I’m moving office which has lead to me moving some CDs, which has obviously lead to a lot of listening to things I’d forgotten. One I’d not quite forgotten is Brutal Youth by Elvis Costello. I still have not got round to listening to it though. I bought it because I saw them play 13 steps lead down on TV and thought it sounded good, but obviously not good enough for me to listen to the thing. As I load it into Itunes I realise I have had it for 20 years (since 1994) without playing it. Is this a record?
(no, a record is the black vinyl thing, boom tish).
Is this a record?
by 11 Comments
As an EC fan, I think Brutal Youth is one of his best, certainly it’s his best post-1990 record…
I owned Diamond Dogs for maybe 15+ years on CD and I only listened to it in 2013 for the first time. It’s good, isn’t it?
I bought London Calling on vinyl when it came out, and still haven’t played side 3 or 4. Do I win?
Why the bloody hell have you not played 3/4? Card Cheat, Train In Vain, Four Horsemen – great tracks.
Is the second disc upstairs?
I went on a mammoth Fopp binge when the Costello two-fer reissues came out, and bought the whole bloody lot at a fiver a pop. I still haven’t played any of the bonus discs.
The Get Happy!! bonus disc is staggering – a further 30 cuts. What a prime year he had in 1980. The Imperial Bedroom disc is good too. The home demos on All This Useless Beauty are interesting as an insight into his technique, but I haven’t listened in ages, plus it has Almost Ideal Eyes & EC’s cover of What Do I Do Now?. Juliet Letters bonus disc is a good companion that saves a lot of trawling about on other records for bonus cuts. As a Brutal Youth fan (see above) there’s some alt versions on that disc, I particularly like Poisoned Letter.
For some reason I never got round to picking up the 2CD Kojak Variety. Happy to take it off your hands if you like!
I think you’ll find CD2 of Goodbye Cruel World is a good deal better than CD1.
Some would say that if you bang the CD case against the wall it sounds better than CD1.
I put a Rowntrees Fruit Pastille in my mouth in 1973 and I’ve not chewed it yet..
The secret to enjoying Goodbye Cruel World is to imagine that EC decided to make an album with Split Enz to reflect the state of pop music in 1984.
I have plenty of LPs that I bought in the 80s and never played once. And still haven’t.
I blame that on the strong sense of loyalty that I had back then (I’ve learned to control it better these days), so when an artist/band that I had once loved very much turned shite I just had to buy at least two, probably three albums too many before I could convince myself to use my money on better things.
I always had this sad image of depressed former pop stars sitting in a dreary office, thinking “I used to be somebody!” and wishing they hadn’t put all of their earnings up their nose.
But of course, buying albums out of loyalty doesn’t mean you have to actually listen to the ghastly things…so I usually couldn’t make myself listen to that final loyalty purchase, not wanting to completely wreck my love for their former selves.