Elvis Costello makes you want to keep the fight going. Maybe it's because he sounds like he's singing through a broken nose. Or maybe it's that he's made some of the best records of his lifetime in the bloat of middle age. Whatever it is, the man can be learned from.
It's not that Elvis is perennially cool; or perennially angry. It's that he gathers no moss, and makes the blunted edges and soggy energies that inevitably mar a life's work seem dysfunctional, rather than inevitable. He's perennially alien. His music is a downed ship, a piece of gravity-defying technology: worth capturing and reverse engineering.
Elvis Costello & The Imposters - "Turpentine" [Momofuku]
Elvis Costello & The Imposters - "Drum and Bone" [Momofuku]
Elvis Costello - "When I Was Cruel No. 2" [When I Was Cruel]
1 comment:
You have summed up Elvis Costello more accurately, eloquently, and in fewer words than anything I have ever read. Kudos!
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