Washington Post, March 6, 1994

From The Elvis Costello Wiki
Jump to navigationJump to search
... Bibliography ...
727677787980818283
848586878889909192
939495969798990001
020304050607080910
111213141516171819
202122232425 26 27 28


Washington Post

Washington DC publications

US publications by state
  • ALAKARAZCA
  • COCTDCDEFL
  • GAHI   IA      ID      IL
  • IN   KSKYLA   MA
  • MDME   MIMNMO
  • MSMTNC  ND  NE
  • NHNJNMNVNY
  • OHOKORPARI
  • SCSDTNTXUT
  • VAVTWAWIWY

-

Elvis Costello, longing for his Youth


Mark Jenkins

You can't go home again, but you can understand why Elvis Costello would want to try. The recent Rykodisc re-release of the earliest albums by mainstream American rock criticism's favorite British punk rocker got much better notices than his last several efforts. Meanwhile, the songs Costello penned for Wendy James's Now Ain't the Time for Your Tears — which the songwriter boasted were throwaways — were more satisfying than the ones he wrote for "The Juliet Letters," his barely cyclical song cycle for aging punker and string quartet.

The segue from Tears to Costello's new Brutal Youth (Warner Bros.) is clear enough. The latter's "London's Brilliant Parade" follows from the former's "London's Brilliant"; if the Brutal Youth song doesn't replicate the Clash the way the Tears one does, Costello nonetheless has set the way-back machine for 1978's This Year's Model, or at least 1981's Trust. Youth even finds him again playing with the Attractions (including bassist Bruce Thomas, with whom Costello had a split once reported as permanent) and original producer Nick Lowe, although the album was produced by Mitchell Froom, who's worked on the singer's more recent discs.

The title's not the only thing about Youth that consciously evokes the spirit of '77. British punk presented itself (in the words of the Jam) as "Sounds From the Street," and Costello has written several new street songs, from the opening "Pony St." through "Rocking Horse Road." Following the lead of an American — Jonathan Richman, who exalted obscure Boston neighborhoods and suburbs in such songs as "Roadrunner" — Britpunk also celebrated regional identities, a tactic echoed by "London's Brilliant Parade": In a single verse, the singer mentions Kensington, Camden Town, Hammersmith Palais (site of a Clash single), Regents Park (where the zoo's "lions and tigers," despite the lyric, now can "pay their way") and even Fulham Broadway (that's in Chelsea, where an early Costello tune insisted he didn't want to go).

The spare, sprung sound also flashes back to the late '70s. Shunning the over-upholstered arrangements of his recent work, Costello and his cohorts keep things jumpy and primal; a lot of the hooks belong to the bass (predominantly played by Lowe) and Pete Thomas's drums, while keyboardist Steve Nieve provides organ fills and harmonium flourishes. The album's ballads range from dull to duller, but such rockers as "Pony St.," "Just About Glad," "My Science Fiction Twin," "13 Steps Lead Down" (whose verses recall "Pump It Up") and "20% Amnesia" (which borrows a bit of the guitar riff from the Beatles' "She's a Woman") swagger agreeably. That's not sufficient, however, to make them mean something.

Costello has always had a weakness for empty wordplay, and this album features some of his emptiest. "Kinder Murder" brushes up against the subject of abortion just to indulge an ambiguous refrain (which could be heard as "It's a kind of murder"), while "Pony St." exists principally for its couplet "While you're flogging a dead horse / All the way down Pony St." The songwriter can't even summon the full force of his renowned misogyny for "Sulky Girl," a portrait of a woman seen "practicing [her] blackmail faces." But then a lot of these songs are about nothing more pressing than the London Zoo's already-solved budget crisis. That explains why, even when Costello's guitar playing is anarchic, the urgency of his initial work is almost entirely lacking here.

-
<< >>

The Washington Post, March 6, 1994


Mark Jenkins reviews Brutal Youth.


-



Back to top

External links