can rain down on even the slightest talent before the bloom goes off the romance in pop music. I had found myself being taken too seriously and over-analysed from the very outset of my recording career.") The other accusations were rather more a reflection on those making them than the object of them: imagination and ambition seem strange insults to level at any artist, or indeed anyone. | |||
< | The more prosaic truth of the gestation of ''The Juliet Letters'' was that Costello had chanced across a newspaper article about a Veronese professor who had taken to replying to the correspondence the city apparently received addressed to Juliet Capulet. Costello, not unreasonably, was intrigued by the idea of what people might be writing to a fictional or at any rate long-dead character, and what one could possibly say in reply. At around the same time, he was entranced by The Brodsky Quartet's performances of Shostakovich's string quartets at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, and over the next few years became a regular at their concerts — unaware, as he tells it, that the Brodskys had also been to see him play more than once. They began discussing working together in 1991, and ''The Juliet Letters'' was premiered in London and <!-- Darlington --> Dartington in the summer of 1992, after which the album was recorded, live in the studio. | ||
''The Juliet Letters'' is a punctiliously equal collaboration: Costello contributes to the music, the Brodskys to the words. For all that, ''The Juliet Letters'', like few other Costello albums before or since — ''North'' is perhaps the only comparison — is dominated by Costello's singing voice. This is understandable — he'd cut that unmistakable serrated whine to be heard against vastly more clamorous backing. And it's mostly no problem at all, at least for listeners who have acquired what remains a divisive taste. His impersonation of a vindictive grandmother plotting disinheritance on "I Almost Had A Weakness" owes much to such previous sanctimoniously enraged outbursts as "Blue Chair" and "How To Be Dumb"; "This Sad Burlesque" is a descendant of such beard-era baroque triumphs as "All Grown Up" and "God's Comic," and his ominous muttering of "For Other Eyes" recalls "Pills And Soap" (a Brodskyfied version of which would form part of the encore at live performances of ''The Juliet Letters''). | |||
But the worst and best moments of ''The Juliet Letters'' are those at which Costello tries to find new voices for this new context. On "Swine," he affects a nasal, declamatory bark to suit a screed of deranged ranting (''"You're a swine and I'm saying that's an insult to the pig"''), but sounds perhaps too convincingly like a ragged-trousered itinerant barking at traffic outside an off-licence. Similarly, the hoarse barrow-boy yelp of "This Offer Is Unrepeatable" suits the chain-letter huckster narrating the lyric, but entices the repeat listener as little as spam of this sort (''"Ignore at your peril this splendid advice"'') entices sane recipients. On a few other tracks, especially "Romeo's Seance" and "The First To Leave," Costello could perhaps have afforded to rein in his sometimes hyperactively tremulous vibrato just a little. | |||
But when he properly hits it, he's magnificent. The creeping, obsessive "Taking My Life In Your Hands," the glorious show-stopper that heralded the intermission in live performances of ''The Juliet Letters'', builds slowly and sumptuously to a crescendo that Costello surely has no hope of reaching, until he does, at which he suddenly resembles some seething, vindictive cousin of Bobby Hatfield (a compliment, in these circumstances). | |||
The Brodsky Quartet are predictably extraordinary throughout, as capable of the stately and restrained ("The Letter Home," "This Sad Burlesque") as they are of the playful and poppy. "Jacksons, Monk And Rowe," for all that it was mostly written by the Brodskys' Michael and Jacqueline Thomas, would have fitted seamlessly onto one of Costello's more arranged albums — ''Imperial Bedroom'', say, or ''Spike''. It says much about the seamlessness of Costello's association with The Brodsky Quartet that it barely seemed remarkable when they did pop up on a couple of his subsequent albums, playing on a track each of ''All This Useless Beauty'' and ''North'', or when Costello appeared on their <!-- Mood Swings --> ''Moodswings''. | |||
No Elvis Costello album has been so witheringly pre-judged as ''The Juliet Letters''. It may be for that reason that it rarely features among lists of his best works. Indeed, it must be that, because there's not a lot wrong with the songs. | |||
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{{tags}}[[The Juliet Letters]] | {{tags}}[[The Juliet Letters]] {{-}} [[The Brodsky Quartet]] {{-}} [[The Juliet Letters (1993) liner notes|Juliet Letters (1993) liner notes]] {{-}} [[My Aim Is True]] {{-}} [[This Year's Model]] {{-}} [[Deliver Us]] {{-}} [[The Juliet Letters (2006) liner notes]] {{-}} [[The Juliet Letters#The Juliet Letters (2006 Rhino/Edsel edition)|The Juliet Letters 2006 Rhino/ Edsel reissue]] {{-}} [[Juliet Capulet]] {{-}} [[Queen Elizabeth Hall]] {{-}} [[Dmitri Shostakovich|Shostakovich]] {{-}} [[Concert 1992-07-01 London|London 1992]] {{-}} [[Concert 1992-08-13 Dartington|Dartington 1992]] {{-}} [[North]] {{-}} [[I Almost Had A Weakness]] {{-}} [[Blue Chair]] {{-}} [[How To Be Dumb]] {{-}} [[This Sad Burlesque]] {{-}} [[All Grown Up]] {{-}} [[God's Comic]] {{-}} [[For Other Eyes]] {{-}} [[Pills And Soap]] {{-}} [[This Offer Is Unrepeatable]] {{-}} [[Swine]] {{-}} [[The First To Leave]] {{-}} [[Romeo's Seance]] {{-}} [[Taking My Life In Your Hands]] {{-}} [[The Letter Home]] {{-}} [[This Sad Burlesque]] {{-}} [[Jacksons, Monk And Rowe]] {{-}} [[Michael Thomas]] {{-}} [[Jacqueline Thomas]] {{-}} [[Imperial Bedroom]] {{-}} [[All This Useless Beauty]] {{-}} [[Spike]] {{-}} [[North]] {{-}} [[The Brodsky Quartet: Moodswings]] | ||
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[[Category:Punch The Clock reviews]] | [[Category:Punch The Clock reviews]] | ||
[[Category:Goodbye Cruel World reviews]] | [[Category:Goodbye Cruel World reviews]] | ||
[[Category:King Of America reviews]] | |||
[[Category:Blood & Chocolate reviews]] | |||
[[Category:Spike reviews]] | |||
[[Category:Mighty Like A Rose reviews]] | |||
[[Category:The Juliet Letters reviews]] | |||
[[Category:Brutal Youth reviews]] | |||
[[Category:Kojak Variety reviews]] | |||
[[Category:All This Useless Beauty reviews]] | |||
[[Category:Painted From Memory reviews]] |
Revision as of 23:31, 11 March 2024
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- All This Useless Beauty reviews
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