Word: costelloism
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...Elvis Costello once sniffed that "writing about music is like dancing about architecture." The same could be said of writing about drugs. How could any author, no matter how gifted, hope to capture in mere words the genuine rapture of mind-expanding substances, as well as the hopeless abyss that usually follows prolonged abuse? True, a few sharpies?William Burroughs, Irvine Welsh, maybe Terry Southern?have managed to pull it off. But most drug memoirs are pretty much alike?either they're heated Hunter S. Thompson rip-offs packed with hackneyed hallucinations (bats, lizards) and heavily-punctuated (!!!!) rants, or languid...
...ELVIS COSTELLO • When I Was Cruel (Island) Elvis Costello, lost for the last decade or more in a quagmire of overwrought pretensions and ill-suited collaborations has finally returned to form—and how. When I Was Cruel is the true successor to such Costello classics as This Years Model and Armed Forces. “45,” the first track, could have been an outtake from the latter. Candy-coated organs and big drums abound on this record alongside the trademark rhythmic tics for which Costello is so highly regarded. Never has neurosis...
...piece here is “Tart,” the best thing Costello’s written since 1978. It’s constructed atop a beautiful piano line and a fuzzy, walking bassline. Costello has always loved a pun, and he has more fun than he’s had in years: “Is it something you crave?/ ’Cause you say that you only feel bitterness/ Would it kill you to show us a little sweetness?” The song is most impressive for its dynamics: Costello dryly lights into the unnamed...
...Costello has lost none of his edge. It only makes one want to ask Costello, who called this return to form When I Was Cruel—“Elvis, you mean you’re not anymore...
...Costello loves to play the mad inventor, mixing exotic rhythms, jazzy melodies and baffling metaphors into songs that dazzle for their strangeness rather than any feeling they convey. But Costello is at his best when he kicks back and reverts to the witty post-punker he was in 1978, a bespectacled dork with a chip on his shoulder and an uncanny knack for turning out catchy tunes. This album is so much fun, and Costello's best in a long time, because of how often he returns to that clever post-punker mode. Instead of seeming dated, these moments feel...