I’m beginning to think I should have been a bigger fan of Elvis Costello over the years. I bought, or was given to be more precise, the Oliver’s Army (one of my favourite three songs of his) single when it came out, but that was the only record of his I owned until I bought the Mighty Like a Rose CD in 1991. That one’s a patchy album, but not as bad as the bottom position it usually occupies when Costello fans rank his albums. All Grown Up from that album’s another of my three favourite songs.
After this I bought a greatest hits CD and over the years I bought his first few and Imperial Bedroom, the latter being the one that was played the most (Man Out of Time – the third of my top three Costello songs). I downloaded all the others some time back and had begun to think I had been overlooking him last year after listening to a couple of them whilst ploughing on with my project, so I went through them all and ended up buying another dozen, quite cheaply, on CD.
But then this year he released The Boy Named If. It is absolutely superb. I bought the CD straight away and it made me relisten to all the CDs again. I’ve definitely been missing out here. So many great albums that I barely knew – King of America, Almost Blue, Trust, Brutal Youth, Blood and Chocolate, When I was Cruel, Punch the Clock, Get Happy!!, Painted From Memory, even Look Now from a few years ago. I should have been listening to this lot for years. It’s the same feeling as when I finally got round to listening to Prince’s post-80s stuff and learned that it wasn’t all rubbish, as many would have you believe, but in Costello’s case I actually had copies, albeit downloaded, of all these albums for years, without ever really listening to them. It makes me wonder how many more great artists are hiding in plain sight in my record collection.
I went on a kind of similar route with Costello. Loved the singles I heard in the late 70s and early 80s (a friend made me a couple of C120 compilations which were just brilliant) but never owned any albums until I got Blood and Chocolate when it came out in 86. I’ve been a sporadic follower since then but have a bit of a major splurge every now and again. I can’t say I love all his stuff but the stuff I do love is lodged permanantly in the brain as being well loved. Favs? Blood and Chocolate, Imperial Bedroom, Brutal Youth and now The Boy Named If is really taking hold…
Useless Beauty is very underrated – a great farewell to the Attractions, it’s essentially Costello Sings Costello. He tries to do something new with old tools (hur) and ends up turning everything inside out. As good a starting point as any and yet atypical.
It’s a very fine album with some all-time EC greats on it. ‘Poor Fractured Atlas’ is a clever delve into male self image insecurities, ‘The Other End Of The Telescope’ is magnificent, and ‘I Want To Vanish” is right up there with the creepy and often critically hailed ‘I Want You’ from Blood And Chocolate.
I got the Girls Girls Girls comp (on cassette as opposed to the vinyl/CD/DAT versions, all of which are slightly different, look em up) and thought it was terrific. Still do.
I’ve never tried any of the albums, for fear I will be disappointed.
But I won’t be.
Will I?
It’s an incredible run, his first ten years. The only duffer in the period covered by GGG is Goodbye Cruel World, and even that isn’t bad. He gave good b-side in them days too.
GGG on CD was the first Costello I owned and I should have stopped there. I never found anything else on the several albums I subsequently bought as good as anything on there.
See, this is what I fear. For me some artists are just great on comps. Controversially:
The Who (plus Who’s Next)
Led Zeppelin (plus IV)
The Lemonheads (the 2CD Laughing All The Way To The Cleaners is brilliant)
and I have a feeling EC may be similar.
I did a run through during first lockdown (inspired by the Dave Amitri Bowie thing, but without the power or will to write the words up).
My Costello collection, at the time, consisted of the comp Girls Girls Girls, Get Happy, Spike, and Brutal Youth, plus some singles and a badly taped (now digitised, but still badly recorded) double of My Aim Is True and This Year’s Model.
I now own the bulk of the catalogue, and like it very much (not keen on The Juliet Letters though) – but only When I was Cruel from the 21st Century.
Might be time to rectify that …
King Of America probably my favourite, closely followed by Get Happy
Since Dog Faced Boy no longer lingers on here (unless he has an alias) I consider myself the biggest Costello fan on this site. I have all of his albums and several bootlegs too. Really glad you think so highly of All Grown up from mighty like a rose. I also love After the fall from the same album and Couldn’t call it unexpected which if you ever saw him do unaccompanied accapella live you would know how great a singer he is and how good that song is. I don’t know a better British singer songwriter who has endured for as long as he has. Roll on the June tour.
All Grown up is brilliant, as is Other Side of Summer and the GBH song but I’ve always found the rest of MLAR hard work. Strange, because I loved Spike (at the time – now not so much)
Spike is always worth a listen if only for the witty and astute ‘God’s Comic’, and the lovely song that I point those who claim he can’t sing to, ‘Baby Plays Around’.
I was going to type that these were my two favourite songs on that album…but on reflection, they are two of my all time EC favourites.
Bought everything into the 90s, but stopped then. Was a huge fan at one time, but rarely listen to him these days. Imperial Bedroom is a masterpiece though. Saw several brilliant gigs with The Attractions also.
My top 5:
Imperial Bedroom
Get Happy
This Year’s Model
King of America
Blood and Chocolate
@dai I absolutely cannot fault your top 5.
Blimey
I would put King of America top and replace Blood and Chocolate with Brutal Youth just for London’s Brilliant parade but then I would lose I want you.
All of his albums gave some merit except for Juliet Letters which I just can’t abide
I dated a huge Elvis C fan in the 90s. Her favourite album was The Juliet Letters. She bought it for me, we broke up and I am ashamed to say I never listened to it.
The Birds Will Still Be Singing is one of his best songs ever, and there was a great cover by Norma Waterson (RIP).
Agreed but it’s the only good song on the album.
His memoir “Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink” is a book of two halves. The first half describing his growing up is brilliant, especially his loving descriptions of his parents, friends and relatives and of course music. The second half, for me, quickly descended into a rather boring read as he described his rise to fame. A massive book (almost 700 pages) but worth buying for the first half. Another thing for me was the downward spiral of his singing style to that bellow (Oh alright then, foghorn) which turned me off completely by the time he reached that Burt Bacharach record. I must check out that new one though.
Not just me then (see below)
It’s so long ago I can’t remember whether I read it somewhere, or it was me or a friend who said ‘he was good until someone told him he could sing’ (around the time of Imperial Bedroom), but from that point on he never stopped bellowing (or foghorning).
I’ve said that, but I put the start of that as The Juliet Letters, which his brilliant in places but in others excruciating because of his constipated noises. The first step on The Road to She *shudder*
Yes. It all went wrong when somebody seemed to tell him he was a really versatile singer. He isn’t
It might not be his best, but Blood & Chocolate is my fave. I can remember getting a bollocking for turning the 6th form common room radio up loud when Tokyo Storm Warning came on, while there was a Geography lesson going on downstairs.
It sounds like an old car with dodgy brakes, careering along a cliff-top road. In the dark. While it is pissing down.
I later discovered they’d recorded it live in the studio, in the round with everyone facing each other, and everyone’s amps turned up to 11.
And it’s probably my favourite Costello song. That and maybe Hope You’re Happy Now, and on an album that also has I Want You and Battered Old Bird on, my goodness he was on top form in 1986.
The last Costello song I really liked. And yep, it sounds dodge!
I’m pleased to see you’ve seen the light, Paul!
I’ve got pretty much all his studio albums up to Brutal Youth, but the last album of his I bought was When We Was Cruel. I’ve dipped in and out since then but not heard anything that I’ve felt I wanted to devote any significant time to. Until The Boy Named If, that is – I agree with Paul, it’s terrific and one of my albums of the year so far. I’d be interested to know from those who are more familiar with his 21st Century stuff if it really is a Return to Form, or is just that I haven’t been paying attention?
I have a soft spot for Punch the Clock, love the first three albums, but would put King of America top of the pile.
Punch is good. Should also say I love the extended versions of the albums, his B side work was exemplary.
Yep, those 2CD album sets from 20 (!) years ago, each stuffed with b-sides, outtakes and demos, are great.
I have the 3-volume CD Singles box sets as well – 35 CDs in total. And I wouldn’t describe myself as a Costello fan…
Of his later albums National Ransom gets overlooked .Wise up ghost is an interesting diversion but Look Now is really very good
Yes, The Boy Named If is a fine album. I like the great ‘band-in-a-studio’ sound it achieves, even though it was recorded in lockdown conditions. I also like that he has cut down on the vibrato vocal thing he was doing on the end of each line. Will feature strongly at end-of-year I think. In recent years (since When I Was Cruel, which is excellent) I’ve liked The Delivery Man, Look Now and Hey, Clockface. I did not enjoy Secret, Profane And Sugarcane but maybe I need to give it another go. Of all his albums, King Of America goes top of the pile.
Just the first ten years for me. Have listened to the odd one he’s made since King of America but nothing has grabbed me.
I can understand that all those elderly people who were Costello fans during his famous “First 10 Years” were scared away by the violins and cello on »The Juliet Letters« but it is a gorgeous album. There should be a big band like the Mr. Ho Orchestra or the Brian Wilson band (when he performed »Smile« in concert) who takes the effort to cover all these songs in a »Pet Sounds« style…
And we should not forget his T-Bone albums from 2009/2010, »National Ransom« and »Secret Profane & Sugarcane«.
My personal favourites (and I have all his albums, singles and collaborations BTW) are »Get Happy«, »All This Useless Beauty« and, inevitably, »North«.
Not sure why the T-Bone albums get ignored, especially by those who put King of America at the top of the pile – I thought they were both great, but I think Fatima’s the first to single them out for praise in this thread…apologies if I’ve missed something above…
I can’t say, @fitterstoke, but S,P&S just didn’t grab me with the result that I didn’t even try National Ransom. Which surprises me, too, because I’m predisposed to like everything that T-Bone is involved with…
Time to reassess/reconsider?
Of course. Always reassessing and evolving…that could be an AW T-shirt.
Push the button, Max…
Out of interest, did you like Almost Blue?
Yes, love Almost Blue.
To my shame I’d forgotten about National Ransom, as well as When I was Cruel. Great albums both.
Yes North is fantastic – Still is the perfect love song with a melody to die for
I’m surprised by how much Costello featured in my 80s listening, maybe because I liked anything on Stiff Records. Totally dropped off my radar after the 80s and now, like EBTG, when I re-listen to it it most of it doesn’t really hold up. I think I liked it because the cool kids did.
“I liked anything on Stiff Records. Totally dropped off my radar …”
when he signed to Radar
(boom boom?)
No love for Almost Blue? Incredibly brave creative/artistic swerve at the time.
As with the other 2CD sets that came out 20 odd years back the extras are great, too.
Like lots of others AWers, also love the GGG collection and thought the book was terrific until the anecdote-heavy second half which just dragged on and on.
Amazed to find i (still) have 11 EC CDs/3 LPs and have seen him three times, (once with the attractions, once solo and once with the Confederates) but wouldn’t classify myself as a massive fan.
From what everyone’s said up the page, seems like high time I dug out ATUB and BY again
Very brave swerve – his first without Nick Lowe at the controls, and Country something of an unknown quantity in the New Wave world.
Does contain one of his finest singles – Good Year For The Roses – and seemed to re-energise and reset a tad as Imperial Bedroom is a corker of an album.
I find AB a bit soulless but I admire the hell out of it – the whole fuck it, let’s try something different approach.
It’s worth pointing out the extent to which the whole band was totally on the piss at this point.
Bloody hell, ijust remembered I also read Bruce Thomas’ Big Wheel and its very unflattering picture of a lead singer known as “the Pod”
I read that too. It’s quite funny (….”Shards”…) but I did end up thinking, if being in a band is so awful why don’t you pack it in and do something else? Costello is clearly an arsey sod but on that evidence, so is BT.
Hey, I’m not that bad!
My dear boy, I was referring to British Telecom.
As EC says of BT at the end of that particular chapter of his book, “but I ended up having the last laugh”
“Stop getting Cromwell wrong!”
When it was first released, it came with a sticker on the cover that read: “WARNING: This album contains country & western music and may cause offence to narrow minded listeners”.
I loved AB and the first one then cooled off around Get Happy. The Bacharach/Sheeeeeee vibrato big serious voice era / slurpy strings finished me off, though he does a great interview and he’s obviously a top act.
Given what I said and my known preferences, can someone recommend me another album to dig into?
Try King Of America. I think it’s the halfway point between those two albums.
KofA and B&C are both terrific. Amazuping how close together they were released
Amazing how any of it got released considering how totally hammered everyone was.
Cadbury’s got miffed at his promotional B&C chocolate bar. But too much like Bournville.
Right, I’ve ended up buying Look Now and All This Useless Beauty. I’m stopping there, cos I have no room left and it means taking two others off the shelf. Or taking a small boxed set out and sticking it in front, on the end of the shelf. It obscures a few discs, but it’s created valuable space. I am determined not to start putting boxed sets on top of the units, where they just gather dust. But at least I can reap of the benefits of there being no Mrs Wad any more, to tell me off for making the place look cluttered!
The desire may be too great – just concede and place those boxes on the top shelf to free the space.
You know it makes sense
Buy more shelves, man!
Box sets have officially taken over my living room. They have parties when I am out and I need to consult with the biggest one (Beatles mono vinyl set), if I am planning to have any guests visiting.
No more drugs for that man…
I don’t know, a regular dose of thorazine apparently often works well in cases like this
Anyone know why “When I was Cruel is not available” on Spotty/Qobus etc?
I have it on cd and have tried to upload to my “local files” but that hasn’t been successful.
Over the last couple of years I have dug into his output after really liking Don’t Look Now.
He was always an artist who I didn’t dislike but my CD pounds had other fish to fry.
I’ve been listening to him loads and loving him now. It’s been nice to look into a whole career output, without the histrionics of the time that the albums have been released, and take them on musical value alone…none of this “It’s a return to form ” stuff that all great artists suffer from.
I saw him at Blenheim Palace just before he announced his cancer scare and he wasn’t (understandably) that good so I’m really looking forward to seeing him in Bristol and Bath this summer.
FWIW I think Blood & Chocolate is his best album
No idea why When I Was Cruel isn’t available for streaming but it’s bloody good isn’t it? Nice and gently experimental in places too, and fair play to him for trying it. 45 is a great single (at least I think it was a single) and Tear Off Your Own Head runs it close. Spooky Girlfriend is another good ‘un.
I love the Bacharach album. Think he was a great singer – have seen him live twice / three times and the one just with Steve Naive was the better. Have a soft spot for Mighty Like a Rose. Found the T Bone albums to be average – could never remember a single song. I now think King of America not as good as I once found it while This Year’s Model is top notch despite a period when I found its tone to be too much for me. Get Happy probably still my favourite. Often find him singing flat in live work and I find that its odd that he kept claiming that he would stop making albums.