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Punch The Clock, the eighth album by Elvis Costello and the Attractions, finds Elvis once again wrestling with the demons of 1960's soul music. Unlike Get Happy, Costello's previous excursion into the world of R & B, Punch The Clock sports a full Motown/Stax style horn section and a female vocal duo.
In beginning a review of Punch The Clock, it would be wise to note that Elvis Costello has proven himself to be among the most gifted writers and performers of his generation. He has recorded albums in a variety of genres, each handled with an enviable amount of ease and facility. His songs are laden with hooks, and he has successfully ventured into styles as diverse as those of David Bowie, The Beatles, George Jones, Cole Porter and the Temptations. While this stylistic diversity has marked Costello as a unique talent, it has also made it increasingly difficult to tell how sincere he is in each new artistic stance. The biggest problem with Costello's work, and with Punch The Clock in particular, is that is is often impossible to reconcile the supposedly serious content of the songs with the cute, smug, or downright smutty approach he brings to them.
Punch The Clock opens well, with Let Them All Talk, a driving horn-dominated track featuring a strong chorus in the best MOTOWN tradition. Everyday I Write the Book, The Greatest Thing and The Element Within Her are all catchy pop songs, and the fine backing vocals by Afrodiziak on Everyday I Write the Book help to make it a contender for Elvis' first hit single in America. Love Went Mad, despite a few nice turns in the chorus, is bogged down by such typical couplets as:
With these vulgar fractions of the treble clef/I wish you luck with a capital "F."
Closing side one is Shipbuilding, a slow, jazzy inflected ballad questioning the economic upswing which accompanies a nation going to war. The lyric is concise and devoid of the multi-syllabic rhyming histronics that have marred too many of Elvis Costello's compositions. Shipbuilding goes a little longer than it needs to, but the fact that Elvis tackles an important subject without throwing in his usual not-nice-girl-with-lipstick reference makes it artistically the strongest song on the album.
T.K.O. (Boxing Day), the first song on side 2, is another Motown/Stax shouter with an impressive horn chart. Charm School is easily the worst song on the record, with Elvis using his most affected voice to croon:
You and I as lovers were nothing but a farce/Trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's arse.
The fact that this sort of thing goes on over a riff lifted from The Summer Knows, of all songs, makes it even harder to listen to. After this taste of wretched cuteness, The Invisible Man, Mouth Almighty, King of Thieves, and The World and His Wife weigh in as decent, danceable pop songs with impeccable arrangements. Pills and Soap, an attack on the "hard line, in hypocrisy," drawn by British aristocrats, is simply too grating to like very much. Even a reference to Lady Di and her husband, Charles, as "Lord and Lady Muck" fails to breathe life into this slow number.
The central theme of Punch The Clock is that man, when he becomes bored and frustrated with his personal, sexual or even national situation, sometimes takes actions that are not in his self-interest. This is not new territory, and at his best, Costello explores it in insightful fashion. He is accomplished at using details from the war between the sexes in such a way as to relate them to the greater problems faced by individuals and societies. The Invisible Man, Mouth Almighty and The World and His Wife all deal with this theme to varying degrees. The World and His Wife, despite having a great title, splendidly arranged horns and a rousing chorus, still suffers from a common Costello problem—namely, a needlessly risque' lyric. The smugness of Costello's works would not be so objectionable, if he did not aspire to deal with more complicated and important subject matter than boy-meets-girl and their resulting folly. However, rude and silly phrases, in the midst of otherwise intelligent and compelling works, make the offending lines all the more irritating.
Punch The Clock is grounded by the excellent rhythm action of Pete Thomas on drums and Bruce Thomas on bass. As a unit, these two are second to none, especially on the uptempo numbers. Steve Naive, the Attractions' inventive keyboardist, has simplified his attack, somewhat, from the grandiose textures of Imperial Bedroom, but his versatility and technique remain remarkable.
On the whole, Punch The Clock is an interesting and energetic album. The criticisms levelled at Elvis Costello in the course of this review are relatively minor ones, in light of the fact that, at his worst, he is far better a writer, singer and musician than the majority of his peers.
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