Elvis Costello, 'King of America'

The Pleasures of the Record Review.

I have a biweekly Zoom meeting with a handful of elder statesmen of the daily newspaper pop music critic beat. For an hour, we talk new music, old music, hear of each other's lives. They are from newspapers and current and past residencies in New York (that's me), Texas (Austin, of course, but also Houston and San Antonio), Chicago and Iowa, Portland (the one in "Portlandia"), Seattle, the greater Baltimore area, and Nebraska: the state, not the Springsteen album.

Our most recent conversation included a report from the recent Rolling Stones concert in Seattle, and what it was like to pay so much money for it after getting reviewers tickets free for so many years. We all grew up in the heyday (from roughly the early 1970s to the later 1990s) of the daily newspaper staff writer jobs covering the pop music beat. Some leaned more jazz, others more country, or R&B, or regional when that was possible, but basically, we all had to write multiple times a week, sometimes on overnight deadlines for the next day's paper in the pre-Internet era. The adrenaline pulsed: The paper was going to go to press with or without us, and we made sure we were in it.

It was a busy and active beat that also included record reviews, which were often my favorite activity. Think of it: You'd call your editor in the morning, or leave the office early, because you had to be home to listen to a record because it was important and deserved its own space, the same 450-600 word space that a major concert required.

These days, not so much. The New York Times doesn't dedicate much space to reviews relative to their coverage of movies and theater and restaurants, unless the artists are the newsmakers of our moment: Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and . . . Billie Eilish. (At the Times, Jon Pareles and Lindsay Zoladz do get room to explore less mainstream songs with some regularity.)

With the big guns, half the entertainment staff gets involved, in podcasts, print and online roundtables, multiple angles. I kind of wish I had something like the odd but interesting supposed point/counterpoint between opinion columnists Gail Collins and Bret Stephens, in which they agree on much but Stephens, especially, is reluctant to admit when he is wrong, especially since his role (at least in domestic politics) is defending the indefensible.

All things considered, I have decided that reviewing Beyoncé, Swift, and Eilish albums is not something I would relish. I acknowledge I'm not their target audience, and their artistry is so conflated with their fame and cultural influence that I wouldn't be sure where to place them. But also, the rules I learned from Robert Christgau when I was a cub reporter/critic was that each album had to be listened to three times before writing. Taylor Swift's new album is, what, two and a half hours? Times three, that's a day in the life, or more like three days, because one needs water and food, too.

I've occasionally asked my daughter Liz, the most natural music critic of the three Robins girls, to write something or tape a discussion with me about divas or K-pop or Bey, but between being a new mom (thereby making me a granddad, by far the best job I've ever had), and her job lawyering, she doesn't have the time. Plus, she loves the Times podcast Popcast, and I don't, putting us at a loggerheads over that medium.

But I do miss the days when reviewing a new album by an important artist, and we had many dozen important artists in the commercial album/record store era. I especially loved the homework: pour a beverage, light a pipe, grab notebook and pen, take notes, and listen. This is a review of Elvis Costello's "King of America," released in February 1986, published in Newsday right around the time it appeared the in stores. I don't think I was aware at the time that he was calling his band The Confederates, not his usual Attractions or Imposters or whatever name of month they were using. Production was by Costello and T Bone Burnett.

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ELVIS IS KING, BY ANY NAME

by Wayne Robins

It's not enough that Declan MacManus years ago usurped the first name in rock-and-roll and began calling himself Elvis Costello. Now, for much of his 12th album, he's gone and stolen Elvis Presley's band. [Tenth studio album, not counting live or compilation records.]

It was a great move. Guitarist  James Burton, bassist Jerry Scheff, and drummer Ron Tutt, the core of Presley's '70s group, offer sparkle and authenticity on the rockabilly, country, and blues tunes that dominate the record. But the similarities keep rolling before Costello sings a word. Elvis Presley was often referred to as the "King." Costello expresses no fealty here. The title of the album: "King of America."

The line appears in the album's opening song, "Brilliant Mistake." The tune is a microcosm of what has made Costello one of the most compelling creative forces in Anglo-American rock during the last 10 years.

The melody is achingly simple, custom-made to whistle while you walk. Costello's singing is gently hoarse, laden with emotional complexity; in the same line, he ping-pongs between sarcasm and yearning.

When his ire is aroused, Costello takes no prisoners. In "Brilliant Mistake," we meet one of the many fetching but callow women who've populated his songs over the years. "She said that she was working for the ABC News/It was as much of the alphabet as she knew how to use." Yet his contempt doesn't spare him from anguish. In the song's best image, he sings of trying to "watching this hurtin' feeling disappear/Like it was common sense."

Wrenching sadness of that sort permeates the album. "Poisoned Rose" teeters in style between Ray Charles' blues and George Jones' country twang. The two elements are represented by jazzman Ray Brown on bass, and the pianist Tom Canning, who plays with the spare efficiency of Nashville's Floyd Cramer. The song is full of bleak eroticism. The "poisoned rose" was a gift that "left me half alive, and half in ecstasy."

"Indoor Fireworks," recorded recently by Nick Lowe, and "Little Palaces" both focus on relationships that either are or ought to be disintegrating; the latter is especially effective at communicating claustrophobic rage. With no more than Scheff's string bass and Costello's mandolin, the song takes us deep into "the kingdom of the invisible," where "where you knock the kids about a bit because they've got your name/and you knock the kids about a bit/until they feel the same."

Not everything is so downbeat. Burton, Scheff and Tutt make one wish that Elvis the First had stuck around long enough to sing songs by Elvis the Second, such as the irrepressible "Glitter Gulch" or the besotted, defiant "The Big Light."

There are two compelling covers here: J.B. Lenoir's obscure but amusing "Eisenhower Blues," and the Animals' classic [first recorded by Nina Simone] "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," full of coiled tension.

Besides Presley's sidemen, Costello is joined by numerous other musicians, including T-Bone Wolk from Hall & Oates' band, and David Hidalgo of Los Lobos, who adds harmony on the so-stirring-it's nearly manic "Lovable."

And what of Costello's own band, the Attractions? They're intact on but one song, "Suit of Lights." But they make it count, giving the kind of rollicking edge The Band gave Bob Dylan on a song that clearly echoes Dylan's mid-1960s poetry-in-motion style.