When I Was Cruel

by

Elvis Costello

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A lot of ink has been devoted to harking Elvis's return to the substance (if not the style) of his early triumphs, My Aim Is true and This Years Model, with this release. While both of those albums are rightfully viewed as classics, it's great to hear Elvis update his sound while maintaining his edge.

Working with Leo Pearson (U2, various electronica artists), and a number of members of the Attractions, EC has cut an album that rocks with the biting wit that has been his trademark for the past 25 years. It's a welcome addition to his catalogue, and it's a real fun album to listen to. It's also a welcome relief from the collaborative projects that have occupied his time over the last few years.

Elvis is at his best on a number of tunes on this disc. "Tear Your Own Head Off" has some blistering guitar work, and is the best song from the late seventies to be recorded in years. "Soul For Hire" has some deep, ominous sonic textures at work, much like "Watching The Detectives" (allthough it is not reggae-based). There is great use of horns on a number of tracks, particularly "Episode of Blonde". And "When I Was Cruel NO. 2" sounds like a Portishead tune, particularly with its eerie samples and tape loops. It's not something you'd expect from Elvis, but then again, his introduction of the unexpected has generally made for the best tunes on his many projects (the 50's style organ on "The Beat" comes to mind).

This album ranks right up there with "My Aim Is True", and more importantly "This Year's Model" in terms of wrenching tunefulness. Fortunately it is a breakthrough, as opposed to a revival. It's nice to hear an artist who knows what sounds work best for him, and take that to a new level. I hope Joe Jackson listens to this record and tries a similar path.

I was a big fan of Costello since I first heard his work in the mid 80's, buying up all his older albums and savoring them one by one. However, his forays into other types of music seem to have sapped his rock sensibilities. While this album is certainly an improvement on his last several art-pop products, I find that it is more jarring than grooving, has more good sounding phrases than any that actually make much sense, and that though it has two or three good tracks, it fails where his older efforts succeeded. How so? It just isn't easy to listen to as a whole. You find yourself skipping tracks to get to the ones that you're interested in.

Music is very subjective, and some love his newer style. I also caution fans of the music to seperate the man from the music. I think his conflicts with Bruce Thomas are a great example that this guy just can't take or make good use of criticism or admit that much of his early sucess came from the contributions and influence of his backing musicians, who I suspect had a very inhibiting effect on his wayward ways and kept him more focused on making songs that sound great instead of ones that merely touch the heart or merely interest the singer himself. If you think this guy takes outside input well, just go to his own website and see how testy he becomes when fans suggest that he collaborate with someone else in the rock world. Muzak composers like Bacharach, string quartets, and unknowns, sure, but no way will this guy's ego stand up to the type of blunt criticism that comes from working with equals. They might actually tell him he's being a flake at times, and I don't think he wants to hear that. I think this may be why his post-attractions stuff is so uneven. He can turn a phrase better than anybody, but he can't seem to consistently put it all together in a song that is anywhere near as satisfying as "Oliver's Army" or "Sulky Girl" or even "lesser" efforts from the past like "let them all talk". To me, his new stuff, with a few exceptions, just isn't fun to listen to. Edgy, yes. Poigniant, at times. Pretty, even. But fun? Nope. And unless you pour over the lyric sheets and attempt to interpret them like poems, many of his songs don't even seem to make sense to anyone but their writer. There's Britney Spears, and there's classical music. Somewhere in between the two lies truely satisfying music. He needs to scoot over a couple of spaces back towards the fun stuff.