40 DAYS OF ELVIS COSTELLO: A Countdown To WISE UP GHOST

[cwr]

DAY 18: KOJAK VARIETY

http://connorratliff.tumblr.com/post/59 ... success-of

[Poor Deportee]

Your suggestion for KJ No.2 is just what ever artist should be doing, really. Realizing live recordings, covers, nifty leftovers, etc., via the website.

I remain nonplussed that anyone would rate this collection ahead of Mighty Like a Rose This is one for the completists in my book...perfectly decent, but also perfectly unnecessary.

[pophead2k]

Elvis would probably be happy to know that this album had the exact effect on me that he probably intended. Because of this album, I sought out, and became a fan of, artists such as the Louvin Brothers and Jesse Winchester- artists I had not previously known. I really love this album and find it far from inessential.

[Poor Deportee]

Elvis would probably be happy to know that this album had the exact effect on me that he probably intended. Because of this album, I sought out, and became a fan of, artists such as the Louvin Brothers and Jesse Winchester- artists I had not previously known. I really love this album and find it far from inessential.

That's a good point.

My own feeling is that EC's versions generally don't represent substantial improvements or dramatic re-imaginings of the songs in question (although "Everybody's Crying Mercy" has a distinctively Costello-ish edge to it, and stands out inasmuch as that song might have been written just for him). If the agenda was to use his profile to draw attention to lesser-known artists, then that's cool. By contrast, if the aim was to make the songs alive in a way they had not been before, then this album is not of particularly great interest. Y'know, stunning masters like Howlin' Wolf and Little Richard are not going to be topped or especially enhanced by EC covering them. Just my two cents.

[cwr]

I think the ballads on KV are the heart of the album-- I'd say I prefer his version of "Please Stay" to The Drifters' version, for instance, and his take on Dylan's "I Threw It All Away" might not replace the original but I'd say it at least matches it. I love the Nashville Skyline original but in a pinch I can see myself picking Costello's. Also, his covers of "Days" and "Must You Throw Dirt In My Face" would, I think, qualify as dramatic re-imaginings.

"Remove This Doubt" has a quality about it that makes it a worthy cover, too-- it gives me a different feeling to the Supremes' version, and I'd say the same for "I've Been Wrong Before." I had never heard either of those songs before I heard Costello's versions, and those are two of my favorite tracks on KV. And I'd agree that "Everybody's Cryin' Mercy" feels like a song that was clearly a good fit for Costello to sing.

The other half of the album-- mostly the uptempo numbers-- is Costello having fun playing some songs with Burton, Ribot, Keltner, etc. He's not trying to re-invent the wheel with his versions of "Leave My Kitten Alone" or "Bama Lama Bama Loo" but he clearly loves those songs and felt like playing and recording them. I'd agree that part of it is that it's not like he's doing "Tutti Frutti" or songs that are played to death on oldies stations, so a certain part of KV is clearly intended as a fun road map towards people digging out the original records and then maybe having fun exploring those artists. I know it worked that way for me (as did Almost Blue.)

Part of the reason I have always felt that his long-promised "Volume 2" should be an ongoing online project (as opposed to a second CD/LP/album-format release) is that A) Costello has done plenty of talking about how the "album" format is sort of over now and this would be chance to play with releasing something in a different way and B) it would allow people to judge it as a different way rather than comparing it to his other albums.

Obviously, stacked up against "proper" Costello albums, KV is always going to seem like a less essential Costello record-- only people being deliberately provocative (ahem, Stereogum) would say that this is more essential in Costello's canon than MLAR. I mean, my god, even if MLAR was just "Couldn't Call It Unexpected" and "So Like Candy" it would still be more essential than KV.

However, I would say that the aspect of Costello as a kind of unofficial Ambassador of Music-- as a gateway drug to other people's music of all varieties, if you will-- is a big part of his appeal. I know that may own taste and certainly my record collection began to expand greatly beyond Costello as a direct result of becoming a Costello fan. If he were to begin releasing little online singles or EPs every now and then which continued Kojak Variety as an ongoing project-- just Costello saying "here's a song I love, my version of it, you should check this person out"-- it would, over time, have a bigger impact than the original KV album. Costello deciding he liked a Beyonce song or a song by an artist very few people have heard of and releasing a cover of it for 99 cents would probably get more attention than if he simply released another conventional album of covers. Even if he just did a new cover every month, over time that would become a major, major thing that people would get into and pay attention to.

(Imagine if he and The Roots did this together, how much fun that would be! They already essentially started it, in a way, when they did Bruce Springsteen week together on Fallon...)

[jardine]

I agree. One a month would build into something over time, be relatively easy to do (knock off one w. the roots between other recordings, do one solo, another backstage with a guest, one taped at a concert, another a sketch of a new song, etc.). As many have said already, he has introduced me to so many artists over so many years. So thanks to the birthday boy for this and thanks, cwr, for your great posts...

[cwr]

DAY 19: MIGHTY LIKE A ROSE

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[FAVEHOUR]

hear, hear! Although I don't like After The Fall or Broken, I like everything else on this record, even Playboy To A Man. And it contains one of my all time favorites, possibly my favorite, CCIU # 4, as well as the fabulous Other Side of Summer, All Grown Up, Harpies Bizarre, Georgie, and Sweet Pear, all gems in my book. It was a great tour too!

Dave

[Jack of All Parades]

Ugh!! The nadir of his catalog for my ears. The only album of his that I totally removed from my collection. It was a flip of the coin as I almost removed SP&S, as well. To this day it must be the impersonation of Solzhenitsyn he temporarily adopted as if he was trying to go into the witness protection program- almost mirrored a few years back by Joaquin Phoenix to just about the same effect.

[Neil.]

Wonderful appraisal, Connor! And accurate, I think. I really think Sweet Pear could become a classic if the right person covered it - Elvis's vocal, though passionate, will be too much for most people - I'm sure someone else could make it a massive hit. I absolutely love the lyrics - 'I am your stupid lover, your wretched groom'. What a way to end a love song! And let's not forget it tips a nod to The Beatles' 'Don't Let Me Down' in the intro.

[Poor Deportee]

Well, let me split the difference. I don't think this is one of Elvis's best records, nor do I think it has some "inner coherence" that is really worth bothering about (although Connor's take on the dark vs. comparatively hopeful is interesting and does make sense - the problem is just that the second side is fatally bogged down by the overwrought "Sweet Pear" and the dismal "Broken," which sure is. Coherence is no compensation). And while I agree that "Hurry Down Doomsday" is indeed one of his grouchiest moments, the song is unlistenable. Meanwhile, the melodies on "Invasion" and "Georgie" feel like somebody stretching some tough putty beyond its breaking point.

So I feel it's a mistake to try to defy conventional wisdom ("this sucks") by taking the polar opposite position ("this is awesome"). And thinking it a good idea to leave out the splendours of "Just Another Mystery" for adolescent dreck like "Broken" is delusional, to my mind.

Conversely - and here's where I differ with Jack - the album IS underrated. First, EC is in great voice here. (That's not to say he uses it optimally, just that the timbre of his voice has never been better on record: rich, strong, worked in but full of depth and power). "Summer," "So Like Candy," "CCIU" and "After the Fall" are near-classics in the canon (and "Unexpected" has what might be the most wryly amusing title of any song about death out there). "Dumb" is self-indulgent but outrageous fun. "All Grown Up," while imperfect, really is a remarkable song: a complete subversion of all the logic of rock and roll - one of the most radical lyrics he has ever perpetrated, and I'm not sure how many people ever "got" what he was doing here. "Invasion" is lyrically interesting even if the melody is as tortured and incoherent as the souls it depicts, while "Harpies," although slightly pious in the manner all too often adopted by later EC, remains a lovely little pop piece.

And EC's defence of "Playboy" is spot on. Lighten up. It's a zany throwaway - what, is he not allowed?

So I think this is a deeply flawed album with as high a quotient of mistakes as any EC album, but also a lot of strengths. It is difficult both lyrically and musically. Sometimes the listener wrestles without adequate reward. But there's lots to like here and, ever since Jack was good enough to send me a remainder-bin copy to replace my long-lost cassette version , it's given me plenty of enjoyment.

[cwr]

To each his/her own! I totally understand someone thinking "Hurry Down Doomsday" is "unlistenable" although I personally find each and every track on MLAR to be not only listenable but repeatedly so.

Not just being contrarian here regarding the conventional wisdom-- my initial period of binge-listening to all of Costello's 1977-1993 output was done without any context with regards to how well the albums were received. (I actually didn't even know what order they'd been recorded in, and it took me a while to get used to it when I realized that Punch The Clock wasn't one of his first records, for instance.) And from the very beginning, MLAR was one of my very favorites from start-to-finish. (It was only later that I started tracking down and reading enough magazine articles and reviews to figure out which albums were loved and which ones were hated.)

As for my thoughts regarding leaving "Just Another Mystery" train off MLAR but leaving on, say, "Broken"... It's not that I think "Broken" is a better song, it's honestly that I think MLAR is perhaps Costello's most perfectly sequenced albums, and I don't think "Just Another Mystery" has a place on the record that makes sense.

I feel the same way about "Black Sails In The Sunset" and Trust. "Black Sails" is superior to quite a few songs on Trust, but I'm not sure that adding it to the album makes Trust better. For instance, it's a better song than "Different Finger" but I think the inclusion of that song makes the album more interesting.

I DO have some very specific opinions about a later EC album where I feel that superior songs were left off to the detriment of the album as a whole but that's an opinion for another day...

ETA: I have always thought "Playboy To A Man" was fun. I'm continually stunned that there are people who find it intolerable!

[Poor Deportee]

Well, I did really dig "Doomsday" when I was younger. My tastes seem to have shifted in this respect - re-discovering the album 20 years later, I couldn't believe that I ever enjoyed what now seems to me to be unpleasant, unmusical racket: the world's ugliest novelty song.

The "sequencing" issue seems to be one of those that divides music afficionados. No one is crazy enough to deny that sequencing is hugely important, but then again there is a certain fetish in rock and roll, or at least Rock, about having an album be a "Coherent Statement" - a noble enough aspiration to be sure, but never one that impressed me nearly as much as having an album contain lots and lots of great songs. I'm fairly confident we could sequence out the wretched "Broken" and find a place for "Just a Mystery," provided we weren't too hung up on some overarching vision. That said, though, I recognize that some people really do want their albums to coalesce into One Unified Statement (heck, Dylan left stone-cold masterpieces off his early 80s records, putatively because they didn't "fit" with the wider albums. Having that bozo Chuck Plotkin as producer probably didn't help )

[Neil.]

"All Grown Up," while imperfect, really is a remarkable song: a complete subversion of all the logic of rock and roll - one of the most radical lyrics he has ever perpetrated, and I'm not sure how many people ever "got" what he was doing here.

This is interesting - "a complete subversion of the logic of rock and roll - one of the most radical lyrics he has ever perpetrated''. What do you mean? Is it the fact that the song, unlike most rock 'n' roll songs, is not a celebration of youth ("I hope I die before I get old" kinda attitude), but a condemnation of it? The confidence of those young hipsters who speak as though they know what life is about, before they've lived long enough to appreciate it?

[Ymaginatif]

So Like Candy - Couldn't Call it ... - Playboy To A Man

Listening to that 'trio', is when the initial flame of Costello love sparked up for me.

I know the former gets a lot of respect, whereas the latter .. doesn't. But to my ears they are equally powerful statements of two sides of the polygon that is Elvis Costello

[Poor Deportee]

"All Grown Up," while imperfect, really is a remarkable song: a complete subversion of all the logic of rock and roll - one of the most radical lyrics he has ever perpetrated, and I'm not sure how many people ever "got" what he was doing here.

This is interesting - "a complete subversion of the logic of rock and roll - one of the most radical lyrics he has ever perpetrated''. What do you mean? Is it the fact that the song, unlike most rock 'n' roll songs, is not a celebration of youth ("I hope I die before I get old" kinda attitude), but a condemnation of it? The confidence of those young hipsters who speak as though they know what life is about, before they've lived long enough to appreciate it?

That's about the size of it, yes. The song is a withering portrait of the self-importance of youth, and the fundamental callowness of youthful rebellion; an exact inversion of the traditional motif of rock and roll, the pretenses of which are utterly exposed.

For a "rock and roller" to write this song always struck me as fairly astonishing. The line "was it a millionaire who said imagine no possessions?" gets all the attention as a subversive act, but this song is much more profoundly subversive of the idiom with which Elvis is most associated.

What stops "All Grown Up" from being perfect, I think, is the strained vocal (although it's not that bad, certainly not as bad as some of the excesses that were to come), a fairly zany arrangement. and the unfortunate finger-wagging of the "look at yourself!" section, where he slips from pungent observation to lecturing. But I still find the song a fascinating moment in his catalogue.

[cwr]

DAY 20: THE GEORGE JONES DEMOS

http://connorratliff.tumblr.com/post/59 ... efore-rick

[Jack of All Parades]

Up until now I had never considered these 'extras' as an album unto itself. Still not totally convinced but your case makes a reasonably convincing argument. It has been so long since I read the liner notes on the Rhino edition for KV let alone paid much attention to them. EC clearly thinks of them as 'another record' and I appreciate his casting them as a rehabilitation project for another artist- hard to think Mr. Jones needed such a reclamation but I guess time and alcohol had largely dimmed his luster. You propose a worthy side career for EC- 'keeper of the flame'. I cannot think of a better transition into the latter years of one's own recording and performing career. His natural bent towards being a historicist would be well served and his listening public would benefit from his musical erudition at the same time. And he would be able to roam at will through genres and periods. It does strike me, thanks to your consistent past argumentation for this type of usage, that this is exactly where the internet and a specific artist can best serve one another.

[cwr]

Well, I'm not sure if Costello considers this a proper album or not, but it's only 3 minutes shorter than Almost Blue. To me, it feels like he put so much thought and effort into it, even though it was intended as a "demonstration" record for GJ, that it qualifies in the same way that Dylan & The Band's Basement Tapes are counted as an album now despite that not being the original intent.

Of course, a lot of it depends on how a thing is treated. Right now, as a batch of 10 songs on an out-of-print "Bonus Disc" for another album, they are just a bunch of bonus tracks. On my own personal iPod, they are listed as their own album, every bit as valid as any official album release by Costello. But that's just me, howling in the wilderness.

My wish would be for these to get a proper release on vinyl, with newly-commissioned cover art by Tony Millionaire and a free accompanying digital download for those poor souls lacking turntables. THEN they would be a real album! (I have no doubt that such a thing would sell pretty well in a limited run.)

[Otis Westinghouse]

Damn, half way through and I've missed the fun. Just haven't been keeping up to speed. I enjoyed the recurring penile obsession that seemed to be a leitmotif in the commentary early on (I'd always read 'family pride' literally too). There was a curious ref to Alison having the best Costello knob-gag - am I missing something?

I've missed out on the chance to defend PTC and its pop gems like The Element Within Her. Nice to see MLAR getting some decent appreciation, though bizarrely in a context where the rightly reviled (cos it's bloody awful) Broken gets praised. Chacun a son chanson and all that, but it's one of the few Costello songs I just can't listen to out of embarrassment that he could ever think it was worth anyone's time, least of all his. Hurry Down Doomsday on the other hand... shuffled up on the iPod recently and it sounded wonderful. I remember a commentator on this board lamenting how the great Marc Ribot was reduced to being credited for 'Giant insect mutation' on the track, but it's great stuff.

I don't think KV got the kicking it deserves. Great band, great songs, dull, dull, dull renditions.

Thanks cwr and looking forward to the rest and some feisty commenting. The '10 years' thread re the Board got me a bit nostalgic about a lot of the 'Which are your 5 favourite Costello albums?' kinda stuff that we did a lot of back then, as well as all the lists of top 10 songs by various artists, and some of the above discussion takes me back there too. Long live the Board.

[Poor Deportee]

[quote="Otis Westinghouse"]Damn, half way through and I've missed the fun. Just haven't been keeping up to speed. I enjoyed the recurring penile obsession that seemed to be a leitmotif in the commentary early on (I'd always read 'family pride' literally too). There was a curious ref to Alison having the best Costello knob-gag - am I missing something?

[quote]

I can't help you vis-a-vis Alison (I wondered about that comment myself), but how is it that we neglected to mention the spectacularly appalling "knob joke" on Spike?

Something always comes between them
WONDER if you can guess

[cwr]

Now he gives her a picture of Maradona and child
She wants to "roll and rock"
As he spills his beer over her
Bumps and grinds as he repeats "Bang-Cock"

[Poor Deportee]

Now he gives her a picture of Maradona and child
She wants to "roll and rock"
As he spills his beer over her
Bumps and grinds as he repeats "Bang-Cock"

Two in one song! Could be a record.

[paysfortheprivilege]

I've always assumed 'that little friend of mine' was a knob reference but maybe that is a function of the fact I live in Bangkok (really)

[cwr]

Day 21: THE JULIET LETTERS

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