Elvis Costello: Mighty Like a Rose
1991
Warner Bros Records
Format I Own it on: Compact Disc
Track Listing: 1. The Other Side of Summer 2. Hurry Down Doomsday (The Bugs Are Taking Over) 3. How to Be Dumb 4. All Grown Up 5. Invasion Hit Parade 6. Harpies Bizarre 7. After the Fall 8. Georgie and Her Rival 9. So Like Candy 10. Interlude: Couldn't Call It Unexpected No. 2 11. Playboy to A Man 12. Sweet Pear 13. Broken 14. Couldn't Call It Unexpected No. 4
Bonus Disc: 1. Just Another Mystery 2. Sweet Pear 3. Couldn't Call It Unexpected No. 4 4. Mischievous Ghost 5. St. Stephen's Day Murders 6. The Other Side of Summer (MTV Unplugged) 7. Deep Dark Truthful Mirror (MTV Unplugged) 8. Hurry Down Doomsday (The Bugs Are Taking Over) (MTV Unplugged) 9. All Grown Up 10. Georgie and Her Rival 11. Forgive Her Anything 12. It Started to Come to Me 13. I Still Miss Someone/The Last Town I Painted 14. Put Your Big Toe in the Milk of Human Kindness 15. Invasion Hit Parade 16. Just Another Mystery 17. Broken
Elvis Costello's beard album...
Bristling with a beardy, byzantine weirdness...Lots of mature, mannered pop with bitter-ass lyrics...This is often dismissed as being one of Elvis' worst albums (I don't know if I've ever read a good review of it...), being overly complicated and dense, but I actually consider it my favorite Elvis Costello album of the post-"Spike" era...Sure, there's definitely a few skippers, but shave a little of this long beard and there's some respectable undergrowth beneath...
"The Other Side of Summer," for instance is a modern (keep in mind, I still live in the 90's...) update of Brian Wilson's finest, bearded work...A big, lush wall of sound where even the bells and whistles are double (possibly triple) tracked...It's a lot of fun to hear Elvis playing the dark cloud over the state of California...Sun, fun, girls & surf? Bah!
"The dancing was desperate, the music was worse,
They bury your dreams and dig up the worthless,
Goodnight, God bless and kiss "goodbye" to the earth..."
Again, with lyrics like those, it wasn't a big surprise this was such a big hit for me when I was about 14 or 15 year's old...
"Hurry Down Doomsday (The Bugs Are Taking Over)" seems to be a song that divides people, but I'm all for it...It's the kind of clanky, apocalyptic junkyard music that I usually equate with "Bone Machine"- era Tom Waits...Weird as hell, but I like weird shit sometimes...But I can see how some middle-aged guy (loosening his tie after a long day of work) might be annoyed after turning on the hi-fi to hear some relaxing Perry Como, but is instead greeted by the song's dissonant insect-locust-rock...
"WHICH ONE OF THE DAMN KIDS LEFT THAT ELVIS COSTELLO CD IN THE BOSE AGAIN?!?!"
"CLICK CLACK!!!"
"THEY KNOW I DON'T ALLOW THAT RAP SHIT IN MY HOUSE!!!"
Then "How to Be Dumb" comes on and it's perfect anger-pop! I love this song! What a great, catchy chorus...It's weird because I don't think I've ever heard a good word about it, but to me, it's one of his best...I feel the same about "Georgie and Her Rival," which seems to be a close relative of "Veronica"... Oh yea, speaking of "Veronica," there's a couple of McCartney co-writes on this album too! The strongest being "So Like Candy"...I can't help but think if "A Hard Day's Night" was recorded in Twin Peaks, Washington it might sound something like "So Like Candy"...
When the tense atmosphere finally breaks it's pretty stunning...The other McCartney joint "Playboy to a Man," is notable for the silly, nasally vocals that kind of remind of Cameo or something...
It's not the greatest song on Planet Earth or anything, but it helps inject some much-needed uptempo fun into an album that sometimes gets bogged down in soggy balladry at times ("Sweet Pear" being the breaking point for me)...I should mention that album-closer "Couldn't Call It Unexpected No. 4" is probably the most underrated song in Elvis' discography...It's a little weird at first and it took me about 10 years to fully fall in love with it, but goddamn...I get it now...Basically, Elvis finds himself losing faith in religion and his resulting mood falls somewhere between heart-break and triumph...A few of his best lines appear here:
"Please don't let me fear anything I cannot explain,
I can't believe, I'll never believe in anything again..."
I can't believe, I'll never believe in anything again..."
Again, cut a few songs off this it and it has the potential to be one of my all-time favorite Elvis Costello albums...Here's what my re-programmed version would look like...
1. The Other Side of Summer
2. Hurry Down Doomsday (The Bugs Are Taking Over)
3. How to Be Dumb
4. So Like Candy
5. After the Fall
6. Georgie and Her Rival
7. Playboy to A Man
8. Invasion Hit Parade
9. Broken
10. Couldn't Call It Unexpected No. 4
Even cut down to ten tracks this would still run about 43 minutes or so...Which is a much more manageable running time...Try it in this configuration and you'll find it's not too difficult an album at all..Just challenging enough to keep things interesting and it'd blow away the condensed "Spike"...
Here's "The Other Side of Summer" by Abbot Costello...Enjoi-oi-oi...
Elvis Costello: Brutal Youth
1994
Warner Bros Records
Format I Own it on: Compact Disc
Track Listing: 1. Pony St 2. Kinder Murder 3. 13 Steps Lead Down 4. This Is Hell 5. Clown Strike 6. You Tripped at Every Step 7. Still Too Soon to Know 8. 20% Amnesia 9. Sulky Girl 10. London's Brilliant Parade 11. My Science Fiction Twin 12. Rocking Horse Road 13. Just About Glad 14. All the Rage 15. Favourite Hour
Disc 2 (2002 Rhino Records Reissue): 1. Life Shrinks 2. Favourite Hour (Church Studios Version) 3. This Is Hell (Church Studios Version) 4. Idiophone 5. Abandon Words 6. Poisoned Letter 7. A drunken man's praise of sobriety 8. Pony St. (Bonaparte Rooms Version) 9. Just About Glad (Bonaparte Rooms Version) 10. Clown Strike (Bonaparte Rooms Version) 11. Clown Strike (Bonaparte Rooms Version) 12. 13 Steps Lead Down (Demo) 13. All the Rage (Demo) 14. Sulky Girl (Demo) 15. You Tripped at Every Step (Church Studios Version)
I can remember what a relief this album was at the time...Like I said before, I came into Elvis through "Spike" and "Mighty Like a Rose," so I was alright with difficult albums, but he kind of lost me for the first time with 1993's "The Juliet Letters"...
I know "The Juliet Letters" definitely has its followers, and I don't think it's a bad album by any means, it's just that it's not for me...I kind of felt like an uncultured barbarian listening to it...the delicate, brittle teacup handle breaking in-between my clumsy fingers, revealing me for the fraud I am...The viking in a fine, tailored suit...I can't help it...String quartets don't do a thing for me...I just can't blast the Brodsky Quartet on a Friday Night and pound a few beers...I need loud, crashing drums and distorted guitars before something will register in my brain...
At the time I hadn't quite got a grip on Elvis' new mode of operation...I didn't realize that every album released after "Mighty Like a Rose" would sound absolutely nothing like the album preceding it...It had seriously crossed my mind that the Brodsky quartet were the new Attractions and the next 10 albums would be nothing but cellos and violins and violas and violaronies...So when I started reading the advance press stating that he was reuniting with Nick Lowe and the Attractions and making a "return to form" album, I was ecstatic...
I think ultimately the press oversold it..."...and the Attractions" isn't written anywhere on the cover...Nick Lowe functions as a bass player, rather than producer, and this is undeniably the Elvis of 1994...It doesn't even seem to have crossed his mind to recapture the past glories of "This Year's Model," which probably would have been an impossible task anyhow...In the end, I think this was the right move...It's a clearer, uncluttered version of the past few albums...Replacing the bells and whistles for guitar, drums and piano, but keeping the sophisticated songwriting style he had acquired...
Sure, it's suffers from a bloated running time (this was the 90's) and there's maybe a song or two that I don't much care for (the showtune-ish "This is Hell" being the biggest offender, nearly killing the momentum of the album with its early placement..."Still Too Soon to Know" isn't too exciting either...) and "Favourite Hour" would have made a bigger impact if it wasn't butted against the draggy (but enjoyable) "All the Rage." But there's no denying this was his most breezy and enjoyable album in quite some time...
I can still recall the smile that was glued to my face when I popped in the cassette and heard "Pony St." for the first time..."The tinkling piano could lead anywhere," I thought to myself nervously as the album started, but then the lively lead vocal and crashing guitars and cymbals come in and I'm sure I pumped my fist in the air...Oh, and the bass guitar! It's actually moving this time around...Throwing off rapid-succession triplets and slippery fills... It's Rock....I like Rock!
"Kinder Murder," "13 Steps Lead Down," and "Just About Glad" are just the kind of boppy, bitter, guitar-pop that Elvis built his name on! And as an added bonus we also get those hazy, atmospheric, but ultimately cathartic ballads that he started acing during the "Spike" and "Mighty Like a Rose" period ("Sulky Girl" being an especially welcome entry into the canon, although the sparse demo version on the bonus disc does make me consider the virtues of a more stripped-down arrangement)...
Oddly enough, my favorite track falls into neither category..."Clown Strike" is sort of jazzy R&B, but he doesn't use jazz to bore us for a change...This comes off like a mature version of the "Get Happy!!" style to me and I love it...He should do some more of these...
"We demand bigger cars and longer seltzer breaks! Ha-honk!!"
So I'd say get this if you're into "Spike" or "Mighty Like a Rose," but don't skip those ones thinking that "Brutal Youth" is going to be a return to the Attractions-era recordings...He's pretty far removed from all that at this point, but it's a hell of a good album once your expectations are on straight...Still, you can't shake the feeling that if they'd pulled Nick Lowe from the bass guitar and threw him in the producer's chair instead, that this could have been a home-run...
Oh yea, if you have the Rhino reissue with the bonus disc, make sure you don't overlook "Poisoned Letter" and "A drunken man's praise of sobriety" (his callabo with Canadian tween sensation William Butler Yeats)...Those two tracks smoke a lot of the material that appeared on the final album...
Here's "Just About Glad" by Elvis Costello...Enjoy...
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