If you wondered whether Elvis Costello's musical interest was limited to odd, one-off projects (a collection of covers, a collaboration with Burt Bacharach, projects with...
more >
Given the flurry of activity from Elvis Costello at the turn of the century -- concerts, guest appearances, reissues, a movie role that was barely seen outside of off-hours...
more >
It began with 1982's Imperial Bedroom. The album featured a newly reflective and ever poignant Elvis, not the sarcastic new waver known for such lines as, "six little...
more >
North, Elvis Costello's 20th album of new material, follows the deliberately classicist When I Was Cruel by a mere year, but it feels more the sequel to 1998's Burt...
more >
The flagship in the second set of Rhino Costello reissues -- indeed, the one that's supposed to set the pace, since all of these are "harsh," "angry rock" -- This Year's...
more >
Elvis Costello seems to have an aversion to presenting his work in a logical, comprehensive fashion, if the double-disc The Very Best of Elvis Costello is any indication....
more >
This album is the British equivalent of the U.S. B-side and non-album-track release Taking Liberties, down to a similar song ordering. Three of these songs, "Clowntime Is...
more >
Armed Forces 1/1/1979, Yahoo! Music, Dave DiMartino
Given the incorporation of the Attractions as Costello's official backing band, the music here presents the band at its surging best--the way they were most effective--and...
more >
After releasing and touring the intense This Year's Model, Elvis Costello quickly returned to the studio with the Attractions to record his third album, Armed Forces. In...
more >
This and King Of America were rushed out in 1986, and while both were slightly overrated at the time of their arrival, this disc stands out for Costello's "I Want You"--a...
more >
Costello returned to the Attractions as quickly as he abandoned them, hiring the band and old producer Nick Lowe to record Blood & Chocolate, his second record in the span...
more >
Brutal Youth 3/8/1994, Yahoo! Music, Dave DiMartino
Seen as a comeback of sorts after the disappointing Juliet Letters collaboration, this 1994 set still doesn't have much to recommend it. For fans...
more >
Perhaps realizing that The Juliet Letters was one step too far, especially after the willfully eclectic pair of Spike and Mighty Like a Rose, Elvis Costello set out to make...
more >
Get Happy!! 1/1/1980, Yahoo! Music, Dave DiMartino
A nonstop shower of catchy songs and fragments, Costello here makes a respectable move into R&B-based music--via such songs as "I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down" and "I...
more >
Get Happy!! was born as much from sincere love for soul as it was for Elvis Costello's desire to distance himself from an unfortunate verbal faux pas where he insulted Ray...
more >
Elvis Costello assembled this compilation himself. It is highly idiosyncratic, not the least of its peculiarities being that the CD and cassette versions differ...
more >
Elvis Costello's Imperial Bedroom seems the most consistent, thematically whole album of his entire catalog. It's the result of superb production, varied song arrangements,...
more >
Bearing the best album cover in his catalog, this slightly overrated set--issued the same year as was Blood And Chocolate--is fine, functional, and the home of a very...
more >
Stripping away much of the excess that cluttered Punch the Clock and Goodbye Cruel World, Elvis Costello returned to his folk-rock and pub rock roots with King of America,...
more >
Costello's well-charted growth throughout the '80s left a stream of different-sounding albums for listeners to wade through; newcomers would be hard-pressed to determine his...
more >
Maybe it's just a sentimental favorite, but to truly appreciate the artistry of Costello over the years, you have to watch it evolve from the beginning. Without the gimmicky...
more >
Elvis Costello was as much a pub-rocker as he was a punk-rocker and nowhere is that more evident than on his debut, My Aim Is True. It's not just that Clover, a San...
more >
Initially released as a promo-only LP but finally offered by Rykodisc in its mid-'90s Costello reissue series, this live set--not great, but not bad, either--is a valuable...
more >
Live at the El Mocambo was recorded on March 6, 1978, during a club show in Toronto, Canada, as Elvis Costello and the Attractions were storming North America in support of...
more >
Perhaps frustrated by the lack of commercial success Imperial Bedroom encountered, Elvis Costello enlisted British hitmakers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley to produce its...
more >
Following a pair of near-masterpieces in 1986, Elvis Costello went into semi-seclusion, separating from the Attractions (once again) and Columbia records, emerging three...
more >
Though this may be his most famous early album, and it does indeed contain some of his finest work--including "No Action," "Radio Radio" and "Pump It Up"--there's an...
more >
Where My Aim Is True implied punk rock with its lyrics and stripped-down production, This Year's Model sounds like punk. Not that Costello's songwriting has changed -- This...
more >
Sort of a fake album--put together by Columbia here in the U.S.--this nonetheless features several of Costello's very best odds and ends, including many valuable single...
more >
Elvis Costello's early productivity was a bit more than most American rock fans were used to in the one-album-every-18-months 1970s; not only had Costello released four...
more >
A solid complement to Ryko's Costello reissue series if you don't want to pick up each individual album. Of course, the 22 tracks (drawn from his first 11 albums and,...
more >
Following the frenzied pop-soul of Get Happy!!, Elvis Costello & the Attractions quickly returned to the studio and recorded Trust, their most ambitious and eclectic album...
more >
Looking back on it, it's remarkable that Warner didn't sue Elvis Costello for making deliberately noncommercial, non-representative records, the way Geffen did with Neil...
more >
Costello's "country record" is usually written off as a vanity project, but Almost Blue is quite a bit more than that. It's one of the most entertaining cover records in...
more >
With Almost Blue, Elvis Costello wanted to be a honky tonker. With Kojak Variety, he's a crooner, picking forgotten tunes by both minor and major artists (anyone from...
more >
His best album in several years, this disc features superb production, interesting sound textures, and well-done interpretations of many songs Costello had previously given...
more >
I sort of looked like him, and we had the same obsessively envious neuroses about party girls walking around with physical jerks, so I bought Elvis Costello1s first three...
more >
Following his second covers album, Kojak Variety, Elvis Costello set out to assemble a collection of songs he had written for other artists but never recorded himself --...
more >
For anyone who didn't follow the many paths Costello treaded during the '90s, Extreme Honey: The Very Best of Warner Brothers Years is a good way to become acquainted with...
more >
Stripping away much of the excess that cluttered Punch the Clock and Goodbye Cruel World, Elvis Costello returned to his folk-rock and pub rock roots with King of America,...
more >
Remember the time Elvis Costello defied NBC brass and performed on Saturday Night Live the ferocious "Radio Radio," the exact song he was told not to play? So punk...
more >
Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach first collaborated on "God Give Me Strength," a sweeping ballad that functioned as the centerpiece in Allison Anders' Grace of My Heart. It...
more >
Rykodisc launched its Elvis Costello reissue series with 2½ Years, a box set featuring his first three albums together with the previously promotional-only Live at the El...
more >
Elvis Costello embarked on a small, intimate tour with his longtime pianist Steve Nieve in the spring of 1996 to promote All This Useless Beauty. All of the shows from the...
more >
Over the past decade or so, Bill Frisell has come into his own as a guitarist in a dazzlingly versatile way. Not content to simply ply his wares in the jazz field, Frisell...
more >
Elvis Costello's collaboration with Burt Bacharach produced the exquisite Painted From Memory, an unabashedly classicist pop album that recalled Bacharach's heyday with Hal...
more >
Elvis Costello's 21st studio album, The Delivery Man, was intended as a song cycle or a concept album, not that you could ever tell from listening to album. During the...
more >
Elvis Costello has advantages over some of his peers in popular music in attempting to cross over to classical music, as he does with his first orchestral composition, Il...
more >
Elvis Costello's 21st studio album, The Delivery Man, was intended as a song cycle or a concept album, not that you could ever tell from listening to album. During the...
more >
Having gotten country out of his system with Almost Blue, Elvis Costello returned to pop music with Imperial Bedroom -- and it was pop in the classic, Tin Pan Alley sense....
more >
It's impossible to consider The River in Reverse without taking the devastation Hurricane Katrina wreaked upon New Orleans into account. Indeed, it's quite likely that this...
more >
