Reader's Digest (Australia), August 2022: Difference between revisions
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Elvis Costello is like your friendly, local mailman because he reliably delivers. Incredibly, the singer-songwriter has done this for more than four decades with a passion and intensity behind the microphone. It's the sort of energy we all need more of in the current times. | Elvis Costello is like your friendly, local mailman because he reliably delivers. Incredibly, the singer-songwriter has done this for more than four decades with a passion and intensity behind the microphone. It's the sort of energy we all need more of in the current times. | ||
For 67-year-old Costello, his latest album, ''The Boy Named If'', feels like a visceral journey that captures the beauty and pain of life. It's the sort of rocking thought-provoking listen that can only come with depth of experience. | |||
And perhaps, a pandemic, with its need for a new approach. | And perhaps, a pandemic, with its need for a new approach. | ||
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"Oh, I think the songs always come first," he says. "Obviously there has to be an idea for a song and then the way in which they belong together becomes apparent, because you've found a common approach to sound or it's in this mood," he says. | "Oh, I think the songs always come first," he says. "Obviously there has to be an idea for a song and then the way in which they belong together becomes apparent, because you've found a common approach to sound or it's in this mood," he says. | ||
But Costello doesn't | But Costello doesn't like his work to be labelled as a single form of music. "I don't really go for the word ''genre'' - I think that's a word that's overused," he says. "It started creeping into writing about music at the time when people were trying to over-intellectualise things. It's a pretentious word to say there are differences in approach to how you play music." | ||
He strongly objects to music critics placing defined borders between musical styles. Because in his eyes, one music approach can naturally 'fold into' another. "That's how rock 'n' roll started," he says. "It was a madcap collision between a couple of existing forms of music. And no one went 'Oh, that Elvis Presley, he's playing that rhythm and blues genre along with that hillbilly genre. This'll never work out!' Nobody thought like that. There were thinking ''That sounds great! Let's put it out!'' And people went crazy!" | He strongly objects to music critics placing defined borders between musical styles. Because in his eyes, one music approach can naturally 'fold into' another. "That's how rock 'n' roll started," he says. "It was a madcap collision between a couple of existing forms of music. And no one went 'Oh, that Elvis Presley, he's playing that rhythm and blues genre along with that hillbilly genre. This'll never work out!' Nobody thought like that. There were thinking ''That sounds great! Let's put it out!'' And people went crazy!" | ||
Costello’s eclectic music earned acclaim with hits in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Worldwide hits like ‘Watching The Detectives’ (1977), ‘Pump It Up’ (1978), ‘(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding’ (1979) and ‘Oliver’s Army’ (1980) ensured his place in the new wave movement. | |||
Over the decades, he has also collaborated with artists like Paul McCartney, Tony Bennett, Burt Bacharach, Johnny Cash and Brian Eno. | |||
Costello loves to tour, but it’s not so clear-cut in a COVID-normal world. “Things are on a different timetable in different parts of the world,” he says. Still, they managed to perform 22 dates last year in the US, and this year the band has been pumping it up in the UK, Europe and Canada on the Boy Named If & Other Favourites Tour – with shows scheduled later this month for the US. | |||
Away from the punishing, bright limelight, Costello lives in Vancouver with his wife, jazz pianist Diana Krall, and their twin sons, Dexter and Frank, now 15. His great passion, in addition to music, is soccer – and he is a Liverpool fanatic. So ask him what he’s watching, and it’s that. | |||
“One of the great conveniences of streaming for me is football, being able to see Liverpool beat Arsenal,” he says. Beyond that, Costello is discovering a whole new world of content and art via Dexter and Frank. | |||
“I’ve been caught up with the Marvel Universe these past two years, so that’s been good,” he says. “But one of my lads really likes anime, and I discovered a whole world of art there that I wasn’t ware of. So it’s great when one of your children says, ‘OK, let’s watch this’ – and it’s not something that I would choose. It drew me right in, and it made me want to see more of those sorts of films. I thought that the layers and the creative use of animation and the storytelling was on another level to things done by Disney, where the parables are pretty simple.” | |||
That’s Elvis Costello, always appreciating the art for what it is – thought-provoking. No doubt it’ll inspire him and The Imposters for the next album. | |||
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{{tags}}[[The Boy Named If]] {{-}} [[The Imposters]] {{-}} [[Pete Thomas]] {{-}} [[Davey Faragher]] {{-}} [[Steve Nieve]] {{-}} [[Elvis Presley]] {{-}} [[Watching The Detectives]] {{-}} [[Pump It Up]] {{-}} [[(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding?]] {{-}} [[Oliver's Army]] {{-}} [[Paul McCartney]] {{-}} [[Tony Bennett]] {{-}} [[Burt Bacharach]] {{-}} [[Johnny Cash]] {{-}} [[Brian Eno]] {{-}} [[:Category:Hello Again Tour|Hello Again Tour]] {{-}} [[Diana Krall]] | {{tags}}[[The Boy Named If]] {{-}} [[The Imposters]] {{-}} [[Pete Thomas]] {{-}} [[Davey Faragher]] {{-}} [[Steve Nieve]] {{-}} [[Elvis Presley]] {{-}} [[Watching The Detectives]] {{-}} [[Pump It Up]] {{-}} [[(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding?]] {{-}} [[Oliver's Army]] {{-}} [[Paul McCartney]] {{-}} [[Tony Bennett]] {{-}} [[Burt Bacharach]] {{-}} [[Johnny Cash]] {{-}} [[Brian Eno]] {{-}} [[:Category:Hello Again Tour|Hello Again Tour]] {{-}} [[The Boy Named If & Other Favourites Tour]] {{-}} [[Diana Krall]] | ||
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Latest revision as of 11:03, 22 July 2022
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