I respect that! A lot. And in regards to TRIR, I already enjoy it. It's just if you evaluate his catalog on a 1-10 continuum (with Goodbye Cruel World as a 1) I put TRIR at a 5, maybe 6. But as it turns out, I find an hour with Goodbye Cruel World as time well spent. When it comes to Costello, everything is a sliding scale with me. I was at the Jazzfest performance post Katrina that EC sat in on Allen's set where he played a few of the songs, pre-release. It was incredible, though didn't quite transcend to the heights of the Bruce Springsteen set that weekend that really seemed to express the feelings of the city (as far as I could understood them, as an outsider).
I've tried a lot of his latest material. It sounds like a different artist. I like some of the hits - "The Other Side Of Summer", "So Like Candy", "Veronica", and though it's not really a hit, "Tramp The Dirt Down" (I also enjoy "Still" from North, but that's about it). But apart from the two songs I listed, I thought Mighty Like A Rose was an awful record. The only song I almost came close to liking was "All Grown Up", but that was still too... far removed from the Costello I grew up with. I've listened to about half of Spike and nothing has stood out. Up to King Of America, I pretty much love everything, with maybe one or two exclusions ("The World And His Wife", "Sour Milk-Cow Blues"), and I'll keep Blood And Chocolate because I really, really love "Tokyo Storm Warning", and the rest of it isn't really all that bad. But that's definitely the cut-off point for me. Sometime between 1986 and 1989, on a Wednesday morning at 5:00, there was a tragic automobile accident and Warner Brothers decided to change the name of their newest hitmaker to "Elvis Costello", and, well, the rest is history... Dare I say it, he's an imposter. And, besides, I'll still have the opportunity to listen to his newer albums. Currently, I don't have any desire to shop around (or be followed without a sound), but there's still the chance I could turn around.
Wow. I find "Last Time Around" and especially "Battered Old Bird" to be top-form Costello from Blood and Chocolate, along with "Uncomplicated." I adore that album. Sounds like you've given it your best shot, though. I've seen live electric and acoustic versions of "I Want You" that were just chilling -- I'm glad you like that song.
I'll add a wow, too. Mighty Like A Rose is, in my opinion, one of his greatest albums. Given that it's one of his most cutting, personal, intimate albums, perhaps it's that other guy who was the imposter. The Warner Brothers albums are some of the most uncommercial things he's ever put out, and they're beautiful.
It's a testimony to how eclectic his work is -- I have never warmed to a single song on Mighty Like a Rose. And lord I've tried. If I had to kick two albums out of my collection they'd be Mighty and North.
That's the cool thing about Elvis - he's been everywhere and done everything, so there's something for everyone. And his post-86 stuff ain't for me. Sorry.
I've scoured every dedicated album art website and I cannot find high-quality pictures (1000x1000) of most of Elvis's covers. I think the only ones I have that I'm proud of are My Aim Is True and Imperial Bedroom.
Just adding my own thoughts on WUG. I agree, Tripwire's a good one. There's a couple others I like. Where I have been and am at, I just seem to have almost a natural aversion to listening to the record though that I can't shake. Maybe in the future I will be more receptive to it. I like some of the lyrics to the first single. I like the idea that he collaborated and tried sonething a little different. The only 'danger' in doing that too much, imo, is it becoming almost obsessive or habitual in always having to change and possibly going too far away from what one does best or is most recognized for? Of course the opposite could be stagnation and boredom! When I saw his solo concert last fall, it seemed like those suppositions were in conflict to me. He was superb in his talent and skill of course, but the totality of the concert was both impressive and yet confusing to me . Inscrutable in a way. I can see him enjoying that aspect of it if true perhaps . He has not put out any new material since Wise Up? Seems long ago now! I know he plays concerts continuously though! He's getting paid well I imagine, must be enjoying himself, and he is most assuredly got his stage voice and red shoes under him! I know that the more you play the more you at least have the opportunity to eventually create. I wouldn't be surprised if he has a late career surge of another two or three lp's of new stuff based on how much he is playing every year and how many different songs he is performing. Wonder if the song on the new Darlene Love cd is one he did write specifically for that project. I haven't heard Lost on the River Basement Tapes. I should seek out the tracks he performs on and adapted.
An amazing, to me, release EC could put out would be his much of his entire catalog as performed solo, in concert I know that sounds totally crazy lol but he has played hundreds, if my math is even near right, of solo shows or shows with just Steve Nieve, going through dozens and dozens of songs from his catalog. There are whole albums, Mighty Like A Rose, that to me are begging to be heard as performed by EC with just voice and guitar. Spike too but the bonus disc accomplishes some of that imo, though there are more instruments too. Just a pipedream .
I agree. I can't warm up to this album. I love Elvis and I love the Roots, but it wasn't the rich collaboration I was expecting. For me, the re-employed material just makes the songs feel desultory. Maybe my grandiose notions of "Here I Come" mixed with "Episode of Blonde" were off-base, but the album strikes me as really dirgy and tepid. The Roots are oddly muted, like they're at pains not to upstage EC, and there are some songs where I can't tell what input Questo had at all ("If I Could Believe" could just as well be an outtake from All This Useless Beauty).
This is just my thought, and I’m likely wrong, but it seems to me that Elvis never got over the commercial and critical failure of National Ransom. And not that it was panned, but more that it came and went without much notice or comment. That one really seemed to wound him. He hasn’t gone back into the studio to make an album since, except as a participant in collaborations, and has said words in interviews to the effect that he’s a “touring artist” now. I’m confident (and I hope and I pray) that he’ll get back into the studio sooner or later, and I have no doubt that he has much great work left to come. I can understand his frustration, though. He’s put out consistently strong work over the past decade and a half that has gone largely unnoticed.
In regards to Costello's post-'86 output, I'd put Brutal Youth up there as one of the best albums he ever recorded. Simply stellar from beginning to end.
Some of my absolute favorite Elvis Costello performances of all time are just him and his guitar. Off the top of my head, studio recordings of "Deportee" and "What Do I Do Now" and live recordings of "The World And His Wife" and "Not The Only Flame In Town" are among my favorite sing-a-longs. The night before All This Useless Beauty came out, Elvis was on the Letterman show and played "It's Time" with just an acoustic guitar -- blew me away, and it's radically different from the hyper-produced album track. Fortunately, I had a cassette recorder rolling, and it's still my favorite version of that song. Long story short, I would LOVE a series of live CDs of just EC and his guitar, belting out selections from throughout his catalog.
The stripped-down Costello / Nieve box set is one of my absolute favourite EC releases. I'd love to hear more (and more, and more) of the same.
I especially enjoyed Ship of Fools and Just A Memory as well as some others from those discs. Will give those another listen soon along with Wise Up and National Ransom.
Your post made me remember a sort of promo interview and concert for National Ransom. Thank you. Maybe it was Live from the Artists Den? The concert took place in a NYC library? I remember rightly or wrongly that he mentioned NR included a few songs that he may have had laying around also and that he thought NR would make for 2 records worth of material? He did seem to me pleased with it when talking about it. Big Leap here LOL is if I think about it I would imagine being a little surprised if he thought that NR would have any commercial impact at all so I would be surprised if that would have been a disappointment but like I mention that's me being completely speculative and probably delusional. After all, he put work and effort into it and seemed happy with it. Me, I would imagine, fwiw, that a record more like Momofuku which is kind of more in EC's classic wheelhouse mode would have been more disappointing to not do anything commerically. If that is indeed what happened. I don't feel like it is as good as Brutal Youth and is short of WIWC, but fwiw I do feel like it is at worst a quality facsimile of his signature work and at best probably my favorite post WIWC record and one which I have a lot of fondness for and would have thought would have appealed to more of a traditional EC fan base. But like some other artists from that era, that is now I suppose an exponentially smaller fan base and becoming more of a niche one too?
He didn't have any input on that, it's a solo Costello composition. Elvis probably put it on there because it was relevant lyrically in some way (sorry I haven't analyzed it closely) to the overall themes of the album.
Much for me to blab about NRansom. I am thinking of this cd as a compilation of previously unreleased EC songs. If I think of it as this, it makes sense to me. I think it's the only way I can make sense of it and its radical genre shifts often from one song to the next. This actually might even have some credence while taking liberties iirc regarding loosely how EC described putting the record together. Maybe this cd works better or best for me when its similarities and commonalities are combined into groups of songs rather than split apart so. I imagine it something like below. Stations of the Cross and Church Underground seem like great outtakes from Brutal Youth or When I Was Cruel? The Spell That You Cast also, or maybe Momofuku? You Hung The Moon from North? Slow Drag With Josephine,Voice in the Dark, Dr. Watson, One Bell Ringing (North?), That's Not the Part of Him, and All These Strangers from Secret and Profane? Five Small Words, I Lost You, National Ransom, and Jezebel (The Delivery Man) from where else I can't place. More Delivery Man? Or new songs . Taken something like the above as a compilation, NR is an EC favorite to me. Not top ten maybe, , but right there or near. Taken as it is, the songwriting is first rate and I still really like it. Just be sure of oneself when listening to it as it is or you might find pieces of your mind scattered in different places! A little too much confusion for me perhaps.
Just reading this thread makes me realize just how much Elvis Costello has released. And how much of it I really like, too. Great artist. Always.
Huh. I can understand not liking Blood and Chocolate, but your comparison to his 90s output puzzles me. I WISH his 90s output sounded like Blood and Chocolate, because I would probably like it a whole lot better if it did. B&C is in my top five of his albums, and for the most part the stuff he did in the 90s is radically different from that. Aside from maybe a couple tracks on Brutal Youth, I can't think of anything from the 90s that resembles the style and feel of B&C.
Besides that I don't really like it? Musically sparse (severely lacking the Attractions, no matter what the cover says), lyrically unlike anything he'd ever done before, really weird structure (how many lines per verse are in... I think it was "Crimes of Paris"?) and overall it just feels like a completely different artist. I feel like after he recorded "Tokyo Storm Warning" he quit his job as the residential Angry Young Man and started making... I dunno, just really weird music. I don't necessarily think he should have gone his whole career rewriting "Lipstick Vogue" but his later material just ain't my cup o' tea.
