Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Pretty self-explanatory
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Top balcony
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by Top balcony »

sulky lad wrote:
verbal gymnastics wrote:Whilst I like Look Now and Hey Clockface, they’re not go to albums for me
my twin brother !
Triplet.
But I'm really happy for people who feel more affection for either/both.
It's actually a stellar achievement that he's still got his artistic mojo, Hey Clockface sure as hell doesn't sound like any of his other LPs which is unbelieveable given the breadth of his back catalogue.
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by Hawksmoor »

Top balcony wrote:
sulky lad wrote:
verbal gymnastics wrote:Whilst I like Look Now and Hey Clockface, they’re not go to albums for me
my twin brother !
Triplet.
But I'm really happy for people who feel more affection for either/both.
It's actually a stellar achievement that he's still got his artistic mojo, Hey Clockface sure as hell doesn't sound like any of his other LPs which is unbelieveable given the breadth of his back catalogue.
Agree. I listen to a lot of music, and I worship at the usual shrines that I'm sure many of us do (Bowie, McCartney, Dylan...). But I honestly can't think of any other artist in 20th/21st century popular music who is so continually prolific, so continually inventive, and so continually pushing at the boundaries, as Elvis is. I'm serious - I'd put Look Now and Clockface up against most of his 70s/80s LPs.
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by Arbogast »

Agree with topbalc and Hawk...except for the part about these recent records equaling EC's 70s-80s stuff. That's crazy talk.

But yes! How lucky are we that he's not only still active, but doing interesting and different work here in 2020. It's a blessing.

I long ago reconciled myself to the reality that I'm not likely to spin a new EC release and have that sense of euphoric, listen-to-it-all day glee that I had between '78 and, I dunno, '94. But that's okay. I still consider myself, and my fellow EC fans, very, very fortunate.
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by bronxapostle »

at last Arbo came to his senses before i had to reprimand. :lol: :lol:

the mere fact that he gives us a LOOK NOW or a HEY CLOCKFACE 40+ years in to this pallet of his is simply STAGGERING!

i worship at the catalogue of Mr. Springsteen too ofttimes for 45+ years now. but, clearly the joy of recent releases including a WESTERN STARS, SEEGER SESSIONS, DEVILS & DUST and THE RISING as envelope pushers is VERY diminished by the mediocrity of WRECKING BALL, HIGH HOPES and WORKING ON A DREAM releases. i did not include the new LETTER TO YOU because it is NOT here in house yet for my evaluation. With SNL being any indication however...okay enough, and of course, great to see the "band" live together again....but, ground breaking??? NAH!!! As opposed to what we have been dealt in the same timeframe: NORTH, DELIVERY MAN, MOMOFUKU, RIVER, SECRET PROFANE, RANSOM, WISE UP, LOOK NOW and CLOCKFACE. no contest!

A BLESSING INDEED.... without compare!
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by Top balcony »

Arbogast wrote:I long ago reconciled myself to the reality that I'm not likely to spin a new EC release and have that sense of euphoric, listen-to-it-all day glee that I had between '78 and, I dunno, '94.
Don't give up hope. I wrote off Bob Dylan in 1979 and in 2020 he comes up with Rough and Rowdy Ways which is my favourite LP of the year, by a distance.

In another argument, whilst undoubtedly Elvis is my all time favourite , I consider Bob - with due deference to his less convincing product over the last 42 years, and the deterioration of his 'singing' voice - to be THE most important recording artist of the 20th/21st Century.
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by Arbogast »

at last Arbo came to his senses before i had to reprimand. : :lol:
Ha!
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by WallyRando »

Arbogast wrote:Agree with topbalc and Hawk...except for the part about these recent records equaling EC's 70s-80s stuff. That's crazy talk.

But yes! How lucky are we that he's not only still active, but doing interesting and different work here in 2020. It's a blessing.

I long ago reconciled myself to the reality that I'm not likely to spin a new EC release and have that sense of euphoric, listen-to-it-all day glee that I had between '78 and, I dunno, '94. But that's okay. I still consider myself, and my fellow EC fans, very, very fortunate.
Same. I'll say 2000 on, that WIWC and National Ransom are 2 start to finish great records for me, but every album has a lot of stuff that is so so for me with a couple to handful of tracks that give me that same classic Elvis excitement.

Still far and away my favorite songwriter
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by Hawksmoor »

bronxapostle wrote:I worship at the catalogue of Mr. Springsteen too ofttimes for 45+ years now. but, clearly the joy of recent releases including a WESTERN STARS, SEEGER SESSIONS, DEVILS & DUST and THE RISING as envelope pushers is VERY diminished by the mediocrity of WRECKING BALL, HIGH HOPES and WORKING ON A DREAM releases. i did not include the new LETTER TO YOU because it is NOT here in house yet for my evaluation.
Interesting...I neglected to include Bruce in my list of common shrines at which we might worship, but I share your passion. And I can give you a quick update on Letter to You, based entirely on Hawksmoor's personal and subjective opinion, which, as we know, is never wrong. :D

It's a fantastic LP, one that back in the day we would probably have called 'a return to form'. But in the context of the discussion we're in the middle of (whether artists really can maintain the quality control, and generate the same excitement, into their fifth and sixth decades of writing/recording), what's interesting is that the three standout tracks - by a long, long way - are the re-recordings of the 1972 tracks. Make of that what you will.

I'll also concur with the idea that Elvis' LPs of the last twenty years or so haven't filled me with the same head-spinning rush of excitement that most of his 70s, 80s and 90s stuff did. But I still think several of them are genuinely the equal of those earlier records, in terms of quality. I fear the problem may be that thing that somebody (Nick Hornby, maybe?) said: 'something weird happens to pop music when you're about 23'.

I can remember being on the bus back from Llandudno to Penrhyn Bay in 1982, mentally screaming at the bus-driver 'hurry up!' Because I had my newly-purchased double-7" of 'Beat Surrender' in my hands. Literally running from the bus stop to get home and slap it on the turntable. In my head as I was running...'maybe I should play the B-side first, see what that's like...God, I'm so excited'.

There must be hundreds of singles released since 1982 which are 'better' than 'Beat Surrender'. But nothing's ever going to generate that level of excitement for me, is it? Similarly, no Elvis LP is ever going to feel the same as sitting on the same bus, reading and re-reading the track-listing on Trust and trying to imagine what each one might sound like. But that doesn't rule out the possibility that Elvis might make an LP as good as Trust in 2021.

'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves...'
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by bronxapostle »

Hawksmoor wrote:
bronxapostle wrote:I worship at the catalogue of Mr. Springsteen too ofttimes for 45+ years now. but, clearly the joy of recent releases including a WESTERN STARS, SEEGER SESSIONS, DEVILS & DUST and THE RISING as envelope pushers is VERY diminished by the mediocrity of WRECKING BALL, HIGH HOPES and WORKING ON A DREAM releases. i did not include the new LETTER TO YOU because it is NOT here in house yet for my evaluation.
It's a fantastic LP, one that back in the day we would probably have called 'a return to form'. But in the context of the discussion we're in the middle of (whether artists really can maintain the quality control, and generate the same excitement, into their fifth and sixth decades of writing/recording), what's interesting is that the three standout tracks - by a long, long way - are the re-recordings of the 1972 tracks. Make of that what you will.


There must be hundreds of singles released since 1982 which are 'better' than 'Beat Surrender'. But nothing's ever going to generate that level of excitement for me, is it? Similarly, no Elvis LP is ever going to feel the same as sitting on the same bus, reading and re-reading the track-listing on Trust and trying to imagine what each one might sound like. But that doesn't rule out the possibility that Elvis might make an LP as good as Trust in 2021.

'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves...'

well, as you offered to make of it what I will.....i will make of it, that if the BEST three are the 1970's tracks, that kind of saddens me by illustrating my semi-stance here. A shame if all the hubbub about this record does NOT tally it up as a big win to me ears! but, of course...live and in person, mixed in with the other older material, assuredly there will be many good songs to add to the repertoire if NOT ground breaking.


And secondly here...ANYONE who embraced that double 7" of BEAT SURRENDER so lovingly, tenderly and achingly is a brother to me!!
you should see my WELLER vinyl collection 44 years growing now too

Listen on, await your next TRUST and stay happy, safe and alive to hear more and more and more, let us hope and pray.
Let me add, happy holidays, a beautiful Christmas and 2021 to us all. take good care friends. peace and love, benny
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by Hawksmoor »

bronxapostle wrote:Listen on, await your next TRUST and stay happy, safe and alive to hear more and more and more, let us hope and pray.
Let me add, happy holidays, a beautiful Christmas and 2021 to us all. take good care friends. peace and love, benny
Every single one of those wishes is echoed back, word for word, to you my friend - and to everybody else on here. Each one of us has been one small factor in helping the rest of us get through this appalling year, and that should be a source of comfort to us all as Christmas approaches.

And in 2021 we can have a big fight about whether Spanish Model is any good or not. Looking forward to it already. :D
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

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https://variety.com/lists/best-albums-2 ... 8Patn7vv3o

(...)

8. Elvis Costello — Hey Clockface

Elvis Costello gives the clock a good, solid punch by continuing to release records that put the lie to the idea that veteran artists inevitably stop challenging themselves over time… or that anything in the vicinity of a 31st studio album should have to be cause for diminished expectations. The different elements of “Hey Clockface” were recorded more or less on the fly, mostly in rushed settings just prior to quarantine, as if Costello looked at his watch and saw it coming. But the looseness and even rawness of the musical settings — some of it done with a jazz-leaning combo in Paris, some with Costello making a joyful, clanging noise by himself as a one-man band in Helsinki — works wonderfully against the often formal elegance of his songwriting. There’s a variety of material encompassing his broad interests, from the nearly nihilistic neo-punk of “No Flag” (what a song for an American election year) to the cheerful Tin Pan Alley cleverness of the ’30s-influenced title track. And if you loved the useful beauty of “Painted From Memory” or the musical-theater-style storytelling of “Look Now,” here’s a lot more where that came from.
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
sweetest punch
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by sweetest punch »

https://www.insider.com/best-rock-album ... ed-2020-12

The 10 best rock albums of 2020, ranked

(...)

8. "Hey Clockface" is an expansive mixture of moods and flavors showcasing Elvis Costello's masterful lyricism.

To understand the genius of Elvis Costello's "Hey Clockface" you needn't look further than the album's cover. Costello has been writing music almost nonstop since the late '70s and now, at 66, he's attempting to stop the clock and reflect on his life.

"Hey Clockface" is a wide-ranging mix of flavors and moods rendering it impossible to label the album as one genre.

This could be Costello looking to explore new sounds while he still has time left, though the fact he recorded sections of the album in Helsinki, Paris, and New York with the occasional help of local musicians is owed credit too.

Even after listening to the album multiple times, it's hard to remember where it will take you next. There's the title track in which he quotes Fats Waller while sounding like Randy Newman; "No Flag" is blessed by Costello's seminal punk sound; Costello beatboxes on the bombastic synth track "Hetty O'Hara Confidential;" and Costello recites a speech to the Eastern-influenced ambiance of "Revolution #49."

"Hey Clockface" is at once restless and meticulous, prosaic and poetic, exploratory and familiar. Perhaps it'd be easier to say it's just amazing.

Watch out Clockface, because Elvis Costello isn't going anywhere.
(...)
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by sweetest punch »

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articl ... tive-fifty

Vic Galloway – A Festive Fifty

Although something of an understatement, 2020 has been a year full of trial and tribulation for EVERYONE across the globe! But there has been one thing to help us all through… Music. As well as listening to huge amounts of Chet Baker to sooth my nerves during lockdown, I’ve listened to a ton of new music this year. Once again I have compiled a ‘Festive 50’ list of albums to inspire and stimulate the mind, body and soul. Some you might know, some you might not… But all are worth your time and effort. It’s across genres, so there’s something for everyone in there. Investigate and enjoy…

Albums of the year:

Sault – Untitled (Black is) …&… Untitled (Rise) (Forever Living Originals) https://saultglobal.bandcamp.com/
Yes, 2 albums… both released in 2020, both timely, contemporary & full of ideas.

Then in alphabetical order:

(...)
Elvis Costello – Hey Clockface (Concord)
(...)
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by fred darden »

Any of you people getting updates, last I heard January 11 was the shipping date? Any emails? None here.
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by Pigalle »

fred darden wrote:Any of you people getting updates, last I heard January 11 was the shipping date? Any emails? None here.
None here
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by johnfoyle »

Image

Image

Posted from Chicago on Dec.9th, received Jan. 14th . Ordered 14 August. Its all I ordered from the multitude of options on Elvis's site .
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by invisible Pole »

Late review from PopMatters.

https://www.popmatters.com/elvis-costel ... belltitem1

Elvis Costello Gets Dark and Brooding on 'Hey Clockface'
By MARTY LIPP 14 Jan 2021

When Elvis Costello crashed into the consciousness of rock fans in 1977 with his debut album, My Aim Is True, he seemed like the bastard son of Buddy Holly and Johnny Rotten, the personification of the angry young nerd inside so many of us.

While he was married and a bank employee who recorded the album on sick days, Costello seemed like an adolescent who had spent afternoons practicing licks and looks after school with his Fender Jazzmaster in front of his bedroom mirror, brooding against a world too stupid to get him. What has become clear over the years is that he was not just a clever, in-your-face rocker but a musical craftsman whose pedigree also came from his father, a professional trumpeter who played the very opposite of punk -- classic big-band jazz.

Long-time fans are no longer surprised by Costello leaving the rock reservation for country, jazz, and new classical music. He showed he was not just the knock-kneed rocker ready to explode but that he hunkered down and worked out every inch of his songs and their arrangements. Little wonder that instead of becoming a nostalgia act, he has collaborated with a dazzling array of artists, from Burt Bacharach and Anne Sofie von Otter to Gov't Mule and the Roots.

On his 31st album, Costello creates a collection with his hallmark smartassery and wordplay, but he doesn't just brute-force his way through them here. The album is darker and brooding, with a few notable rockers, such as the single "Hetty O'Hara Confidential" about a gossip columnist's rise and fall. The song, recorded in Helsinki with Costello playing all the instruments "and noises", has an electronic big beat peppered with a variety of electronic sounds. Still, it's not at the breakneck speed that he often did in his early days with the Attractions.

The album's other single, "No Flag", is another rocker in what he has jokingly called his "Helsinki Sound", a pastiche of stinging guitars and crosshatched electronics and percussion with Costello's signature beat-down lines of anger, this time expressing a nihilism that he has said was written prior to the annus horribilis of 2020. He snarls: "No time for this kind of love / No flag waving high above / No sign for the dark place that I live / No God for the damn that I don't give."

Elsewhere there are more world-weary tunes such as "The Whirlwind", with a sad narrator looking up and "considering the stars that shine and flap and fall before they're spent". Or there is the spoken-word opening track, "Revolution #49", which sets a melancholy tone to the album. Desert winds swirl as he enjoins us with "love is the one thing we can save" amid the desolate, Middle Eastern atmospherics.

The closing "Byline" finds Costello singing with the deep sadness of a lover with a spare piano accompaniment. "I read by line by line by line / That old sarcastic Valentine / That you denied you'd sent to me / Then took it back." "I Can't Say Her Name", has a languid, Hoagy Carmichael vibe where the narrator chews on his ambivalence about a relationship: "I don't need your pity / I'm powerless and proud / And I don't feel ashamed / Oh, but I can't say her name." "Zula's Tune" goes full noir, with a Paris-based ensemble of jazz musicians, and Costello singing of lost love in this world and the hereafter: "Each hour will be peaceful as the reeds make the river slow / The earth will be broken, and we'll lie there below / I am yours, you are mine / To long for longer is a crime."

In contrast is the deceptively jaunty old-time New Orleans sound of the title tune, also recorded in Paris, a sardonic look at the passage of time, particularly in the form of a failed romance, with the narrator addressing time itself in the personification of a clockface. Amid some Costello-clever allusions to clocks, such as "she wound up in his arms," he laments: "Why is it when we're apart / You always take it slow / And when she's here / You always say 'It's almost time to go.'"

Listening to this well-wrought mixed collection, long-time fans may feel like urging him to cheer up or at least take some old celebratory delight at simply knocking down the pretensions of contemporary culture. Now living in Vancouver, a 66-year-old dad to twin teenaged boys and married to jazz vocalist and pianist Diana Krall, and after a 2018 bout with cancer, Costello is no longer the kid crashing the party. He's been there and done that. Here he is a complex man of dark humor and flashes of anger as he keeps fighting the good fight armed with a razor wit, an observer who has seen a world suffused with foible-filled humans, including himself.

Rating: 7/10
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by sulky lad »

johnfoyle wrote:Image

Image

Posted from Chicago on Dec.9th, received Jan. 14th . Ordered 14 August. Its all I ordered from the multitude of options on Elvis's site .
How come Dublin is more in line than Tavistock ??!! :x
I think they have a priority mailing list !
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by Fishfinger king »

I had my No Flag single arrive in Norwich just over a week ago, Sulky. Post everywhere in UK is terrible, though, at the moment. Perhaps Devon is particularly bad. Mine had a tracking number on the email. Could try that?
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by Hawksmoor »

Not a particularly brilliant or insightful review, I'm afraid. The first three paragraphs and the second half of the last paragraph could be seamlessly cut-and-pasted from any review of any Elvis Costello LP, and are only of interest to any reader who's never heard of Elvis Costello. Mind you, that's not uncommon. It always baffles me that reviewers spend two opening paragraphs summarising the artist's career to date. Surely anyone who's interested enough in Elvis Costello to want to read a review of his 30th (or whatever number) LP, presumably already has a rough idea of what he's been up to for the previous 45 years?

The rest, while broadly positive, reads like somebody who's listened to the LP once.
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by sulky lad »

Fishfinger king wrote:I had my No Flag single arrive in Norwich just over a week ago, Sulky. Post everywhere in UK is terrible, though, at the moment. Perhaps Devon is particularly bad. Mine had a tracking number on the email. Could try that?
It is true that our postal delivery relies partly on the weather !! :roll:
I'll have a look and see if I've got any order number to chase !
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by Pigalle »

The tri-colour LP is currently available to purchase again:

https://looknow.elviscostello.com/produ ... 7-optional
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by supplydavid »

Just received another email from second city ‘very sorry for the delay we are working hard on getting the orders fulfilled’. :(
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by sulky lad »

supplydavid wrote:Just received another email from second city ‘very sorry for the delay we are working hard on getting the orders fulfilled’. :(
At least they're keeping some people up to speed ( no offence supply, just miffed that i don't even get an apologetic email !)
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Re: New album Hey Clockface released October 30, 2020

Post by millaa »

sulky lad wrote:
supplydavid wrote:Just received another email from second city ‘very sorry for the delay we are working hard on getting the orders fulfilled’. :(
At least they're keeping some people up to speed ( no offence supply, just miffed that i don't even get an apologetic email !)
I keep complaining to them but when they reply, no apology or when these releases will be shipped. I get it's a tough time at the moment and there is a delay in manufacturing, but really poor service. Has anyone contacted EC's management about it?
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