I’m currently only up to 1981, and
my next album is by an artist that Mulholland has already featured regularly.
Disc 421 is…The Very Best of Elvis Costello and the Attractions
Year of Release: 1994 but music from
1977-1986
What’s up with the Cover? A black and white head shot of Elvis Costello. It is inoffensive enough, but hardly
imaginative.
How I Came To Know It: This is one of Sheila’s
discs. I had heard of Elvis Costello
before I met her, but she is the first person to properly introduce me to some
of his music, and this compilation was my first real exposure.
How It Stacks Up: Frequent readers will know this, but for those just
arriving on my scene, ‘best of’ albums don’t stack up. They’re not real albums; they’re
compilations, and so they don’t rate being formally rated.
Rating: N/A. As above, you can’t rate a ‘best of’ as an
album. It just doesn’t make sense. I guess I could judge it against other
compilations, but that’s not how I roll.
I roll randomly.
When I rolled this album randomly I
proudly announced, “I’m planning to praise the music, but savage Costello
himself.” At the time it seemed like a
good bit of fun, given how much of a critical darling Costello is, both in his
own mind and without.
My plan was blunted a bit by the
fact that I already gave Costello the gears back when I reviewed the Juliet
Letters at Disc 114 where he desperately deserved it. It is a lot harder to savage the guy for his
earlier work from 1977-1986, particularly the first six of those years, which
produced some pretty amazing tracks.
Costello has a lot of musical
influences, and in various tracks you’ll hear punk, reggae, ska and country (in
fact, “Good Year for the Roses” is
from an entire album of old school country covers). Whatever style he is drawing inspiration
from, Costello blends it with his own unique up-tempo syncopation pop and
mostly makes it work.
As readers will know, I am not a
fan of the ‘best of’ record, but this one is tastefully handled. At twenty-two tracks it could easily be too
long, but Costello tends to write very short little pop songs, and each one is
different enough that you don’t start to feel overburdened until around “Shipbuilding” at Track 18, and to be
fair that’s only because the last few songs are a lot weaker, coming after
Costello’s golden age.
I was also appreciative that the
record is put together chronologically allowing a relative neophyte like me to
have a sampling through Costello’s evolving sound. Since he is an artist that changes a lot over
the years, this was really helpful to me in keeping my ear tuned to his sound,
even if it were a fairly quick journey.
It also helped me really appreciate
why he was such a critical darling early in his career. Costello delivers exceptional emotional range.
“Alison”
is a classic song for the lovelorn wishing for a love that will never flower,
and at the other end “Good Year for the
Roses” is an almost equal expression of the wheels coming off a
relationship sputtering to a tragic end.
At the same time as he’s
delivering thoughtful love songs, Costello equally masters political commentary
with “(What’s So Funny ‘bout) Peace, Love
and Understanding” and “Clubland,”
the latter of which captures the vacuous world of clubbing, featuring youth who
feel the future is so bleak that all they have left is to drink, drug and dance
their way into oblivion. As the song so
succinctly ends:
“Some things come in common these days
Your hands and work aren't steady.”
All these songs could be released
today and be huge hits, but I can only assume they were before their time,
because a quick look at the ever-infallible Wikipedia shows that his best chart
position for this period (even in his home U.K.) was #2 with the fairly
forgettable “Oliver’s Army” and he mostly
struggled to crack top forty. In the
U.S. and Canada it was even worse. No
wonder he was driven to write the scathing “Radio
Radio” with lyrics like:
“You either shut up or get cut up, they don't wanna hear
about it
It's only inches on the reel-to-reel
And the radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools
Tryin' to anaesthetise the way that you feel.”
I also hate the radio, so lines
like this really appeal to me, and it is a fine little pop song to boot. Don’t feel bad, Elvis – not getting radio
play usually means you’re doing something right.
I am not overwhelmed emotionally
by Elvis Costello, but this record was – as advertised – a good sampling of his
best work, and on this listen I found a deeper appreciation for his skill as a
songwriter. His delivery doesn’t always
agree with me, but is suits the sound he’s trying to create, so I’ll even give
him a pass on that. “The Juliet Letters”
left a very bad taste in my mouth, and it was nice to hear a different, better
side of Elvis Costello. I doubt I’ll be
running out to buy his studio albums, but I will be pulling this ‘best of’ off
the shelf a little more often in future.
Best tracks: Alison, (I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea, Pump It Up,
Radio Radio, (What’s So Funny ‘bout) Peace Love and Understanding, Clubland,
Watch Your Step, A Good Year for the Roses, Beyond Belief, Everyday I Write the
Book.
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