Elvis Costello

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Costello featured in an article in tomorrow's NYT titled "Last Year's Model: How to sell fans on the same old album for the third or fourth time" - for the first time I have seen the word "superexpanded" to describe a reissue.

Mike

[Alexander]

I'm a huge Costello fan. I have everything. I mean everydamnthing. I've got all of the albums. I've owned them in every format and in every version available (starting with the Columbia cassettes and moving on to the Columbia CDs, the Rykodisc CDs, and now the Rhinos). I even have "Get Happy!!" on vinyl. I've got soundtrack material that hasn't even been collected yet (how many people do YOU know who bought the "Nottinghill" soundtrack just to get Costello's version of "She?"). I've got live bootlegs. I've got interview discs. I've even got the Japanese import of "Painted from Memory" just so I could get the bonus live disc. I've got the classical album. Right now I'm saving up for a copy of the Costello/Nieve live boxed set (rare, out of print, and currently selling for a human kidney on eBay).

It's all worth getting. All of it. Every scrap. "Almost Blue" was my introduction to country music. I made it my mission to track down the original versions of every track on that album.

So what else to get? If you liked "King of America," you should consider both "Almost Blue" and "The Kojak Variety." "Get Happy!!" is, indeed, essential. A copy should be issued to everyone at birth. You won't be able to get "Secondary Modern" out of your head once you hear it. Get "Trust." Get "Imperial Bedroom." Get "Spike," "Mighty Like a Rose," "Brutal Youth," and "All This Useless Beauty" and be patient with them. Let them grow on you. Costello's WB period is a difficult one, but worthwhile if you've got the ear for it.

Above all else, enjoy the process of discovery. Costello is one of the true modern musical masters. He's got very big ears for all kinds of music, and it all finds its way into his work.

[wolff]

(how many people do YOU know who bought the "Nottinghill" soundtrack just to get Costello's version of "She?"). 

←

I may be one. Still the only place to get it?

[Eric]

(how many people do YOU know who bought the "Nottinghill" soundtrack just to get Costello's version of "She?"). 

←

I may be one. Still the only place to get it?

←

Got it for $0.99 off iTunes

[Eric]

Above all else, enjoy the process of discovery.  Costello is one of the true modern musical masters.  He's got very big ears for all kinds of music, and it all finds its way into his work.

←

Well put

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Ah, but do you have the video of EC performing that tune on late night TV - can't recall offhand whether it was Tonight show or Letterman or what - with all-female orchestra? I've got it - on one of those VHS tapes somewhere here.

Mike

[slide_advantage_redoux]

The duo recording (live) with Bill Frisell is the one that got me onto the Costello bandwagon. That recording (German imported CD) is incredible. I definitely rate it as a have to have CD. His treatment of Mingus' Weird Nightmare is worth the price of admission alone. LOVE IT!

After that one, I got the Juliet Letters, with the string quartet. Great stuff. Costello always keeps me guessing. I have a few of his rock cds that I honestly don't enjoy all that much, but I am not judging them harshly; they are just not in the bag I prefer to hear his voice in.

Edited May 22, 2005 by slide_advantage_redoux

[Big Al]

Haven't seen it mentioned much, but EC's collaboration with Burt Bacharach, Painted from Memory, is one of my favorite albums of the last ten years! When he sings "I want him to HURT!" on "God Give Me Strength," you can just feel the anger and frustration of a lost love, and Bacharach's orchestration behind EC underscores and fuels that hurt.

I sure wish those Rykodiscs were still in print, but I suppose they can be found pretty cheap used nowadays. Not that there's anything bad about the current Rhino 2-CD sets (I mean, hey, two CDs for the price of one? Can't complain about that!), but in my case it's a lot of sensory overload. One disc was plenty for me; heck, I still have my Ryko version of Get Happy!!!, and will likely keep that one.

[GregK]

Haven't seen it mentioned much, but EC's collaboration with Burt Bacharach, Painted from Memory, is one of my favorite albums of the last ten years! When he sings "I want him to HURT!" on "God Give Me Strength," you can just feel the anger and frustration of a lost love, and Bacharach's orchestration behind EC underscores and fuels that hurt.

←

I had that disc briefly, but it did nothing for me at all, other than put me to sleep. Must be the Bacharach. I sold it rather quickly. But I've been liking everything else I've heard

[Michael Fitzgerald]

I'll see your last ten years and raise you another fifteen - that makes twenty five, at least. Painted From Memory has it all - and does everything flawlessly, surpassing the slightly similar albums with Anne Sofie von Otter (uneven and a bit of a mish-mash), and the later North (where EC tried to do all the arranging himself, ending up kind of bland).

Mike

[Alexander]

The duo recording (live) with Bill Frisell is the one that got me onto the Costello bandwagon. That recording (German imported CD) is incredible. I definitely rate it as a have to have CD. His treatment of Mingus' Weird Nightmare is worth the price of admission alone. LOVE IT!

←

Yep. Great stuff. Worth searching for. The title is "Deep Dead Blue."

[GregK]

Costello featured in an article in tomorrow's NYT titled "Last Year's Model: How to sell fans on the same old album for the third or fourth time" - for the first time I have seen the word "superexpanded" to describe a reissue.

Mike

←

Yes, people are being sold on this material for the third or 4th time, but for someone like me, just now exploring the catalog, these reissues are a special treat. You get to discover the original album, hear the demos, outtakes and other related material, and read the man's comments about each album, with all the lyrics. All for a lower price than many other single CDs. I also appreciate the sequencing; the original album on disc 1, with all the extras on disc 2, so the flow of the original album is undisturbed. I will eventually get every one of these.

I picked up Kojak Variety a couple days ago, and I haven't even listened to the original album yet. Disc 2 is very good, with his very good interpretations of non-traditional country songs in a country style for a proposed album by George Jones.

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Here's that article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/22/magazine/22CONSUMED.html?

----------------------------------------------------------------

May 22, 2005

Last Year's Model

By ROB WALKER

Elvis Costello, the Rhino CD's

As Elvis Costello kicked into ''Chemistry Class,'' at a live performance in Washington, on Feb. 28, 1978, a voice could be heard cutting through the boisterous crowd noise, shouting, ''You're brilliant!'' Enthusiastic, uninhibited, barely articulate and kind of embarrassing -- that's a real fan. This performance can be heard on Costello's ''Armed Forces.'' Not on the original album, from 1979, or the expanded CD version reissued by Rykodisc in 1993, but on a superexpanded version put out by Rhino Records in 2002. Since 2001, Rhino has released lavish, double-disc reissues of most of the Costello catalog, basically finishing up last month with a rerelease of the 1987 record ''King of America.''

In many cases these are the third or fourth iterations of a given album, and it turns out that at least some consumers will buy them a third or fourth time. ''We sort of count on that,'' says Jeff White, a spokesman for Rhino, a division of the Warner Music Group that specializes in reissues, including ''deluxe'' editions of previously released records by everyone from the Cure to Randy Newman to Cher. The most successful rerelease in the Costello series has been ''My Aim Is True,'' which has sold more than 100,000 copies, despite having been released in at least three earlier versions.

Gary Stewart, who oversaw Rhino's Costello project (and has since left the label to serve as the chief music officer for Apple's iTunes), says he believes that plenty of buyers of the new discs are getting them for the first time. Nevertheless, it's fairly clear as he describes the strategy for the discs that the superfan was definitely part of the calculus. ''The Ryko versions are quite good,'' he says, so the Rhino round included maximum-length 28-page booklets stuffed with lyrics and new notes from Costello himself, and a pile-on of previously unreleased tracks. ''Get Happy,'' for instance, was a 20-song album; the Ryko version had 30 songs; Rhino's has 50. The idea was to give the buyer so much material, Stewart says, that ''the stuff you already had is just a bonus.''

Stewart says Rhino also made a particular effort at ''rehabilitating'' the less-celebrated Costello records, like ''Goodbye, Cruel World'' (which even Costello was once quoted dismissing as ''a waste'') in selecting bonus material and alternate versions that practically add up to a whole new, and arguably better, version of the original album. ''King of America'' was a critical favorite the first time around but a commercial dud. So perhaps its 21-song bonus CD with nine demo tracks as well as live recordings and outtakes is a bit more than a reasonable person needs. But being beyond reason is the whole point of fanhood. The solo demo version of ''Poisoned Rose'' might not mean much to most people, but to the blinkered fan (like, O.K., me), it's definitely worth owning.

''The human propensity to adore celebrated strangers infuses life with a hundred different flavors of stupidity and sadness, hope and joy,'' the editors of the Benetton-financed magazine Colors observed in a special issue on fans last year. Consider that fans of the canceled ''Star Trek: Enterprise'' TV series claim to have raised nearly $145,000 in an effort to keep it going for another season.

Or on the Costello front, consider the Web site devoted to deconstructing the Rhino releases and speculating about what material might yet resurface. (The site points out that the 1978 ''Chemistry Class'' live recording officially released on Rhino also appeared on ''one of the earliest Elvis Costello bootlegs.'' Duly noted.) Whether these things seem like evidence of stupidity or joy depends on whether you're a fan of ''Star Trek'' or of Costello or of something else. It's only other people's fandom that seems embarrassing or irrational.

Stewart, meanwhile, who will admit to having seen Costello perform live ''more than 50'' times, seems to have just one regret about the Rhino versions of the Costello catalog: There is so much bonus material that the greatness of some individual extra tracks has been overlooked. He speculates about an additional disc that would simply highlight the very best of the Costello bonus material. ''This is a possibly prejudicial statement,'' Stewart says, ''but I think his biggest curse is making too much good music.'' Spoken like a real fan.

----------------------------------------

Mike

[Johnny E]

I Nick Lowe and I don't care who knows it.

←

I just started listening to his music. The only thing I knew about him was that he produced Elvis's early records, wrote 'What's so Funny 'bout Peace, Love and Understanding', and had one hit with "Cruel to be Kind".

I got the CD '16 All-Time Lowe's' a few months back and I really liked it. What a great pop writer he is. "When I write the Book" and "Little Hitler" almost seem like precursors to the Elvis tunes that bear similar names. "(I Love the Sound of) Breaking Glass", "Big Kick, Plain Scrap", and "So It Goes" all get stuck in your head with those sticky hooks and quickly memorizable guitar solos (a la George Harrison). "Nutted by Reality" has a McCartney & Wings flavor and "basing Street" is haunting and beautiful.

I must now go out and get 'Jesus of Cool', 'Labour of Lust', and the Rockpile record 'Seconds of Pleasure' so I can hear the rest of Mr. Lowe's golden era. I seem to recall some old live videos of Rockpile with Paul McCartney back when MTV first came on the air and they were scrounging for stuff to put on the air, anybody else remember this?

Can anyone tell me more about Brinsley Schwarz, Nick Lowe's first group? I'd love to hear the original version of 'What's so Funny 'bout Peace, Love and Understanding'.

[Eric]

I just started listening to his music.  The only thing I knew about him was that he produced Elvis's early records, wrote 'What's so Funny 'bout Peace, Love and Understanding', and had one hit with "Cruel to be Kind".

I got the CD '16 All-Time Lowe's' a few months back and I really liked it.  What a great pop writer he is.  "When I write the Book" and "Little Hitler" almost seem like precursors to the Elvis tunes that bear similar names.  "(I Love the Sound of) Breaking Glass", "Big Kick, Plain Scrap", and "So It Goes" all get stuck in your head with those sticky hooks and quickly memorizable guitar solos (a la George Harrison).  "Nutted by Reality" has a McCartney & Wings flavor and "basing Street" is haunting and beautiful. 

I must now go out and get 'Jesus of Cool', 'Labour of Lust', and the Rockpile record 'Seconds of Pleasure' so I can hear the rest of Mr. Lowe's golden era.  I seem to recall some old live videos of Rockpile with Paul McCartney back when MTV first came on the air and they were scrounging for stuff to put on the air, anybody else remember this?

Can anyone tell me more about Brinsley Schwarz, Nick Lowe's first group?  I'd love to hear the original version of 'What's so Funny 'bout Peace, Love and Understanding'.

←

I went through a Lowe discovery period a few years back. A few things I learned along the way ...

Labour of Lust is OOP and you can pay up on ebay or get the key tracks from Lowe's box set. I think the box is really the way to go - it starts with "Jesus" and runs through the 00s if I'm not mistaken. Defintiely hit all the high points.

I also checked out Brinsley Schwarz ... no big connection there for me. Maybe a little too much pub in the pub rock

I would try to pick up a few key Dave Edmunds CDs from this era - he was Lowe's partner in Rockpile. I really like DE 7th and Repeat When Necessary.

Edited May 23, 2005 by Eric

[Michael Fitzgerald]

You are almost certainly remembering the footage from The Concerts For The People Of Kampuchea, which was a heck of a nice thing (4 days: December 26-29, 1979) - the young guys and the old guys together: Pretenders, Elvis Costello, Ian Dury and the Blockheads, Rockpile (w/guest Robert Plant), The Clash and Matumbi, The Specials and The Who, Paul McCartney & Wings, Queen. There was a large ensemble jam called the Rockestra combining the forces of a lot of the bands (incl. 3/4 of Led Zeppelin).

Mike

[Sundog]

Brinsley Schwarz recorded extensively with Graham Parker. Check out 76-79 era Graham Parker and the Rumor to hear some fine playing by BS. Also, The Real Macaw (1983), The Mona Lisa's Sister (1988), and Human Soul (1990) contain prime BS.

P.S. Graham gets no respect! Everyone always mentions Elvis, but I think that Graham was every bit his equal back in the day.

[Johnny E]

You are almost certainly remembering the footage from The Concerts For The People Of Kampuchea, which was a heck of a nice thing (4 days: December 26-29, 1979) - the young guys and the old guys together: Pretenders, Elvis Costello, Ian Dury and the Blockheads, Rockpile (w/guest Robert Plant), The Clash and Matumbi, The Specials and The Who, Paul McCartney & Wings, Queen. There was a large ensemble jam called the Rockestra combining the forces of a lot of the bands (incl. 3/4 of Led Zeppelin).

Mike

←

Yes yes, that's it. It was Robert Plant with Rockpile...didn't they do 'Little Sister' or something? I'd like to see that whole concert again.

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Yes, exactly. I'd like to see a Kampuchea DVD, or an expanded set a la The Last Waltz. (And down the road maybe a superexpanded edition.....)

Regarding Graham Parker - I've got at least half a dozen of his records and have seen him live (opening for another EC, as it happens - Eric Clapton). While he had some nice pieces, I can't put him in the class as Costello, even for the period when they really were overlapping in that small area. And once Costello started expanding away from the "new wave" sound, he left Parker in the dust. I think the reason everyone brings up Costello rather than Parker is because of longevity and his ability to go into new areas and stay high quality. Parker was never at the same level of musical sophistication - he had a good band sound, some well-crafted tunes - but I never saw him developing anywhere near as much as Costello. But like I said, I do like his stuff that I have (the Mercury and Arista records - my pick of them would be Squeezing Out Sparks which has the hit Local Girls).

Mike

Edited May 24, 2005 by Michael Fitzgerald

[Eric]

You are almost certainly remembering the footage from The Concerts For The People Of Kampuchea, which was a heck of a nice thing (4 days: December 26-29, 1979) - the young guys and the old guys together: Pretenders, Elvis Costello, Ian Dury and the Blockheads, Rockpile (w/guest Robert Plant), The Clash and Matumbi, The Specials and The Who, Paul McCartney & Wings, Queen. There was a large ensemble jam called the Rockestra combining the forces of a lot of the bands (incl. 3/4 of Led Zeppelin).

Mike

←

that brings me back ... had the lp back in the day ...

Edited May 24, 2005 by Eric

[Eric]

P.S. Graham gets no respect!  Everyone always mentions Elvis, but I think that Graham was every bit his equal back in the day.

←

Small world ... was playing Squeezing Out Sparks a couple hours ago

Edited May 24, 2005 by Eric

[Sundog]

Yes, exactly. I'd like to see a Kampuchea DVD, or an expanded set a la The Last Waltz. (And down the road maybe a superexpanded edition.....)

Regarding Graham Parker - I've got at least half a dozen of his records and have seen him live (opening for another EC, as it happens - Eric Clapton). While he had some nice pieces, I can't put him in the class as Costello, even for the period when they really were overlapping in that small area. And once Costello started expanding away from the "new wave" sound, he left Parker in the dust. I think the reason everyone brings up Costello rather than Parker is because of longevity and his ability to go into new areas and stay high quality. Parker was never at the same level of musical sophistication - he had a good band sound, some well-crafted tunes - but I never saw him developing anywhere near as much as Costello. But like I said, I do like his stuff that I have (the Mercury and Arista records - my pick of them would be Squeezing Out Sparks which has the hit Local Girls).

Mike

←

Yeah, I saw them both on that same tour. Wasn't that during "August'" era Clapton and "Steady Nerves" era Graham? (Two awful albums from otherwise very good artists). I've always thought Graham had a very soulful voice and the Rumor really came up with some smart arrangements that stand the test of time. They were a little more musically adept that most people give them credit for. They were termed "pub rock" however what they did encompassed much more than straight ahead rock. Reggae, Soul, R&B are easy discernable on there early records. One minute they could sound like the Stones (Soul Shoes) the next thing you know they churning out a burning version of "I Want You Back" all the while putting their own musical stamp on everything. Howlin Wind, Heat Treatment, Stick to Me, Squeezings Out Sparks are among my favorite albums. All well worth checking out.

Edited May 24, 2005 by Sundog

[Michael Fitzgerald]

The 1985 Clapton tour was for "Behind The Sun" - still an awful album, but the last good live tour he did. Immediately following this he changed the band and got involved with Greg Phillinganes, Nathan East, Phil Collins and other cures for insomnia. I think you are correct that Parker's LP was Steady Nerves on Elektra. That's one I don't own.

Mike

[Sundog]

Right, Behind The Sun. That wonderful Phil Collins production!

[Jazzmoose]

Wow. Costello, Lowe, Parker...must be some Joe Jackson fans around as well...?