Elvis Costello: Spike

Elvis Costello: Spike

1989

Warner Bros Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. ...This Town...  2. Let Him Dangle  3. Deep Dark Truthful Mirror  4. Veronica  5. God's Comic  6. Chewing Gum  7. Tramp the Dirt Down  8. Stalin Malone  9. Satellite  10.  Pads, Paws and Claws  11. Baby Plays Around  12. Miss Macbeth  13. Any King's Shilling  14. Coal-Train Robberies  15. Last Boat Leaving


This album (along with "Mighty Like a Rose") is the reason I got into Elvis Costello back in Junior High School...I remembering rescuing the cassette from a K-Mart cut-out bin...Cut-out bins used to be pretty fuckin' cool, by the way...That's where you'd find all the fringe major-label artists who made records that not surprisingly, didn't sell a gazillion copies as expected...Full of Robyn Hitchcock, Lou Reed, Dead Milkmen and Elvis Costello  albums, and as a kid looking for "out-there" music, but not having much money, I always made a bee-line straight to the cut-outs...

 At the time I had some vague notion of who Elvis Costello was..I'd caught a TV appearance or two, saw the "Veronica" video...Anyway, I brought the tape home and loved it, which is pretty weird in retrospect..."Spike" is a pretty grown-up album for a metal/punk kid to latch onto, and I honestly can't think of many worse entry points into his catalog than this...I think what probably resonated with me was his snide, bitter lyrical attitude..I had no problem wrapping my mind around such sentiments as, "You're nobody till everybody in this town thinks you're poison..."  I do recall being bored out of my mind during "God's Comic" though...

Right around 2001 or so, I found a vinyl copy at PDQ Records in Tucson and decided to get reacquainted with my ol' pal "Spike," only to find we had both changed a lot over the years...God,  I now realize this album is a damn mess...I honestly wouldn't recommend it to anybody, but despite our differences, I still like ol' "Spike"...Sure he tries too hard, he's all over the place and he certainly doesn't know when to quit, but those aren't deal-breakers to me (by the way, I'm gonna stop talking about this record as if it were a real person now, since I'm even starting to creep myself out)...

 Take album-opener "...This Town..." which I loved growing up...I used to rewind it and listen to it over and over, but now I hear a pretty significant flaw...Mainly those fake drums.  I think there's a time and place for everything, even fake drums...But this song would be a drop-dead classic if it wasn't for that slight lapse in taste, but sometimes it's hard to tell when you're using the latest cutting-edge technology...

 The album plays like a portable eclectic record collection...It veers between disparate genres with no warning...You go from soul ("Deep Dark Truthful Mirror") to Stay Cats rockabilly ("Pads, Paws & Claws") to big band instrumentals ("Stalin Malone"), so it seems like it should be a little more exciting than it actually is...Unfortunately,  torch songs, New Orleans jazz  and melancholy showtunes aren't among my favorite genres...Still, there's some good tunes here...

Take "Veronica" for instance! I love this song! Everybody does! I remember it being a pretty sizable hit, thanks to a memorable video and a ridiculously catchy melody co-written with bleedin' pip-pop chappie Paul McCartney...You'd think that a dramatist like Elvis would make a song about a loved one suffering from Alzheimer's disease a morose affair, but it's so happy and poppy sounding...Making the bitter pill of the lyrics much easier too swallow...See? It's one of those yummy pills!

Like a prescription bottle full of Good & Plenty's!

I've also always had a soft spot for "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror." It's got a very adult, late night soul feel...Compare this to his earlier blue-eyed soul attempts on "Punch the Clock" and "Goodbye Cruel World" and you can really appreciate how far he came along in this style...Yea, I can see myself hangin' out at 3 am, scotch and cigars in hand nodding my head to this....

Yea, see what I mean? Adult stuff...You've got to be comfortable and secure in your life to put on a song like "Any King's Shilling" and say,"Y'know what? I don't care who knows that I like to listen to medieval lute music with mandolins and shit...It feels good on my bald spot! Y'hear me world?!?!?! I LIKE ALBUMS PRODUCED BY T-BONE BURNETT!!"

Y'know, I'm starting to think I was too harsh in my criticism of "...This Town...". It really is a good song, and certainly one of the highlights here...I just wouldn't listen to it right after "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea" or anything, or your head might explode...And I think that sums up my feelings about this album, in general...I wouldn't jump into this one right away...I have a feeling if I were somehow able to push my nostalgia aside, this would probably be my, like, 16th favorite Elvis Costello album...Tracks like "God's Comic," "Chewing Gum" and "Stalin Malone" are incredibly tough for me to sit through...Shave about 20 minutes off this and it'd be a pretty solid listen, I suspect...

But let's not dwell on the negatives...It's Friday, isn't it? Here's "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror"...You might want to save this one until about 3 am, though...Enjoy....

Elvis Costello & the Attractions: Blood & Chocolate

Elvis Costello & the Attractions: Blood & Chocolate

1986

Columbia Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl and Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Uncomplicated  2. I Hope You're Happy Now  3.Tokyo Storm Warning  4. Home Is Anywhere You Hang Your Head  5. I Want You  6. Honey, Are You Straight or Are You Blind?  7. Blue Chair  8. Battered Old Bird  9. Crimes of Paris  10. Poor Napoleon  11. Next Time Round

Disc 2 (2002 Rhino CD reissue ): 1. Leave My Kitten Alone  2. New Rhythm Method  3. Forgive Her Anything  4. Crimes of Paris  5. Uncomplicated  6. Battered Old Bird  7. Seven Day Weekend (with Jimmy Cliff)  8. Blue Chair (Single Version)  9. Baby's Got a Brand New Hairdo  10. American Without Tears No. 2  11. All These Things  12. Pouring Water on a Drowning Man  13. Running Out of Fools  14. Tell Me Right Now  15. Lonely Blue Boy




I don't know if you can tell just by reading this, but I've been sick as hell all week...I kind of just want to lie in bed and moan all day, so forgive me if the posts this week have been more incoherent than usual (which I'm sure is highly unlikely...I tend to run a pretty incoherent ship here...) Alright, here we go...Let's take a look at this here "Blood & Chocolate" Record...

Oh yea, have you guys ever seen the limited cassette tape version of this? So freakin' ballin'...Check this out...

It looks like a candy bar! I want to eat it so bad right about now! See, I went to the  doctor's office last weekend (totally unrelated to my current cold/flu) and the doctor took one look at my blood pressure and seriously told me, "You could die any second! Go to the emergency room immediately!"  One would think the doctor would be able to help me out with such a thing, but I'm no doctor, so...Anyway, I'd been through this before...I had gone to the emergency room before and when they took one look at my stats and said, "Go to a regular doctors office!" Then I went to the regular doctor and they kind of just shrugged...Long story short, I have to stop doing everything in life I enjoy...So I haven't had beer, meat, cheese, pop, or fun all week...

 It actually wasn't as hard as I thought, so far...I'm one of those odd people who just naturally enjoys  bean sprouts and tofu...So theoretically, I shouldn't be in such bad shape, but I've picked up some nasty habits in my life...Here's what my diet looked like last week (when I was much happier)...

Wake up! Drink a 40 oz of Pepsi and eat a bag of salty-ass peanuts for breakfast...

Hear that whistle? It's time for lunch...Let's snap into a Sasquatch-sized Slim Jim and 5 cups of coffee!

Alright...It's time to go home and make myself dinner...Let's do a couple cans of Coke, a frozen pizza and 6-8 beers!

Apparently, doing this everyday for 30-odd years is fatal. Who knew?

The hardest thing now is not being full after I eat dinner...It's like, alright, I'll eat an orange for dinner, but goddamn, I eat it and my stomach growls so I'm like, "Ah, what the hell...Let's do another orange..." and so on...It's very possible I might end up gaining 100 pounds from eating oranges alone...But how can you not be hungry after you eat it? It's an orange...

Maybe if you peeled it and there was a nice, juicy meatball underneath, but no! There's nothing but fruit underneath that peel! Again, I have nothing against oranges...I happen to love them, but not for lunch...I like them between bags of Doritos...But I'm trying not to die, so I do it...And what happens? I get sick as a dog! Sicker than a dog actually...Most dogs I know seem to be pretty healthy.! Wait, what was I talking about? Oh yea, I want to eat that Elvis Costello cassette...But I don't have that cassette...I have a regular looking vinyl and CD version, but my version's pretty cool cos it says "Napoleon Dynamite" on it!

Napoleon Dynamite was another one of Elvis Costello's aliases that he used during this time period, along with his real name Declan MacManus (who gets most of the song-writing credits) ...I don't see the Little Hands of Concrete listed this time around, though..

This is my jam. Elvis Costello has a huge discography, but this one has always risen to the top for me...Second only to "Armed Forces" and tied with "This Year's Model." Why does this appeal to me so much? I don't know. On the surface it doesn't sound like a good time: Long, noisy, wordy tracks featuring the bitter recriminations of a recently divorced man just seething with anger and occasionally breaking for forced, joyless fun...But despite all this I always have such fun listening to "Blood & Chocolate"...And I don't think it's good fun either...It's the kind of fun you have where you look back year's later and say, "Man, that was fucked up..."

The album reunites Elvis with the Attractions, after doing "King of America," without them, although they too would be going through their own divorce soon enough (and not return until 1994's "Brutal Truth").  Oh, and Nick Lowe is back on production duties, but this doesn't sound like it did before...It's louder, booming, nastier and Elvis' vocals sound so close that you can practically feel his hot breath coming out of your speakers during the more intense moments...And things get intense immediately with the opening tack "Uncomplicated" which sets the scene with a pounding racket and Elvis shouting his fool head off about a "horse that knows arithmetic and a dog that tells your fortune..." or some such thing...I think we might have caught him on a bad day!

Then "I Hope You're Happy Now" comes on and it sounds like things are lightening up a touch...It's  sort of a noisier version of nice Merseybeat pop, but then you start noticing that Elvis sounds like he's having a little too much fun and suddenly the lyrics register:

"I knew then what I know now.
 I never loved you anyhow,
and I hope you're happy now.."

Then we're on to the album's first masterpiece..."Tokyo Storm Warning" is a six and a half minute travelogue that takes us to some pretty unsavory places...A hotel bar hosting a KKK convention, Japanese palaces gilded with the gold teeth of pensioners, the main streets of Italy where the streets are littered with dead tourists...Every verse is a packed with vivid gallows-humor imagery...I've been listening to this album for over a decade now and I'm still picking up on new meanings in the lyrics...

Like the day I found out the "God-Jesus" robots were a real thing!

The second masterpiece closes out side one...They've got to make "I Want You" the divorcee's official anthem...I'm serious! When you go to Divorce Court, they should make you stand and put your right hand over your heart while this pipes out of the PA speakers and the honorable Lynn Toler pounds out the beat on her gavel...

Just a big, tense ball of jealousy, ache and resentment...Undeniably based on "I Want You (She's So Heavy) by the Beatles (so I guess Elvis can't get too upset about the whole Napoleon Dynamite movie stealing his name), this thing is just a triumph of production and arrangement...Most notably the part at the end when they shut off all the mic's except the vocal mic...Is there a window open? Cos I got the chills (rim-shot...Audience groans and suddenly turns on me...A villager lights up a torch...Another holds aloft a pitchfork and burns down the decrepit windmill where I live...)

Oh yea, then there's the third masterpiece..."Battered Old Bird." If I had to pick a single favorite Elvis Costello song, this one is it...It's almost startling when you listen to the alternate take on the bonus disc and hear that it was originally a fun-lovin' uptempo rock song, because the final version couldn't be more unrelated...Somehow the group arrives at a beautifully detailed, slow-moving  portrait of the tenants of a building young Elvis inhabited as a child...I'm fascinated by how the hushed accompaniment gets more tense and uncomfortable until it finally explodes into a hair-raising scream for the final chorus...Man, I wish I had neighbors this interesting...

I had some neighbors who tried to sell me AK-47's while outlining how they could easily break into my apartment and kill me and steal my stuff...I guess that guy was cool...Then he tried to steal a pair of slippers cos he said he needed them for the strip club...

Oh yea, I had this other really drunken neighbor that forced his way into the house, picked up my guitar and tried to write a song with the AK-47 guy...The drunk guy was plucking the strings tenderly and the AK-47 dude started rapping, "Yo! She's lookin' like she want to suck a dick!" Then the drunk guy stopped playing and looked at the other neighbor and said, "No, no, no...This is a beautiful song...It's about this guy who wants this girl but it's like she's always a million miles away..."

The AK-47 guy looked up wistfully, like he understood deeply, and cooed, "Yeeeaaaa....Like she's a million miles away..."

Then drunk guy starts playing again and AK-47 man starts rapping, "Yo! She's lookin' like she want to suck my dick..."

Then AK-47 man tried walking down the stairs, Four Loko in hand, then fell flat on his back and tumbled down an entire flight of concrete stairs, the back of his head bouncing off of every step...

 "Oh goody, maybe he's dead, " I thought to myself..

No such luck...He gets up like nothing happened and goes in his apartment, and is then promptly arrested and sent to prison a month later for possession of AK-47's..."Why do you let these people into your home?" I ask myself...

Hmmm...Maybe I should write a song about my neighbors...Maybe  a rap song called, "Slippers in the Strip Club..." Wait! I just remembered something else about those neighbors! He was always standing outside free-styling raps...Here are a couple of the choice line I overheard:

"Yo! We be gettin' bigger than J-Lo's butt!"

"Eagle-eyed like a hawk! The Incredible Hulk!"

Boy have I gotten off-topic today...Did I even talk about "Blood & Chocolate"? It's hard to remember...If not, it's a good record...My favorite, actually...All the songs are good...Here's "I Want You (She's So Heavy) by Elvis Costello...

The Costello Show: King of America

The Costello Show: King of America

1986

Columbia Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Brilliant Mistake  2. Lovable  3. Our Little Angel  4. Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood  5. Glitter Gulch  6. Indoor Fireworks  7. Little Palaces  8. I'll Wear It Proudly  9. American Without Tears  10. Eisenhower Blues  11. Poisoned Rose  12. The Big Light  13. Jack of All Parades  14. Suit of Lights  15. Sleep of The Just



Oh, he's the King of America, is he? Well, I didn't vote for him!

I voted for Howard the Duck! Like I've done every year since I emerged from the womb in 1976...

Damn, it's hard to believe that this was the follow up to the blue-eyed soul synthesizer mush of "Goodbye Cruel World"! It's even harder to process this as an 80s' album...Elvis teams up with producer T-Bone Burnett, famous for his rootsy production style, and puts out an album of country and Americana music...So there's minimal synthesizer, just lots of acoustic guitars, mandolins, dobro, and other such woody things...He even drops the Attractions,  who only appear on one track, "Suit of Lights" (which also happens to be one of the strongest songs)...

This didn't come as a complete surprise, since he seemed to have started distancing himself from punk as far back as "Imperial Bedroom" and he emulated this style before on "Almost Blue," but this album blows that earlier Country & Western experiment away, mainly because these songs feel quintessentially Costello. It no longer sounds like he's trying on the cowboy boots of his forebears... Nobody but Elvis Costello could have written and performed these songs (barring the pair of cover songs, of course)...

On a track by track basis, this is one of this strongest albums...Listening to this now, I don't hear a single bum track, which is surprising for the various styles he tries on here. Although this is squarely an Americana roots album, he covers every aspect of this deceptively wide genre, from Elvis Presley style rockabilly ( "The Big Light"), to uptempo hoe-downs ("Glitter Gulch"), to Chicago blues ("Eisenhower Blues"),  to folksy pop (the aforementioned "Suit of Lights," which pulls off a triumphant, yet bittersweet chorus like nobody's business...).  It's really remarkable he doesn't stumble once...If I had to pick out a lowlight, maybe "Poisoned Rose," which is just a little too slow-moving for my tastes, but it's such a lovely song it's hard to complain...Looking at the track listing, I thought for sure the cover of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" was going to be the big skip-worthy moment, especially when you hear the slow tempo, but it turns out it's awesome as all hell...Mysterious, foggy, and anguished...

I've seen this album described as everything from "His best album" to "a big bore," I think, like "Almost Blue," your enjoyment of it is going to depend on how open you are to roots music...Although, I can't imagine anyone being bored by this...Sure, it's not as immediately exciting as "No Action" or "Radio, Radio" but the building intensity of "Little Palaces," and the swooning pop of "Brilliant Mistake" have their own power...I honestly rank this as one of my personal favorite country-rock albums....On the other hand, I can't quite call it his overall best album, because I'm a little too partial to the "power-pop" aspect of Elvis Costello and the Attractions...Anyway, it's a breath of fresh air after "Goodby Cruel World," and this does point the way to a lot of Elvis' later work, although he's never since pulled off this style as successfully as he did here...

Here's "Suit of Lights" by Elvis Costello...Or The Costello Show...Or Declan MacManus...Or the Little Hands of Concrete...Or Wordy Glasses-Man...

Elvis Costello: Punch the Clock/Goodbye Cruel World

 Elvis Costello and the Attractions: Punch the Clock

1983

Columbia Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl and Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Let Them All Talk  2. Everyday I Write the Book  3. The Greatest Thing  4. The Element Within Her  5. Love Went Mad  6. Shipbuilding  7. T.K.O. (Boxing Day)  8. Charm School  9. The Invisible Man  10. Mouth Almighty  11. King of Thieves  12. Pills and Soap  13. The World and His Wife

Disc 2: (2002 Rhino CD version):  1. Everyday I Write the Book (Alternate version)  2. Baby Pictures  3. Heathen Town  4. The Flirting Kind  5. Walking on Thin Ice  6. Big Sister's Clothes/Stand Down, Margaret  7. Danger Zone (BBC Session)  8. Seconds of Pleasure  9. The Town Where Time Stood Still  10. The World and his Wife (Solo version)  11. Shatterproof  12. Heathen Town (Demo version)  13. The Flirting Kind (Demo version)  14. Let Them All Talk (Demo version) 15. King of Thieves (Demo version)  16. The Invisible Man (Demo version)  17. The Element Within Her (Demo version)  18. Love Went Mad (Demo version)  19. The Greatest Thing (Demo version)  20. Mouth Almighty (Demo version)  21. Charm School (Demo version) 22. Possession (Live)  23. Secondary Modern (Live) 24. The Bells (Live) 25. Watch Your Step (Live) 26. Backstabbers/King Horse (Live)


I've always lumped "Punch the Clock" and "Goodbye Cruel World" together...I think they represent a bit of a "lost two years" for Elvis, despite spawning the hit "Everyday I Write the Book."  They seem to both be a bid for pop-stardom and a step away from the critically-acclaimed albums surrounding them. They also sound very dated when compared to "Imperial Bedroom" and "King of America," which continue to feel timeless. "Punch the Clock" and "Goodbye Cruel World" have an identifiably 80's  sound (chock full of blaring 80's horns, synthesizers, and female soul backing vocalists) that I can only conclude stems from producers Clive Langer & Alan Winstanley, who helmed both records.

"Punch the Clock" is undoubtedly the better of the two. I actually love this album and play the hell out of it to this day, often preferring it even to the more critically-lauded "Imperial Bedroom." Despite the sense that the group was mining for hits that would resonate with the public for a change, Elvis sounds refreshed on a lot of this material. In fact, I can't think of many Elvis Costello songs that put me in as good a mood as "The World and His Wife," "Love Went Mad," or "Everyday I Write the Book."



Speaking of "Everyday I Write This Book," what a great bit of songwriting...Sure it totally rips off Nick Lowe's "When I Write the Book," but he does such a good job on the re-write it hardly matters...Smooth, blue-eyed soul with a natural-flowing melody and witty lyrics. I thought I liked the song as much as I possibly could, but the Mersey-beat inspired version on the bonus disc is even better. Come to think of it, a lot of the demo versions on the second disc are better than the final versions, due to the lack of overproduction...I think Elvis would have been better off keeping this a simple, stripped-down acoustic-type album rather than the sterile 80's sound on the final version, and boy! Wouldn't that have come as a big shocker over the ornate "Imperial Bedroom"! 

The big draw for me on this album is "The Invisible Man," a song with roots going back as far as "Seconds of Pleasure" from the "Trust" bonus tracks. Damn, this track makes me so happy. I fell in love the moment I heard the line,  "But if stars are only painted on the ceiling above/Then who can you turn to and who do you love?"  It's just the most lovely, bouncing piece of pop I've ever heard, but despite the smiling exterior, there's obviously a dark vein running throughout the song as evidenced by the lyrics:

"Crowds surround loudspeakers hanging from the lampposts
Listening to the murder mystery
Meanwhile someone's hiding in the classroom
Forging the books of history

Never mind there's a good film showing tonight
Where they hang everybody who can read and write
Oh, that could never happen here
But then again it might..."

 Actually, there are quite a few songs with a paranoid, oppressive political vibe...Remember, this was recorded during Thatcher's reign and the Falklands War, and songs like the stark, withering "Pills and Soap" and the gorgeous "Shipbuilding" reflect this new reality...

His previous cool jazz performance, "Almost Blue,"  did almost nothing for me, but I think he finally nails the genre on "Shipbuilding."  Chalk it up to a more fully developed melody, engaging lyrics and a passionate performance...Again, I have no natural inclination to jazz, but this song knocks me out...

Oh yea, also a shout-out to one of my favorite moments on an Elvis Costello album: On the "element Within Her" when the music stops and comes back in with a key change and Elvis sings:

"But back in the bedroom
With her electric heater
He says, "Are you cold?"
She says, "No, but you are, la la la..."

It probably doesn't look so exciting on paper (are blogs made of paper?) but trust me, it's so fuckin' genius it gives me chills...Boy this is hard to write...I'm fairly blasted right now..I've been pounding pitchers at the Time Out Lounge...

So this might just be the beer talking, but if you've made it as far as "Imperial Bedroom," you might as well take the leap into this, and 80's pop fans might want to check this out too, the songwriting is stellar throughout and there's no shortage of happy, poppy material...Don't believe me? Here's "The Invisible Man" by Elvis Costello. Enjoy...

 Elvis Costello and the Attractions: Goodbye Cruel World

1984

Columbia Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. The Only Flame in Town  2. Home Truth  3. Room with No Number  4. Inch By Inch  5. Worthless Thing  6. Love Field  7. I Wanna Be Loved  8. The Comedians  9. Joe Porterhouse  10. Sour Milk-Cow Blues  11. The Great Unknown  12. The Deportees Club  13. Peace in Our Time


Elvis himself seems to want to distance himself from "Goodbye Cruel World," calling it his worst album. Steve Nieve takes it one step further, wearing a mask in all the band photo, using a pseudonym (Maurice Worm) and creditiing himself with "Random Racket. But I don't agree with all the hate...It's certainly his worst record up until this point, but I spin this a lot more than say, "Il Sogno" or even "Spike"...

This is also his most 80's-ish album too, beating out "Punch the Clock," for the Darryl Hall duet ("The Only Flame in Town") alone, which opens the album...In fact it's kind of shocking when you put down the needle and the music emanating from your speakers sounds like it's being piped in from a Whitney Houston record! And that slutty sax is a whole 'nother level of 80's! Those TKO horns on "Punch the Clock" are starting to sound pretty good, in retrospect.  Go ahead and watch the video...You can only kind of laugh, shake your head and say what the hell?

To this day, I can't tell if Side Two is a drastic improvement or if I just slowly get used to the synthesized production style...Because when you get right down to it, these aren't bad songs...I don't own the expanded CD reissue of this, but I strongly suspect that this was a pretty strong set of demos that was neutered somewhere in the recording process...Still there's a few tracks that cut loud and clear through the plastic, like the rolling, dreamy "The Comedians." And "Peace in Our Time" is a brilliant album closer, production and all...It's the type of track that Elvis excels at...Where he's suddenly shocked by all the inhumanity in the world and responds as only a cynic can, with a  plea for peace that doesn't even register a hint of optimism...

The other big single (actually I don't think any of this album's singles made it too high up the charts) is "I Wanna Be Loved" which is a very 80's cover of some song I've never heard before, but it turns out to be a pretty solid choice...To be honest, this was a song I used to skip...I initially thought it was uninspired and Elvis sounded exhausted on it, but now it's those exact qualities that draw me in...Even the nausea-inducing production seems like an asset on this song...

So yea, you might want to tread lightly here...Definitely don't make this your first purchase...But if you're looking for like, the 14th or 15th best Elvis Costello album, by all means, go for it...It really does grow on you, and like I said I love every damn second of Side Two ("The Great Unknown," "The Deportees Club," "Joe Porterhouse" are all favorites of mine)...I really do think if this was an 80's pop album by some unknown band everybody would be falling all over themselves praising the brilliant song-writing, but the problem was Elvis had already set the bar so much higher than this, so a "good" album doesn't quite cut it...

Still, I get tired of everybody automatically dismissing this album as Costello's "worst," when that's not the case at all...I must have listened to "goodby Cruel World" at least a 100 times since I got it, so that's got to count for something...Maybe I have no taste...I don't know, listen to "Peace in Our Time" and you tell me...I personally think there's something here...It's Friday finally, so grab yourself a few cold ones and enjoy...

"

Elvis Costello: Imperial Bedroom

Elvis Costello: Imperial Bedroom

1982

Columbia Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl and Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1.  Beyond Belief  2. Tears Before Bedtime  3. Shabby Doll  4. The Long Honeymoon  5. Man Out of Time  6. Almost Blue  7. ...And in Every Home  8. The Loved Ones  9. Human Hands  10. Kid About It  11. Little Savage  12. Boy with a Problem  13. Pidgin English  14. You Little Fool  15. Town Cryer

Disc 2: (2002 Rhino CD version):  1. The Land of Give and Take  2. Tears Before Bedtime (Alternate version)  3. Man Out of Time (Alternate version)  4. Human Hands (Early version)  5. Kid About It (Alternate version) 6. Little Savage (Alternate version)  7. You Little Fool (Alternate version) 8. Town Cryer (Fast version)  9. Little Goody Two Shoes  10. The Town Where Time Stood Still (Alternate version)  11. ...And in Every Home (Rehearsal)  12. I Turn Around  13. From Head to Toe  14. The World of Broken Hearts  15. Night Time  16. Really Mystified  17. The Stamping Ground  18. Shabby Doll (Demo version)  19. Man Out of Time (Demo version)  20. You Little Fool (Demo version)  21. Town Cryer (Demo version)  22. Seconds of Pleasure (Demo version)  23. Imperial Bedroom


Elvis trades out Nick Lowe (his longtime producer) for Beatles Engineer Geoff Emerick and changes up his sound. It'd be a stretch to call this punk/new-wave anymore...More of a sophisticated baroque pop sound with a lot of roots in pre-rock old-timer's pop.

I've always thought of this as a good winter album...Comfy couch music...The musical version of a  thick, wool sweater and a night by the fireplace reading a dense, wordy book, while big, fat snowflakes drift soundlessly outside your window...

"Uh-oh, looks like the East is being hammered by another snowstorm! And we turn to chief meteorologist Pete Woods with the Channel 18 FutureCast™ ..."

"Thanks, Allison...It looks like the cold-front is going to see temperatures dropping another 5 degrees over the weekend, so make sure you keep your kids bundled up, and remember to bring your pets indoors. And as you can see from the Channel 18™ Doppler-Weather-Radar-Map™ a large fissure in the Earth is expected to open up somewhere around Louisville, Kentucky and extend all the way to Albany, New York.  The deep red area over Ohio represents a river that flows with the hot, deceitful blood of the non-believers..."

"Pete, are you sure that doesn't represent a warm-air front that's pushing its way Northeast from the Pacific region and delivering light to moderate rains this weekend? "

 

"You're living in a fool's paradise, Allison...No, the Earth is definitely cracking open and the hordes of hell are going to emerge in droves and fill the skies with their flapping, leathery bat-wings, so go ahead and leave your umbrellas at home, folks, you're not going to need 'em. What? You think just because it's my first day I don't know how to tell no weather? I'm from Detroit, bee-yotch! We kill people just for fun on the weekends...And we do drugs, too! For no reason!!!!"

 "Okay, we thought we had something for a moment there, but it turns out this bit was a complete dead end...Back to the Friday Night Record  Party all ready in progress..."

..."Imperial Bedroom" isn't really my go-to Elvis Costello album...I think it aims to be a bigger masterpiece than it really is and as a result it feels a bit stuffy and pretentious sometimes, but when this thing is on it is on...

The opening track, "Beyond Belief" is just about perfect. It's constantly changing, yet flows so seemlessly that when you listen to the alternate take ("The Land of Give and Take") on the bonus disc, it's incredibly jarring.   Just an immaculately balanced song with all manner of intricate gold-leafing ribboned throughout..I can't help but think of a very expensive miniature cake, for some reason...

Maybe it's time to get a Snickers from the vending machine...

Also be sure to check out the witheringly bitter "Shabby Doll," where Bruce Thomas gives one of the greatest bass performances I've ever heard...As slippery and elusive as a weddin' dick...I also happen to think "Man Out of Time," is  one of the best songs Elvis ever put out...It starts out with some ragged rock and bloodcurdling screaming (which the bonus tracks reveal to be the original version of the song) then suddenly erupts into a 20-story acoustic strum and before you know it, where drifting somewhere in the cosmos listening to the most heavenly pop production ever created. This is eyes-rolling-back-in-your-head material...

Most of the songs on "Imperial Bedroom" seem cold, dense and insular, only opening up after several listens, but "...And in Every Home" welcomes you right in with its bright display of pop-song plumage! Even George Martin stops by to contribute an overbearing and intrusive string arrangement, which oddly enough turns out to be exactly what the song demands...I think ultimately this was the track that initially sold me on the album...

On the other hand, there's an awful lot of tracks that have never quite won me over, most of which are relegated to side two...Man, Elvis Costello fans are gonna hate me for this one, but I've never been able to get into "Almost Blue," which seems to be a favorite among his followers (and was even covered by celebrated jazz trumpeter Chet Baker) ...I mean, it's not bad, or anything...It's sumptuously played, and it captures the jazz-club vibe it's going for, but I'd be lying to you if I said it wasn't a tad dull...Keep in mind, smoky jazz isn't something I have any inclination toward, but who knows, maybe if I polished my shoes and snapped my fingers while chain-smoking cigarettes, I might suddenly realize it's a masterpiece, but until then I'll probably continue skipping the song...Besides, he pulls off this genre much more engagingly on the track "Shipbuilding" on his very next album...

But even that song's better than tracks like "The Long Honeymoon," "The Loved Ones," "Little Savage," "Kid About It" and "Town Cryer" which still haven't made any impression on me at all, despite playing them consistently for over 10 years now (They should have replaced one of these with the enjoyable waltz-time title track that's been unjustly relegated to the bonus disc)... Although, one of the best songs emerges unexpectedly on this second side...The simple sing-song melody and easy-flowing lyrics of "Pidgin English" marks it as one of the album's sleeper tracks. It took a dozen listens for this gem to jump out at me, but now when I pull the record from the shelf it's usually because I have a hankerin' to hear this song...

The wealth of stunning material and the overall alluring atmosphere make "Imperial Bedroom" a very worthwhile entry in the Elvis Costello discography, despite a few forgettable tracks. If you're as big a fan of overproduced 60's albums like "Pet Sounds," "Sgt Pepper" and "Odessey and Oracle" as I am, you're going to go nuts over this, but if you find something inherently pretentious about string sections and cool jazz, then you might want to stick with "This Year's Model."

Here's "Pidgin English" by Elvis Costello...Enjoy...

Elvis Costello: Trust/Almost Blue

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