Word: bacharachs
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Elvis Costello with Burt Bacharach...
Read about a new album from Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello and you can picture the record executives having a field day: the swinging songsmith meets the aging king of punk! Austin Powers plus Sid Vicious! Sex appeal and intellectual cachet! It must be a senseless gimmick just dying for a shot of arch hipness, you can practically assume. Another dud for the remainders bin. Fortunately for us, though, these songwriters have in fact crafted an album that is subtle, passionate and captivating. Pieced together by Bacharach and Costello during spare moments together in hotel suites on rented pianos...
...cocktail electronica of trip-hop. The product is anything but tired; on Sylvie, for example, the rueful, cosmopolitan irony of the lyric is offset completely by a glowing arrangement. The overlay of subtle syncopations and retro instrumentation makes the song surreal and engaging, like a chance meeting with Burt Bacharach after hours at a chic London nightclub. Some might call this kitsch, but emotional immediacy and sheer musical complexity make the song and the album awfully hard not to enjoy, like the charming early work of the Cardigans (emmerdale, Life), which was better and deeper than most people noticed. Hopefull...
...inspired pairing: as composers, both men have a knack for knotty yet supple melodies, and Costello's bitter takes on romance are not far removed from the sometimes jaundiced eye of Bacharach's best partner, lyricist Hal David. Two years ago, Costello and Bacharach co-wrote the song God Give Me Strength, included here, for the film Grace of My Heart. If only the rest of this album were up to that stunningly well-crafted peak. Bacharach brings out a new directness in Costello's singing and verse, but the millstone is cloying production. These engagingly sinuous tunes deserve better...
Sources: (1)Mike Barnicle. (2)William Shakespeare. (3)Jimmy Cannon. (4)W.E.B. DuBois. (5)Martin Luther King Jr. (6)Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. (7)Cicero. (8)Jesus. (9)Herman Melville. (10)Carole Bayer Sager and Burt Bacharach. (11)William Jefferson Clinton...