Word: costelloism
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...Costello's rich vocal work on the album is hard to describe and perhaps even harder to appreciate. Although he has always possessed one of the great idiosyncratic voices of pop music, his range and abilities as an interpretive singer have grown exponentially on his somewhat alienating experiments of recent years. His work on the songs with Bacharach is ambitious and expressive, informed with emotional truth and an outstanding dynamic range; he soars into high notes with a rough, intense vibrato and settles into bitter moments with deliberate, raw pauses. Opting for broad, naked sentiment over sneaky sweetness, rough around...
...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...
...Elvis Costello, angry young punk, might seem an odd sort to collaborate with a composer of sugary and sophisticated pop songs. However, his abilities as a songwriter, even in his early and admirable punk work, tended towards surprising revelations and explorations of the dark sides of love and politics; he even cited Bacharach and David as influences on his post-punk swaggering forays into murky emotions. Like Bacharach, Costello composes music that can quiver like shifting sands, leaning gently into a tremor of eloquence and anguish...
Together, they perform beautifully--Costello offers Bacharach his first substantial lyricist and collaborator since Hal David, while Bacharach roots Costello in a sound rich with splendid hooks and lush instrumentation. Costello entirely rises to the challenge of matching the Bacharach melodies with poignant musings on heartbreak, love stories laced with the chill of specific, damning truth. On the outstanding "This House is Empty Now," a moving portrait of a man who cannot make sense of the unreliable memories that inscribe his vacant home, Bacharach and Costello write: "Do you recognize the face fixed in that fine silver frame?/Were...