at a glance...

Hometown: Liverpool, England
Born: 1954

Personnel:
Elvis Costello -songwriting, vocals, guitar, synths
Steve Nieve -piano, keyboards
Bruce Thomas -bass
Pete Thomas -drums
Afrodiziak (Caron Wheeler & Claudia Fontaine) -backing vocals
Big Jim Patterson -trombone
Jeff Blythe -reeds
Paul Spear -reeds
Dave Plews -trumpet
Chet Baker -trumpet
Alan Toussaint, Clive Langer, Alan Winstanley -production

Bands in the Family:
Nick Lowe, Burt Bacharach, Brinsley Schwarz, The Specials, The Pogues, Squeeze, Roger McGuinn, Ian Dury, Paul McCartney, Clover, The Brodsky Quartet, Wendy James, Nick Lowe, Chet Baker, Dave Edmunds, T-Bone Burnett, Bill Frisell, Madness, Dexy's Midnight Runners, James Burnett

Notes:
He's been through more styles in less time than Bob Dylan, and it's to "the Big D" he's probably best compared in terms of influence, lyrical craftsmanship, and willful perversity, but Elvis Costello has the edge in terms of melodic craft. He was born Declan Patrick MacManus in London, the son of an Anglo-Irish music-hall bandleader, but his debut album on Stiff Records showed no signs of music-hall bounce at all: My Aim Is True was filled with angry, frustrated, impotent songs informed by punk, reggae, and rockabilly. But even as the album was released, Elvis had assembled the crack outfit called the Attractions, and together they formed one of the best working bands in the world. Every subsequent album showed more chutzpah and chops, and Costello's clever songs of rage made him a hero to fans on both sides of the Atlantic, but many casual followers deserted him when he branched out into country (Almost Blue), orchestral pop (IbMePdErRoIoAmL), and just plain radio pop (the underrated Punch the Clock). After one truly horrible album (Goodbye Cruel World), he regrouped in 1986 by forming an extremely diverse band called The Costello Show for King of America. Some would claim that the 1990s were largely wasted for Elvis, but 1998's Painted from Memory, his highly acclaimed collaboration with Burt Bacharach, had critics and record buyers salivating again.

Imperial Bedroom was sheer raving genius but still didn't do the trick commercially for E.C. So he went, like all Englishmen dying for a hit record in the early '80s, to Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley, who had worked wonders with Madness, The Teardrop Explodes, Dexy's Midnight Runners, and a whole pubload of other brill pop lunatics. They brought along the entire Dexy's horn section, who had just left that band, and two stunning backup singers in Caron Wheeler (later of Soul II Soul) and Claudia Fontaine, who invented all their own sexy and stylish backing vox. What did Elvis bring? The best melodies (and some of the worst lyrics) he ever wrote, and a brand-new hunger for a whopping huge hit single. They all got together and knocked out this album, which I love, even though Elvis himself never really liked it all that much.

The horn section announces itself early on by blasting "Let Them All Talk" into the elvisphere; it's weird and disorienting to hear horns on an Elvis album, mostly because his voice has always been a loud yakety-yak saxophone itself, but there they are. Nieve is being even more pointillist than usual, the Thomases lock into several tight little soul grooves, and EC's really getting soulful on the vocal, even though no one has any idea what he's singing about: "Hear what I say/See what I do/Believe me now I'm all over you/I know a place/A certain very tender spot/To have and to hold/To have and have not." Eh? What's that? Speak up, child! But as the song marches on, we suddenly run smack up against one of the most beautiful choruses he ever wrote, consisting entirely of the title of the song - and suddenly it all makes sense.

Punch The Clock pulls this trick off again and again. "The Greatest Thing" makes no sense until we hear "Isn't this the greatest/Isn't this the greatest thing?" and then we're in love with it. "Invisible Man," a song constructed from three other old Elvis songs, features chord changes that'll put you in a neck brace and a lovely sort of lyric in the chorus. "TKO (Boxing Day)," "Charm School," "Mouth Almighty" - none of them make sense, but you won't care. This Is Pop, and logic be damned; you'd follow him off a bridge. And some of these lyrics are definite leapers: "I wish you luck with a capital F" will not be remembered as EC's most introspective or witty line, nor will "The boys in blue are hard to catch/They're busy turning Piccadilly into Brand's Hatch," and yet the chorus of "Love Went Mad" could make high school hockey players cry in the middle of study hall. And then there's "Everyday I Write The Book," a hit by EC standards in the U.S. and U.K., which manages to spin out the thinnest of conceits into a truly great pop single.

Not to say the whole album is like this: "Shipbuilding," of course, is an important song protesting the Falklands debacle (featuring the last great work from Chet Baker), and "Pills and Soap," inspired by "The Message," is a great hip-pop parlimentary slam. But overall, this is just a shiny beast out to get sold in mass quantities, and although that part didn't really work, it sure sounds good. This album and I have a close personal relationship, because it means summer and freedom and driving around to me. Go find out what it means to you.