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The Major and the Minor
Elvis Costello, With Burt Bacharach - Painted From Memory
(Mercury) (Hip-O).
Michael Roberts
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Elvis Costello, once the brashest of blokes, has become one of the most self-conscious artists in music. He no longer writes songs because he must--because he's got to get them out or perish in the process. Rather, he dabbles in conceptualization in an effort to please forty-plus reviewers who keep their snoots permanently raised (or younger scribes who merely think like them). He struck the mother lode in this regard when he hooked up with Burt Bacharach, an aging tunesmith whose rich but cheesy melodies have recently been rediscovered by journalists too cool to admit liking them the first time around. The partnership profited both parties: It allowed Costello to place himself on the popular pantheon alongside the Broadway/Tin Pan Alley divinity even as it freed Bacharach from the campy trap that he'd stepped into via his cameo in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.
Unfortunately, the promise of "God Give Me Strength," a first-rate song Costello and Bacharach penned for the soundtrack of the semi-flop Grace of My Heart, is not fulfilled by Painted From Memory, an album that's as pretentious as it is disappointing. Bacharach at his best gives pop a patina of seriousness, but here Costello reverses the equation, emphasizing Significance at the expense of hooks. Not one of the tunes is up-tempo, and the medium-speed introductions to "Tears at the Birthday Party" and "Such Unlikely Lovers" slow down considerably before long. Worse, the arrangements mistake lounge instrumentation for suavity, thereby serving as an uncomfortable reminder of Bacharach's "Arthur's Theme" period. And while Costello tries to create lyrics that are less verbose than those for which he's known, the strain is as obvious as when he's puckering his sphincter in an effort to hit notes that are just beyond his natural range. Bacharach's ability to make a hackneyed melody seem tonier than it should hasn't left him yet, but rummaging around for such moments on this disc is far more trouble than it's worth.
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