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NEW YORK — Elvis, Costello, the most talented songwriter to emerge out of the ferment of English new-wave rock, has gone back to basics on his excellent new album, King of America (Columbia).
The album, produced by Costello with T-Bone Burnett, using small instrumental groupings that feature veteran country studio musicians, has the feel of a late-1950s rockabilly album. The slower songs, which have an easy-going, country-folk flavor, contain some of the catchiest melodies of Costello's songwriting career. Uncluttered by fussy production, his passionate vocals have a terse, strangulated intensity that reminds one of his spiritual ties to rockabilly, especially the music of Buddy Holly.
Looking back on the recent past, Costello is displeased with his last two albums, Punch The Clock and Goodbye Cruel World. "Especially on Goodbye, Cruel World, I allowed the arrangements to run away with themselves," he reflected, "While on solo tour last spring, I discovered that a lot of the songs on those records were stronger when played very simply. I vowed never again to fall into the trap of making records that try to sound like the year in which they were recorded."
While Costello denies that King of America is a concept album a number of the songs examine the American dream from a visitors point at view. The most memorable new song, "Brilliant Mistake," presents three interlocking vignettes of people who are dazzled by American-style dreams, of fame and glory but who end up disillusioned.
"In the same way that a lot of what Brecht wrote about America was based on what he saw in gangster movies, my dream about America came mostly from records and TV program like Kojak." Costello said. When I first went to Detroit, I was so naive I half expected to see the Supremes standing on the corner and singing."
Costello's assessment of hid recent pest coincides with a recognition that, contrary to the predictions of many pop soothsayers, be may never follow the original Elvis into major commercial success.
‘I'm not interested in having a dishonest hit," he said.
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