The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Pretty self-explanatory
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Hawksmoor
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by Hawksmoor »

Arnie wrote:I have listened through completely 4 or 5 times now. Mostly good. I can't say like others that EVERY track is great, but there are fewer flat spots than some more recent works.

The flat spots: Mistook me for a Friend - has some truly cringe moments. The yeah, yeahs at the end for example. And The Boy Named If title track is a tedious listen. What if I Can't Give You Anything But Love.

The okay: The Death of Magic Thinking - intro sounds almost exactly like Bow-Wow-Wow's I want Candy.

The best: Penelope Halfpenny - (damn, Pete sounds fantastic) - though a few too many "penelope's" sung out at the end, Paint the Red Rose Blue, Trick Out the Truth. And Mr. Crescent is outstanding.
Ah, I think I have some similar but some opposite thoughts!

Listened to it as much as I can for the last few days but still struggling to nominate a favourite track. But of the rockers, 'Mistook Me for a Friend' and 'Death of Magic Thinking' are edging ahead for me right now. Disagree about the 'yeah, yeah, yeah's, I think they're clever and funny!

Agree that 'The Boy Named If' is one of the flattest/most tedious, but it still has some great lyric lines.

'Trick out the Truth' is the only one that feels like it could have fitted on 'Hey Clockface' (it even starts with a ticking clock effect!) and for me is the track that works least well here, although I do love 'Hey Clockface'.

Pete's intro to 'Death of Magic Thinking' is identical to Bow Wow Wow's 'I Want Candy', but that's no credit to Bow Wow Wow. It's a very recognisable rock drumming intro that's been used countless times, including on the original 1965 version of 'I Want Candy'.

And yes, the last lines of 'Mr Crescent' are genuinely moving. I'm fine with the number of 'Penelopes' at the end of 'Penelope', but ironically I could have done with two more repetitions of 'I wonder where my honey has gone?' with that country and western guitar slide behind. Just to reduce me to a sobbing wreck. It's fantastic.
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by verbal gymnastics »

What if I can’t give you anything but love is without doubt my favourite track.

I think The Difference will also slip nicely into Clubland.
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by JPadoo »

Current faves 4 days in…Mr.Crescent, My Most Beautiful Mistake, The Death of Magic Thinking, The Difference, The Man You Love to Hate. Only two that haven’t kicked in for me yet are Penelope Halfpenny and Mistook me for a Friend. Of course, subject to change.
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by JPadoo »

:!: Down to one…Mistook me for a Friend just kicked in
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by sweetest punch »

Elvis on Raised On
Radio: https://youtu.be/PgOJNvqYzIg
Last edited by sweetest punch on Fri Jan 28, 2022 6:45 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by Psc »

My thoughts, for what it's worth :wink: Favourite tracks so far are The Difference, Beautiful Mistake, Magnificent Hurt. Enjoying Penelope too, it sounds to me like it belongs on Brutal Youth (not a bad thing...). I'm less keen on the "vaudeville/music hall" (not sure if that's the right description) sounding numbers like Trick Out The Truth and The Man You Love To Hate, they sound out of place here and could have been on Clockface or National Ransom. Definitely the most I've enjoyed an EC album since Momofuku though... :D
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by Psc »

Oh and Pete sounds brilliant all the way through. Still my favourite drummer of all time, I would love to meet him someday and thank him for all of the inspiration over the years... :D
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by sweetest punch »

The CD book is selling fast!
Sold out in the US: https://shop.elviscostello.com/
Sold out in Belgium / The Netherlands: https://musicstation.be/collections/elvis-costello
Only a few left in the UK: https://shopuk.elviscostello.com/
Available in Germany: https://store.udiscover-music.de/p51-i0 ... index.html
Last edited by sweetest punch on Tue Jan 18, 2022 2:03 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by sweetest punch »

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: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by sweetest punch »

https://www.thecurrent.org/feature/2022 ... y-named-if

Album of the Week: Elvis Costello and the Imposters, 'The Boy Named If'

by Jill Riley and Elvis Costello
JANUARY 17, 20
Elvis Costello joins Jill Riley in conversation to discuss his new record The Boy Named If. The two also talk about what it’s like to write music with Paul McCartney, and tells us about his very first visit to Minneapolis back in 1978. Watch the full interview, and read a transcript of the conversation below: https://youtu.be/r5RTOoZbaqM


Interview Transcript
Edited for clarity and length.

JILL RILEY: I'm connecting with a very special guest, one who just played recently in the Twin Cities. There was so much buzz around the fact that he was going to be playing at First Avenue for the first time, which some of us couldn't believe. But then we had to kind of put our thinking caps on and think about the history of First Avenue.

ELVIS COSTELLO: I have to say it marks how long I've been coming to the Twin Cities in particular, specifically Minneapolis, since 1978. I really fondly remember the journey from Portland, Oregon, to Minneapolis, across the mountains in the snow. I think early in, I think it was in the winter. Well, it was snowing a lot I know. We barely made it. The road was closing ahead of us. The road was closing behind us--we drove, you know, this was--you can imagine the first time in America, you're seeing a landscape everywhere you go that you've only ever seen in the movies. And then you go to somewhere that you really don't know very much about, across the Dakotas and everything through the mountains, and then arrive in Minneapolis. As I noted, I think from the stage at First Avenue--First Avenue was then sort of, I suppose the closest thing to studio 54 in Minneapolis, wasn't it? It was a proper disco. A discotheque.

Yeah.

I mean, it was a dancing club, there wasn't live music and such. And there wasn't really an obvious venue for us to play. We couldn't have possibly have filled the Orpheum or the State in those days. So we played what I guess must have been a cowboy bar that had decided to book some new music, which whatever they were calling it--New Wave, punk, whatever convenient title they hung on it. We found ourselves at the Longhorn. And then over the next years, we played all sorts of other venues. But all the time that First Avenue was the place to be, we were playing somewhere else. I don't know why nobody suggested us playing there. Maybe because we didn't--our kind of music didn't really fit in there anymore. There was all that Prince stuff going on. You know, you didn't want to get in the way of that. I mean, that was some serious stuff. And all the other people out of Minneapolis. It's a great music place. So it was exciting to come and play and see the the wall with all the names of some friends up there that have played there. I've only ever been in the doors once. That was to see the Arctic Monkeys there when when we had a night off because Pete Thomas had played on their record and become friends with them. And they were in town, so we went to see them. Group from Sheffield, England, you know.

Well I hope you're going to get a star on the wall now.

I would hope so. Maybe have a word with somebody about that.

Exactly. There was a lot of excitement around that, you know, especially for music fans and those who love First Avenue and maybe couldn't believe that, like, "How could this be the first time?"

When you're on the stage, it's like--there's a handful of places, whether or not you play them on your first visit or your most recent visit, there are places you get on the stage and whatever the scale of it is, you will immediately know why it has its reputation. I've can't explain it because there's lots of clubs that are the same shape. But that one really has a special feeling. And I'm not just saying that because I'm talking on the radio, I'd say the same thing if I were talking to the Tulsa radio about Cain's Ballroom, I would say the same if I were going to Nashville about the Ryman Auditorium, it's a very different sort of venue. And the Olympia old Locarno Ballroom in Liverpool, you know, has that kind of feeling about it. And many, many others. And when you're fortunate enough to travel around as I do, you file those away and look forward to playing those. So maybe we'll do it again. I did say from the stage, let's do this every, every year, let's let's do it every week!

Well, you gotta be careful what you promise. We always love to make, you know, any kind of connection in Minnesota. You know, whenever an artist comes through, and we can go, "Oh, there's a connection to Prince," or to even Bob Dylan. I know there was a lot of excitement about Charlie Sexton playing with you on the stage.

Because Charlie has been playing on and off with Bob for many years. At the time when we plan this tour Bob was not apparently going on the road. Now I don't know, that's their business. Charlie came along with us and I'm very happy to have him along and I hope he'll be staying in our lineup for a little while. I went to see Bob Dylan the other night in Philadelphia and you know what? He was just fantastic. Beyond fantastic. It was one of the greatest shows I've ever seen him do. And then the musicians that are playing with him--there's some wonderful players in that band too. A couple of them I know very well, I toured as part of the Bob Dylan show for five weeks, a number of years ago now. And that was, you know, not only was it fun to be in the middle of the show with my acoustic guitar and play 45 minutes of songs, and hopefully surprise a few folks. But of course, I had the tremendous opportunity to watch the show night to night. And, you know, that was pretty fascinating. This was a really great show. One of the one of the greatest I've ever seen by anybody. You don't say that very often.

New record on the way in January, The Boy Named If, and we've been playing "Magnificent Hurt" here on The Current and it has such a classic "you" sound to it, you know? From the first--kind of the first open.

Whatever that is.

That's good. I hope you take that as a compliment.

I mean, look--you can see me. Radio can't see me, but look, what you see is what you get. This is not getting a lot prettier. You get the face, you have the voice you have. And three of us have played together on and off for 45 years. So there is the personality. It's not a style, you can put a name on necessarily, but it's an attitude. And when called to play rock and roll music, which this song certainly is, that is what's going to happen. It doesn't mean that when we started to do it that we went out with the intention of reminding anybody of anything. I've been thinking about this quite a bit, because I've been asked a couple of questions about this record last week or so. I honestly think that when people that have made a lot of records start out to do a very direct approach to the sound, like a very direct--like you would play without any hesitation on stage as people heard at First Avenue, we have no problem letting fly. You know, we know how to do that. Sometimes when the red light goes on, when you've made a bunch of records, there's some sort of anxiety that creeps into the mind. You've got to go, "Let's make this better than we've ever played before," which is bound to make it hard.

That's a lot of pressure.

Yeah, it is. When we were working on this record, because of the circumstances of being 1000s of miles apart--I don't really think it's that different, because you often make records in an accumulation of separate moments and performances, we overdub things, and we add ideas, change our minds about parts. So it is only a frame of mind. But there's something about each of us being utterly inhibited, in our own little space, in our own homes, made it much more fearless than any record of this nature that we've made in recent times.

I think that Pete being down in the basement of his house, hammering into his--the Gretsch kit that he played on this year's model, and therefore the same drum kit heard on "Spanish Model"--the remix in Spanish that came out last year, or this year was it. It just made him play with an abandon and the conversation that he and I were having initially back and forward about these songs, not a conversation of words, but a conversation of recordings quickly developed into the record you hear. And we didn't--just like the first records we made, the only comparison I will make between this and the first record is: we didn't know enough to mess it up. Because we had never tried to make a record of this nature from our respective positions. And it could have been very tentative. It also could have been about very sorrowful, lamenting, isolated feelings which some people have chosen to express. But that just doesn't interest me. Neither as a listener nor as a musician.

My response to these unusual circumstances has been, let's speak up, sing about some things that occurred to me, that matter to me. That's all I ever do. I don't have big intellectual theories. I'm not, contrary to the appearance of writing a lot of words, a particularly well read person, I'm not educated in any formal way. I didn't go to university, I didn't go to college. I never studied music or art formally. I just know the things that matter to me in my heart. And I'm very fortunate to have such great allies in this. Pete, Steve and Davey, who I've played with for 20 years, and in the last 10 years another really great friend Sebastian Krys, who together with whom I've made lots of different recordings in a very short space of time, not just in the last 18 months but since we first worked together on "Look Now," and even before that when I was working on the collaborations with La Marisoul who sang on the Roots record, the song I sang with Vega, which led of course to her being part of the "Spanish Model". It's a continuing story if you allow it to be, of how music kind of builds friendships. All of the most unusual things that I've done that sort of surprised and maybe even horrified people. Like, for instance, working with the Brodsky quartet in the 90s, and making a record with a string quartet--that came out of friendship, it didn't come out of some sort of vain ambition to do something fancy. We'd became friends and we wanted to find a way to work together and do something different. And that's been all of it. And all those major like eyecatching collaborations, such as writing with Paul McCartney, or Burt Bacharach are kind of the exception to what I've been doing the rest of the time, which is writing my own songs, you know, they were, of course, incredible experiences, but they there weren't anything you could have a dream of doing. Who would have been arrogant enough to say you were going to get an invitation to write with such people? You know, when the opportunity came, I tried to make the best of it. It's this record right now, this is about today. And tomorrow and the next day, you know?

Sure. I'm talking with Elvis Costello. So again, the new record The Boy Named If due out in January. And you know, I get such a sense from you that, I mean, not only do you make music, but you're in so informed by being a fan of music. You know, you mentioned Paul McCartney, I had listened to the song "Veronica," I don't know how many times before I found out that that was a co-write. And that was such a cool thing to learn about you that you had worked with Paul McCartney, because I mean, talk about having a dream, and who would know that one day that you'd be co-writing with one of the Beatles. And The Beatles are such a hot subject again, it's kind of like this--

That's how they should be. Peter Jackson made one of the great films, I think cinema has provided us with. Something that I think for a certain age of person may be, you know, mid teens to anybody older than that, that might ever consider studying war, should see, "They Shall Not Grow Old". That's a major contribution to cinematic history, that film. The assembly of the human voice and face in the archival footage from the First World War, and how wonderful that all that technology that he used to tell this incredibly troubling and upsetting story about war could be turned to celebrating something which the previous cinematic account was quite depressing, because if you love the Beatles, watching them argue and bicker, and apparently break up before your eyes was very sad.

I don't doubt that at the age they were then there was probably a reason why they allowed that film to come out. Maybe it was like a get out of jail card was my suspicion. Because they didn't have their own lives, they were sort of become other people's dreams. So 50 years later, I'm sure it's a wonderful thing that Peter Jackson has found a way to assemble that into a coherent narrative that allows us to see the most famous group of all time perhaps doing what every musician does, which is sort of willing songs to come into existence by singing nonsense words and blocking about. That's the other part of writing and recording. When you're not in the most intense moment of performance it's both educational, or instructive, and very heartening in some way to see the fallibility and frailty sometimes of that endeavor. With regard to writing, so any songs we pull, yes, of course, it was very unexpected, because I had been in the Beatles fan club when I was, you know, 10. But a couple of weeks ago, I was on the Royal Variety show in London, which is an annual--what it says--variety annual show in front of the--it's a charity for vaudeville or musical artists. And my father played that show in 1963. And on the bill that night, were the Beatles and Marlene Dietrich, whose accompanist was Burt Bacharach. So, you know, if people ask me, "What are you doing at this royal show? That doesn't seem your style?" I went, "Yeah, but I think my dad would have got a kick out of it." I wrote 35 songs in total with those two songwriters, out of the 400 I've written.

When you mentioned Paul--yes, it is really, really something to say that you wrote 15 songs for Paul McCartney because of all the other songs he wrote, and maybe even a few I wrote, but the thing I take to heart most of all is the starting point for that collaboration was "Veronica". The first song we wrote, "Veronica," is a song about my grandmother's descent into Alzheimer's dementia. And the fact that he had the heart to see what story I had brought into the room, and helped me make it into a coherent song where the bright carriage of the music allowed people to hear the song as a pop music piece before they realize what it was about. So I don't so much, you know, as you say, you heard the song before you realize it's a collaboration. I think it's possible to make music that's about serious, even tragic subjects, and have people appreciate the music that carries them before the implication of the lyric arrives in their understanding. That's very true. I have a number of songs on "The Boy Named Death". Not to say that has a facile link to our new record. But it's actually true. If you listen to the songs they are, initially at least, bright, up tempo major key rock and roll songs. If you actually listened to the words of several of them, they are about serious emotional subjects. Not not depressing, but they're not just "Hey, little girl, I want to take you out on a date." I never wrote those, why would I start writing them at 67? There is less time along the road, there's less road ahead than there is behind. And maybe that's why I've written in this moment, some songs that look at how you get to be whatever it is--a man or a person. But you have to come out of being a wonderful child, I mean, a child of wonder a child of imagination.

There's a process that maybe begins around 13, where you lose that unselfconscious ability to be able to skip, sing, dance, stand on your head, invent fantastic inventions that science and physics and logic would tell you are impossible. Then they make you learn algebra and give you sex education, scare the hell out of you. All these impulses are surging up within you that you don't understand. So I decided, rather than writing better songs about that experience, could you capture both the wonder and the terror at the same time in music, and that's what The Boy Named If is about. The idea of an imaginary friend, being a charming adventurer when you're seven--less charming when you're 37. And you're still making those excuses to your wife or girlfriend, or who any other lover you have. Likewise, "The Death of Magic Thinking" is literally the letting go of all those magical possibilities for the uncertainty of the first glimmering, that there are other desires that people will detect in you. And they may detect them before you understand them. Then there are many stories in popular music, that talk about "Oh, she tempted me," that song is very familiar, and there are sadly, many songs more recently relating the sometimes criminal experience of women in some unequal power, struggle with a man. There are not any songs to my knowledge about that this mischievous moment in which a boy or a girl could say, I know something you don't know, I just don't know a song that's about that. And without necessarily it being about control, or it could have some cruelty to it, because it's just a discomfort for them. The actual words of "Death of Magical Thinking," the actual words of the chorus are, "She took my hand in an experiment, put it where it shouldn't be, put it underneath her dress, and waited to see, I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to say. It was just a game, I guess. One I didn't know how to play." It's a relatively innocent piece of teasing. But in this it considers that the girl is just that little bit more mature and recognizes that the boy is completely without understanding about the implication of that caress or that movement. And it's neither a crime or a shame. It's just acknowledging that they both really don't know where this leads.

Now the other songs in there speak of similar moments of recognition. I did genuinely have a teacher who I've romanticized into this character Penelope Halfpenny, in memory of someone who taught me very briefly when I was a boy. And the thing I remember about that teacher was that she was not like everyone else. You sensed not that she was smarter or a better teacher, but she was a person that you could recognize from life because most of your teachers you didn't even know their first names. They were miss, or mister, or sister even. I was taught by nuns until I was 11. So you didn't have any sense of personality, certainly didn't have a sense of any desires or dreams, they may have had.

Or that they had a home life, I mean, or anything.

Except this one woman who one spring was charged with teaching us English literature, and spent most of the time seeming to be distracted talking about her own life, which, of course, because she had long hair that she'd flick around and wore a short skirt and fashionable clothes was completely fascinating, not in the way that we desired her so much as she represented a life that we could only vaguely glimpse. There was a party going on in the next room that we weren't invited to, that she went to all the time. It wasn't necessarily that thrilling, but to us, it was impossible. There was no entry possible to that. So I thought that's a good thing to write a song about, because it's, you know, it's not a cliched idea of like, "Oh I think there are some songs about being attracted to your teacher." That's kind of creepy. But this wasn't like that. But nevertheless inspires in those kids this sense of like, "I have to go there. I have to go to that place one day," you know, there's a lot of that. Wanting a thing you either don't know what it is or shouldn't want within this record, but there's no moral judgment. And there's no convenient bow tying in the songs. Some of the songs don't resolve deliberately, because you want to leave the listener to do that. If you're going to give people songs that they can live with for a while. You don't want to solve all the puzzles in them. You're taking away the fun.

Host - Jill Riley
Guest - Elvis Costello
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by sweetest punch »

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: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by John »

The album is number 3 in the midweek UK album chart. Hopefully it hangs on to be his first top 10 album since 1994.

https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-ne ... ld__35003/
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by sweetest punch »

Available in the UK: SUPER LIMITED SIGNED ELVIS COSTELLO PRINTS - ONLY 100 AVAILABLE OF EACH DESIGN: https://shopuk.elviscostello.com/

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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by taramasalata »

verbal gymnastics wrote:
I think The Difference will also slip nicely into Clubland.
Yes, it's a great track and the listener gets even more rewarded by afterwards having "Clubland", "Watching the detectives" and even echoes of "Sulky Girl" (the bridge that segues into the refrain) stuck in the brain for the rest to the day...

But, more than that, as having been pointed out by others already (didn't mention that our hero himself?), this song really makes one realize the whole album to "work" in such an amazingly way.
Especially around 1:32 into the song, with that magical Clubland/Detectives-moment band sound of the Imposters, it's the moment when it becomes so evident to the listener that everything just seems so RIGHT with it.

Which will be proved further on by this incredible run of songs until that very last tone of "Mr. Crescent".
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by Hawksmoor »

taramasalata wrote:
verbal gymnastics wrote:
I think The Difference will also slip nicely into Clubland.
Yes, it's a great track and the listener gets even more rewarded by afterwards having "Clubland", "Watching the detectives" and even echoes of "Sulky Girl" (the bridge that segues into the refrain) stuck in the brain for the rest to the day...

But, more than that, as having been pointed out by others already (didn't mention that our hero himself?), this song really makes one realize the whole album to "work" in such an amazingly way.

Especially around 1:32 into the song, with that magical Clubland/Detectives-moment band sound of the Imposters, it's the moment when it becomes so evident to the listener that everything just seems so RIGHT with it.

Which will be proved further on by this incredible run of songs until that very last tone of "Mr. Crescent".
Yep, totally with that. It saddened me when he was saying - I can't even remember when, it's probably more than a decade - that making LPs was a fool's errand, and that he wanted to explore 'different ways of making music available'. I can see why he said that (particularly in financial terms!) but it still made me sad.

So to see him so adamant in recent interviews about the concept of the LP, is fantastic. This hangs together so perfectly as an album. The whole 50 minutes takes you on a journey to that 'I wonder where my honey has gone...' and if you hadn't listened to the preceding 50 minutes - in order - that line would not have anywhere near the same impact.

I could say it's 'retro' but that's not true. It's just a re-statement of the fact that 10-12 brilliant songs sequenced over 45-50 minutes is simply the best way to listen to popular music. It's a brilliant LP, obviously, But more importantly, it's a statement about what 'LP' even means in 2022.
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by Arnie »

Well stated.
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by Mr. Hush »

Hard to believe that this time in 2018 I was cursing that there hadn’t been a bus for five years, and that one had been going in the wrong direction, even though quite a few people got on. And now three turn up almost together. Loved Look Now, although it lacked the rough edges and I got fed up with some songs, mainly that one about Mr Hush. Loved Hey Clockface even though it seemed a bit disjointed and for me it dipped between “The Whirlwind” and “Byline”. The new one seems like the best of the three, in fact it sounds great. The only changes I’d make would be to ditch “Penelope”, soften the drums on “Paint the Red Rose Blue” and put soft horns on the end of “Mr Crescent” but they’re just a taste thing and could ruin the overall effect I guess. Love the final trio and for brevity songs 4/5 and 8 and loving the ‘shout out’ to the very wonderful Gustav Mahler, ever though it may just be to rhyme with parlour. But why is he playing cards with a wresting Abbott and Costello? Not entirely sure how he manages to do all he does really with the artwork, which I really like, and the music and words. And the concerts and the interviews. Just hope he’s not planning to send any minibuses or additional buses with Spanish or French drivers. Overall just thanks to Elvis for such a great record. It’s not a bus at all.
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by Hawksmoor »

Mr. Hush wrote:Hard to believe that this time in 2018 I was cursing that there hadn’t been a bus for five years, and that one had been going in the wrong direction, even though quite a few people got on. And now three turn up almost together. Loved Look Now, although it lacked the rough edges and I got fed up with some songs, mainly that one about Mr Hush. Loved Hey Clockface even though it seemed a bit disjointed and for me it dipped between “The Whirlwind” and “Byline”. The new one seems like the best of the three, in fact it sounds great. The only changes I’d make would be to ditch “Penelope”, soften the drums on “Paint the Red Rose Blue” and put soft horns on the end of “Mr Crescent” but they’re just a taste thing and could ruin the overall effect I guess. Love the final trio and for brevity songs 4/5 and 8 and loving the ‘shout out’ to the very wonderful Gustav Mahler, ever though it may just be to rhyme with parlour. But why is he playing cards with a wresting Abbott and Costello? Not entirely sure how he manages to do all he does really with the artwork, which I really like, and the music and words. And the concerts and the interviews. Just hope he’s not planning to send any minibuses or additional buses with Spanish or French drivers. Overall just thanks to Elvis for such a great record. It’s not a bus at all.
I love the way you write and your use of metaphor, it makes me laugh and I admire it. The content of what you write...yeah, I agree 90%. However I do think the country-and-western guitar sheen on the last few lines of 'Mr Crescent' is a perfect judgment - I could do with another four bars of that.

I've always loved his love of rhyme (I love it myself), and he always makes me laugh when he's showing off his knowledge of 'high culture' and popular culture and juxtaposing them for fun. But I do think that 'Trick Out the Truth' might be extrapolating both to a point that nearly (but not quite) becomes tiresome. But on an LP this consistently enjoyable, you can forgive a smartarse for being a smartarse on one track, I guess.
heyhermano
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by heyhermano »

https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-boy- ... 0003612195

By Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Maybe revisiting This Year's Model for Spanish Model -- an oddly effective reinterpretation of the 1978 classic featuring new vocals sung in Spanish by a variety of Latinx musicians over the original Attractions instrumentals -- shook something loose in Elvis Costello, as The Boy Named If is his purest dose of rock & roll since maybe Blood & Chocolate. Where that 1986 album -- the last time the Attractions backed Costello on record -- teems with resentment and untrammeled ire, The Boy Named If feels exuberant; he's not bloodletting, he's tapping into a musical vein that's proved to be a vital resource throughout his career. The difference is subtle but palpable, a reflection of Costello's status as a rock troubadour. Here, Costello is playing with familiar building blocks -- pumped-up riffs, fleet wordplay, an omnivorous musical appetite -- yet often assembling these elements in fresh, unexpected ways. "Farewell OK" kicks off the proceedings with a dose of pure rock & roll that suggests this album is a simple back-to-basics move, yet it's quickly followed by "The Boy Named If" and "Penelope Halfpenny," two numbers suggestive of the florid pop of Imperial Bedroom but delivered with a muscular wallop. The Boy Named If often plays upon memories of Attractions albums past, but never in a nostalgic way. Costello isn't winking at his audience, he's drawing upon his deep musical vocabulary to create songs that recall his catalog yet feel playful and alive. Much of this liveliness is due to Costello's batch of original tunes being among his sturdiest of the 21st century. The key to their success, though, is that he's not writing toward a concept, he's writing songs that allow the Imposters -- his longtime supporting band featuring all the original Attractions minus the bassist -- to show their sinewy skill. So much of the pleasure of The Boy Named If lies in how the Imposters deliver everything from the slow-burning ballad "Paint the Red Rose Blue" to the tight R&B groove of "Magnificent Hurt" with the clean efficiency of a rock & roll combo. The Imposters have never sounded better on record -- and they've never sounded more like the Attractions, either, which isn't entirely a coincidence -- and that helps give The Boy Named If its infectious kick: it may feel like an old-fashioned Elvis Costello album, but it sounds entirely fresh.
heyhermano
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by heyhermano »

Favourable 7.5 review from Pitchfork: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/el ... -named-if/

Well-written, but man, lines like this drive me crazy: "Costello’s monstrous appetite for genre has occasionally led him to believe he has mastered every genre."
Harry Lime
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by Harry Lime »

heyhermano wrote:https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-boy- ... 0003612195

By Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Maybe revisiting This Year's Model for Spanish Model -- an oddly effective reinterpretation of the 1978 classic featuring new vocals sung in Spanish by a variety of Latinx musicians over the original Attractions instrumentals -- shook something loose in Elvis Costello, as The Boy Named If is his purest dose of rock & roll since maybe Blood & Chocolate. Where that 1986 album -- the last time the Attractions backed Costello on record --
Erlewine is a good writer and an Elvis fan, that last bit is solved by easy fact checking.
Who put these fingerprints on my imagination?
Hawksmoor
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Joined: Mon Jun 16, 2003 2:51 pm

Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by Hawksmoor »

Harry Lime wrote:
heyhermano wrote:https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-boy- ... 0003612195

By Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Maybe revisiting This Year's Model for Spanish Model -- an oddly effective reinterpretation of the 1978 classic featuring new vocals sung in Spanish by a variety of Latinx musicians over the original Attractions instrumentals -- shook something loose in Elvis Costello, as The Boy Named If is his purest dose of rock & roll since maybe Blood & Chocolate. Where that 1986 album -- the last time the Attractions backed Costello on record --
Erlewine is a good writer and an Elvis fan, that last bit is solved by easy fact checking.
Interestingly, he only comments on songs that had already been released as singles plus the first 3 tracks of the LP.
Hawksmoor
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Joined: Mon Jun 16, 2003 2:51 pm

Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by Hawksmoor »

heyhermano wrote:Favourable 7.5 review from Pitchfork: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/el ... -named-if/

Well-written, but man, lines like this drive me crazy: "Costello’s monstrous appetite for genre has occasionally led him to believe he has mastered every genre."
'On his 32nd studio album...' here we go again. Have you counted, or are you just using the same opening line as the last 15 reviews you read? :roll:
taramasalata
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by taramasalata »

heyhermano wrote:Favourable 7.5 review from Pitchfork: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/el ... -named-if/

Well-written, but man, lines like this drive me crazy: "Costello’s monstrous appetite for genre has occasionally led him to believe he has mastered every genre."
Fully agree heyhermano, I'm massively annoyed by this narrow-mindedness of music journalists too.
Especially the German-speaking ones here around can hardly ever write about him without using this term of "genre-hopping" in a rather dismissive way.

We all know that not everything he ever did was top notch, but they always tend to insinuate geekiness as his primary motif for being such musically adventurous, rather than acknowledging the fact, that there was always that feverish Costello-passion for MUSIC to be felt, on every path he took.

For them, it's so much more simple to deal with musicians like Bruce Springsteen, Nick Cave, Tom Waits and quite a few more, who - their merits not disregarded - stick to their formula in a much more conservative way.
sweetest punch
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by sweetest punch »

https://www.hbvl.be/cnt/dmf20220119_939 ... bzNw%3D%3D

Muziektip: 67 is hij, maar zo speels klonk Elvis Costello in tijden niet meer

Wie de carrière van Elvis Costello grofweg in hoofdstukken verdeelt, weet dat we in fase drie zitten. Na dat eerste decennium, waarin de classics mekaar vlot opvolgden zonder hulp, vulde de Brit zijn midlifeperiode met samenwerkingen, avontuurtjes en projecten die de onvermijdelijke carrièredip verhinderden.

Maar vandaag, op zijn 67ste, lijkt Costello weer genoeg te hebben aan zichzelf en zijn trouwe kompanen. The Boy Named If voert Declan Patrick Aloysius MacManus terug naar zijn beginjaren, zelfs zijn kindertijd. Op een thematische plaat waarin de oudere Elvis zijn jongere angry young man-versie onder de loep neemt, keren als vanzelf ook de klanken uit zijn beginjaren weer. Opener Farewell, OK of het rammelende ­Penelope Halfpenny klinken zo hoekig als de eerste albums met The Attractions. Met in zijn rug The Imposters, waarin nog altijd enkele oude getrouwen uit de Attractions actief zijn, wordt de tijd met gemak teruggedraaid. Zo legt het orgeltje van Steve Nieve in Mistook Me For a Friend de brug met het 43 jaar oude Pump It Up, terwijl Paint the Red Rose Blue of Trick Out the Truth op rustiger weiden grazen, in de buurt van King of America (1986). Zo intuïtief, speels en aanstekelijk heeft Costello lang niet meer geklonken.
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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