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Such tracks (and "Tart" and "Dust") are eminently quotable - especially the latter, a kind of 3 am Girls "Desolation Row," from what I can make out - but there is also a whole lot of EC-by-numbers here, with lines like ''"I want a girl to turn my screw / To wind my watch / to buckle my shoe"'' (I don't know how he didn't capsize with shame when he put that last one down). And there's also WAY too much morality-by numbers. Elvis, I'd be careful using the word "whoring" about anyone else's vocation when part of yours is to introduce the despicable Grammies alongside Amanda Holden - bet you were hoping not too many people saw that, eh? Or maybe the opposite with a "new record to plug?" | Such tracks (and "Tart" and "Dust") are eminently quotable - especially the latter, a kind of 3 am Girls "Desolation Row," from what I can make out - but there is also a whole lot of EC-by-numbers here, with lines like ''"I want a girl to turn my screw / To wind my watch / to buckle my shoe"'' (I don't know how he didn't capsize with shame when he put that last one down). And there's also WAY too much morality-by numbers. Elvis, I'd be careful using the word "whoring" about anyone else's vocation when part of yours is to introduce the despicable Grammies alongside Amanda Holden - bet you were hoping not too many people saw that, eh? Or maybe the opposite with a "new record to plug?" | ||
Too much on ''When I Was Cruel'' is both pointedly obtuse in an overfamiliar EC way; and lazily ill-considered (''"She had the attention span of warm cellophane"'' just doesn't work as a figure), flash savagery for the sake of a good pun (and just what IS it with blondes? Like, his guilt over that fling he had with a lovely "band aid" 20 years ago ought to have a fucking moratorium on it by now, you know?)... | |||
With a bit of self pruning, a bit MORE risk and space in the production (fewer words, more echo) and he might have TRULY self reinvented. In 2002, no matter how much better than His Last Few LPs this is, it's still Just Another Elvis Costello LP. | |||
Or as my teenybopper girlfriend just (cruelly) put it: "Put So Solid Crew back on NOW!" | |||
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Revision as of 05:22, 1 November 2014
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