Word: costelloism
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...FIRST THING you heard about Elvis Costello was that he was the "angry young man" of the British new wave. Probably the second was that in a drunken stupor he once got in an argument with members of the Steven Stills Band and called Ray Charles "a blind, ignorant nigger" in a misbegotten effort to outrage his adversaries. Most recently, if you've been paying close attention, you hear that E.C. has recently "matured and has metamorphosed into the the Cole Porter of the 80s," has created the "new Seargent Pepper" with his new album, Imperial Bedroom, and is generally...
...than Jesus, and the Dead are a bunch of burned-out, boring refugees from the '60s with no redeeming value whatsoever. You can't argue with these intrinsically valid generalizations, but there's so much more to these groups. By the same token, there's so much more to Costello than the simple-minded cliches that have plagued his entire career...
Take that great original cliche--Elvis as angry, pissed-at-the-world enigma. It dogged Costello for much of his early career and still somewhat haunts him today. He really has no one to blame for it but himself. Elvis first made his move during the late '70s, an epochal time for rock, with the Sex Pistols pointing their diabolical fingers at a vulnerable rock world and shaking it out of its mid-'70s doldrums. Although Costello was never really a part of the Pistols' punk movement, he found a comfortable niche anyway, "surfing" on the new wave...
...went. But Costello's brazen contention that the only emotions he could feel were revenge and guilt quickly became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Forty-five minute, "fuck-the-world" concerts were the rule; there were no exceptions. E.C. refused for a time to talk to the press, and he slid inexorably towards that fateful night in Columbus with Stills bandmembers...
OFCOURSE what got lost in the shuffle was that the distinctive organ sound overshadowed some very deep rock roots and sensibilities. That acid tongue blighted some very heartfelt emotions and a sophisticated political consciousness Costello understands, as the Clash never will, that political involvement must start on a very personal level, in one's own "Hoover Factory," not in a helter-skelter call for a "White Riot."). Or that grating voice obscured a sincerity hard to find in rock today. But that's what the cliche to which he bound himself--"continued anger," as he recently...