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It's presumptuous to call a record a classic when it has been in release for a few months. So I'm presumptuous. Elvis Costello has consistently put out well-written, well-performed and well-produced entertainment, but none quite like this. The album is Elvis Costello and the Attractions' Imperial Bedroom.
Defining this music is impossible. It isn't disco or funk; it's not really new wave. It comes close to pure rock, but is too serious for that.
Rarely can someone, with the use of puns and contrived rhymes, write and perform songs as picture-perfect as "The Loved Ones," and this release has fourteen other songs that equal or rival it.
The song I just mentioned, "The Loved Ones," deals with dying of a drug overdose; it shatters any of the romantic illusions one may have about immortality through suicide.
"Now there's a name we'll never forget
There's one born every minute or two"
The best part is that Costello doesn't weight down his songs with dirgish pretension.
The album is filled with perfect double-edge knives of wit. From "You Little Fool":
"A little girl wants information
Mother just gives her some pills to chew
and says go and use your imagination"
Although much of the album is group-produced light instrumentation, some smooth orchestral music is used. For instance "Town Cryer" is a beautiful, slow, flowing number:
"Other boys use the splendor of their trembling lips
so teddy-bear tender and tragically hip"
This song flows beautifully with thick piano music and Costello's raspy vibrato.
All the components of this record add up to as near to perfection as possible. Costello's writing and singing are superb. The Attractions, described by some critics as one of the world's 10 best bands, are better than ever.
True, it may be presumptuous to speak of classics, but the man called Elvis has once again avoided cliche music while living up to another one: "a classic in his own time."
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