HOW TO BUY Elvis Costello

[johnfoyle]

Mojo , Jan. '06
( scanned from print edition)

HOW TO BUY

Elvis Costello

LISTEN TO THIS: 10 OF THE BEST FROM THE WORKAHOLIC WORDSMITH WHO DWELLS IN THE DARK HEART OF MAN. BY PHIL SUTCLIFFE.

BACK IN 1977, naturally, someone asked him “Why ‘Elvis’?” and he said, “It’s like wearing a crown, because people expect something of you. I don’t mind that. I’m prepared to give them all I can.” Remarkably, he kept his word.

Hence his productivity — more than an album a year counting collaborations — and his diversity — pop, jazz, classical. Even when his wordplay’s so pumped up it’s muscle-bound and his music so tightly wound it’s a tangle, his determination to improve has proved boundless. Consider: invited to compose for an Italian ballet company, he studied orchestration from scratch so that he could handwrite the 200 pages of charts which eventually comprised II Sogno.

An alert self-critic, Costello does know he can be entirely too much, as he acknowledged to MOJO in 1998: “I’ve tended to put so much into records that sometimes to enjoy it requires you to become me. Believe me, you don’t want to.”

That would be because of all the frustration, mutual betrayal, jealousy, disappointment, loneliness and general malfunctioning of human relationships he dwells on in his songwriting. There again, this well-travelled man (not just as the ultimate label tourist) and profoundly experienced artist can be relied on to show us what ails us most, scour it with irony and scrub off the self-pity so that maybe we can just get on.

Perhaps the “Elvis” was to make it, ultimately, not about him, to help him step away from ego towards objectivity despite all the whingeing, finger-pointing lyrics. As Jon Savage wrote way back, reviewing My Aim Is True for Sounds, “Personally, these ears find Elvis less than loveable, let alone likeable, but that’s not what he deals in.” Which is to say he doesn’t care for look-at-me, his whole concern is listen-to-this.

10. Elvis Costello And The Attractions Armed Forces


You say: “The culmination of the early Costello’s pop dynamism.” Panama, mojo4music

While part of the late-’70s Rock Against Racism ethos, Armed Forces is no period piece thanks to Costello’s strenuously subtle way with a theme. Oliver’s Army and Goon Squad are tales of burgeoning fascism among militaristic buffers, old and young, but with Senior Service or Chemistry Class, Costello examines Fuehrer-and-follower tendencies in work, sex, life generally — as he sings in Two Little Hitlers, “She’s my soft touch typewriter/And I’m the great dictator”. But the band’s bustle began to feel limited, and his punning suggested a stint in Lit. rehab beckoned.


9. Elvis Costello And the Attractions Get Happy!!


You say: “A very Stax/soul influenced album. Grab the recent 2-disc reissue.” Bazza, mojo4music

Fed up with himself and the bristling, sneery sound of his first three albums, Costello bought 50 quid’s worth of soul singles and recalibrated. Every track grew from “failed” attempts to imitate Booker T , Al Green and other immortals. But no soulster ever cranked it up to frantic like him — as on hits I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down and High Fidelity — nor poured such wild energy into bitter, cryptic wordplay. His harangues re money, love, and their corruptive interaction can be a bit like having a street-corner crackpot grasp your lapels, but it’s compulsive listening.


8. Elvis Costello North


You say: “Am I going Out on a limb with this one. Like
Reprise-era Sinatra. I love it.”
Hearts&minds37, via e-mail

Costello fulfilled his Sinatra, Bacharach (and maybe Weill) dream with the cast-iron slowest album of his career. Piano chords adrift in time, the barstool singer romancing or lamenting from past bust-up to present love and back — and in the corner an orchestra which, post- Il Sogno, he can arrange and conduct. A spikily bracing job he makes of it too, with the consequent musical formalities acting as Lomotil to his excessive tendencies, just as they had on Painted From Memory . ln place of agitation and aggro, he delivers measured reflection, quiet passion. North is a triumph of the heartfelt musicianliness he always sought.


7. The Costello Show King Of America


You say: “In the front rank. A wonderfully lush racket.” Twangfreak, mojo4music

What Elvis means to Costello remains oddly unexplored, but here he took the allusion to teasing lengths by playing several tracks with Presley band members including guitarist James Burton. This turned out fine, viz blistering rock’n’roll satire Glitter Gulch and Lovable’s slapalong jive. But that year’s feud with The Attractions also seems to have freed his singing — given more time and space he finds new shades of mercy and kindness — and his writing — Brilliant Mistake, Indoor Fireworks and, above all, ‘40s-style torch song Poisoned Rose combine emotional insight and beauty as never before. He just couldn’t stop moving on.


6. Elvis Costello With Burt Bacharach Painted From Memory

You say: “With two schools of Costello fans (strings and guitars) this is top of the strings pile.” Bobzombie, via e-mail

No doubt which way the ‘influence” flowed, since every bar of creamy melancholia declares Bacharach’s presence. Costello was the explorer, he wanted the partnership and the ‘60s orchestrations’ lush restraint. He wanted to find his inner Dusty. Precise, spacious melodies demand he edit his stories, pare his language, honour the discipline of silky syncopated piano chords. Confined-liberated, he sings out simple lines like, “I still have that other girl in my head” or “Still I can’t believe this is happening”. Not rock’n’roll, but heart and soul.


5. Elvis Costello And The Attractions Imperial Bedroom

You say: “Lyrical urgency and The Attractions at their most creative.” Fillapillowg, mojo4music

Costello’s new habit of writing mostly on piano must have been crucial — take his after-midnight Sinatra re-creation Almost Blue or how a more typical piece, Boy With A Problem, ignores standard structures to follow where the melody leads. His sleevenote recalls he was struggling outof”a defeated and exhausted frame of mind to something more glorious”. So he hired an orchestra for some tracks, specifically seeking a touch of The Beatles’ range. Fresh and fluent compositions — Beyond Belief, Shabby Doll, The Long Honeymoon — hauled him out of the mire.


4. Elvis Costello My Aim Is True

You say: “The Elvis album I sing along to more than any other.” OZeroO, mojo4music

Steeped in soul, R&B and beat groups and, pre-Attractions, backed by Californian craftsmen Clover, Costello burst on ‘77 as a punk-compatible “extraordinarily bitter person” —but way too sophisticated for safety pins. While less coherently written than its successor, this debut is rich in sour, sullied treasures, including Miracle Man, Sneaky Feelings, I’m Not Angry and (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes (“Oh I said, ‘I’m so happy, I could die/She said, ‘Drop dead”). Of course, Alison wears the thorny crown —a perfectly apt switch to balladry because it sees distance and a degree of empathy dilute bilious self-obsession.


3. Elvis Costello When I Was Cruel

You say: “I love it so much. Elvis in his element.” MrMisery, mojo4music

After years of intriguing collaborations, genre experiments and learning new skills, suddenly a whole lifetime of what inspired Costello erupted into visceral rock’n’roll again. He applied his latest passions hip hop’s sleek technologies and Ethiopian pop’s coarse earthiness — to some of his best melodies and torrential narrative imaginings fortified by relentlessly hard rhythm tracks to produce such please-don’t-stop epics as When I Was Cruel No.2, Alibi, Dust and Episode Of Blonde. Costello was approaching his fifties with a level of vinegar in the blood comparable only to Tom Waits or Lucinda Williams. Then he got even better...


2. Elvis Costello & The Imposters The Delivery Man

You say: “His best, if not better, since This Year’s Mode!. True!” Jon McGlone, via e-mail

Twenty-eight years in, the latest is the best. That’s songwriting and performance both. Why not, given such unflagging ambition to move and improve? Immersed in steamy Deep South imaginings, Costello switchbacks between heartache ballads and voodoo rockers. The Imposters sweat their souls — pianist Steve Nieve at a lifetime peak — and Costello sings with more range, depth and heart than ever before. In the crunching Button My Lip, he hollers “I’ve seen those clowns vacant and insolent... I am the mighty and magnificent”; in character or not, that’s Costello in imperial mid life.



1. Elvis Costello This Year’s Model

You say: “ I can’t imagine a self-respecting record collection without the taut snarl of .“ Geoffcowgill, mojo4music

Apart from the anti-Nazi Night Rally, every track seethes with love unrealised, longing frustrated, decent human qualities twisted by rejection and jealousy. Whether the object of this pent-up humiliation is a distant beauty (This Year’s Girl and (I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea) or a former lover (No Action, Little Triggers and others), Costello’s relentless consistency of tone enthrals like a snake. Sure, he’s got tunes, pumped-up ‘6Os sounds from across the spectrum, performances slick and sharp as you like — but it’s all at the service of writing and singing that turn pop music into an acid bath.

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Avoid THESE!

Health-warning to-output ratio is low. The TV soundtracks and ballet Il Sogno are a shade bereft without their visual accompaniments. But Costello’s classical collaborations, The Juliet Letters (with the Brodsky string quartet) and For The Stars (pop sung by soprano Anne Sofie Von Otter) in no way deserve the eye-rolling they tend to attract. Occasionally, though, one of his 20-plus mainstream albums fails to spark — Mighty Like A Rote and covers collection Kojak Variety are too much like hard work, while Costello’s own sleevenote to Goodbye Cruel World Snorted, “Congratulations! You’ve just bought our worst record!” He knew whereof he spoke.

[johnfoyle]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... t=1&f=1008

Elvis talks about album with Allen Toussaint

Morning Edition, December 12, 2005 · Elvis Costello and New Orleans piano legend Allen Toussaint have recorded a new album in New Orleans. The session is in part a symbolic effort to show the city's music industry is not dead. Ashley Kahn reports ; includes comments from Elvis - and extracts from the recording sessions.