North

[dminches]

What are people's opinion of this album? While I have heard selected cuts I have never listened to the entire release.

[BlueChair]

I think the eclectic Elvis fan would be more into North than someone only into his rock 'n' roll records. It does what it tries to quite well, which is to deliver an album's worth of piano-based ballads with hints of jazz influence.

[alexv]

Love the record. A great album of understated ballads. There's a certain sameness of musical mood (low key), which is why you are probably better off not listening to the whole thing at once. In any case, the songs are terrific. "I'm in the Mood Again", "Still", "Can You Be True", "Let Me Tell You About Her" are particular favorites.

[mood swung]

I liked it live. The album is a little too detached for me. Violates the Fish In A Blender principle.

[sulky lad]

:o I was completely in agreement with Elvis about this album - most of the critics slated it but, if you're in the right mood and you listen to the vinyl version late at night with a suitably potent drink in one hand, it's a killer. Ok it's never going to be Blood And Choclate but that's the great thing about Elvis isn't it. And yes the live versions were also great - my recording of the Newcastle show is particularly special.

[King Hoarse]

The only Costello record that bored me the first time I listened to it. The songs are indeed very samey, mostly due to the many random minor-major (& vice versa) changes accompanied by that same note change in the vocals, all at a very leisurely pace.

At that point I didn't know I had to listen to it alone in the middle of the night to get into it, which I eventually did. And I think it works best listened to as a whole. I guess I recommend it, but not for the car!

(I saw him with Steve on the North tour and while it was a very good gig as a whole, he groaned too much about recent reviews of the album - critics not getting it - and seemed to worry about the audience getting bored in the quiet passages that are so essential to the mood of these songs. Because of this I guess, he overemoted on almost every new track, unfortunately. And waved his arms about a lot. It was actually unintentionally funny to see/hear someone sing "Pardon me if I seem distant and strange" while gesticulating ultraviolently. It was such a relief when he pulled out Either Side of the Same Town, which I hadn't heard before, where that was the perfect delivery.)

[mood swung]

Yes, the hand waving was weird. Weirder still was the absence of guitar. But, even with all the ham and cheese, so much more fleshed-out (big surprise!) than the cd. Since I'm usually snoring and drooling into a book by 10 pm, I expect the fault is mine.

[Who Shot Sam?]

Elv always waves his hands in strange ways around when he doesn't have a guitar. Nervous affectation I think. In his little cameo in "De-Lovely" it was almost comical.

[martinfoyle]

A great, great album, especially if you programme out the bonus tracks. Definitely one of his finest moments that gets better with age. That said I'd understand it if many longtime EC fans regarded it as his Metal Machine Music. I'm sure it lost many, their loss.

[Extreme Honey]

This album is like wine, it gets better with age. After a few years of listening to theis album, I became more and more attached to the songs to the point where emotional event are tied to the songs themselves. Like "Fallen", everybody can put their story in that cake.

[Miclewis]

The songs are great, and Elvis' singing is outstanding; but one of the standouts of North is the wonderful production and arrangements by Elvis. Like "For the Stars", the production just oozes class.

I especially love the arrangement of "When Green Eyes Turn Blue". Elvis seems to be channelling the great Nelson Riddle.

[Poor Deportee]

A fine album indeed. It could have been a GREAT record except for the dismal opening track - a song that is guilty of everything for which the critics attacked the album - and a certain sameness to many of the songs (e.g., the nearly identical piano chords that gently open several of the tracks). It suffers, in the end, from its sonic and lyrical narrowness. (This is part of what irritates the critics. We're supposed to admire EC's discipline and rigour - but that he doesn't just write 'Almost Blue' any more, and has instead to make a whole ALBUM's worth of Almost Blues, tends to annoy as much as impress).

The oft-cited 'distance' is also a valid issue. EC went around congratulating himself for being so emotionally naked on this record, but the scholastic discipline of the music can't but work as a kind of defensive shell around the lyric.

Having said that, Elvis's singing is assured and mostly tasteful, 'Let Me Tell You About Her' is one of his funniest songs, and 'Fallen,' 'Still,' 'I'm in the Mood Again,' and possibly 'Can You Be True', as compositions, are masterpieces of their kind: that kind being Frank Sinatra torch ballads. If you like, say, Sinatra's 'Where Are You,' then you should like this. The same is true, perhaps, if you enjoy 'Painted from Memory' (although North is musically much starker).

Unique in EC's catalogue. Perfect for a glass of wine on a dark, rainy night spent, alas, in solitude.

[Extreme Honey]

I don't like Frank Sinatra and I love this album. I also prefer Painted From Memory over this album a hell of a lot more. And I also dislike Phil Collins, so you might want to hold that when you edit the post.

[verbal gymnastics]

North took me a long long time to get into.

My initial sentiments were the same as King Hoarse's - I was bored with it for the first half a dozen listens as it was too slow. But I persevered and it was worth it.

dminches - give it a full listen and if you don't like it, stick with it.

[E*C*RIDER]

an amazing album, among EC's best

i don't need to play it to know how much i still love it

[sweetest punch]

Belgian newspaper "De Morgen" has an interview with Diana Krall. Diana said about North that 'she was supposed to sing those songs, but she knew how personal those songs were for Elvis and how delicate it would be to sing that kind of repertoire herself'.
She announced also a tour for 2007...!

[LessThanZero]

PLUS,

North is an amazing October album. It fits in just right among all of the Nat King Cole during every autumn now.

[noiseradio]

North is definitely a rainy autumn day record. I like it a lot.

[Goody2Shoes]

I might be the lone dissenter.

I loved it the first time I heard it, loved how it all flowed, loved how it was all so "samey", as King Hoarse noted, loved the torchiness (is that a word?) of it; the drippy sentimentality, the quietness, the late-night bad weather feel, loved all of it.

I put it away for a while, and then got it out again last fall, I think, and I was horrified. Surprised and horrified! It bored the snot out of me! I cringed at the drippy sentimentality! Got a mental image of Elvis slogging waist-deep through molasses, hardly able to stand up and keep his eyes open! Tried again; same thing!

Individually, there are many songs I like very much (esp. Still and Can You Be True?), but taken as a whole, I think it's all just too much for me. But maybe I'm just a philistine and don't know it.

I'll try again, sometime, once I get over the shock. Maybe I'll love it again. I hope so.

[LessThanZero]

Maybe you'll be in the mood again someday g2s.

Tracks 5 and 6 are amazing.

[johnfoyle]

Bump!

[RinghioStarr]

Hello, I am Anthony La Paglia and I like North very much.

"And my card is..."

[johnfoyle]

http://brokenestate.com/2010/08/29/welc ... ng-week-2/

[DodgyTC]

Scored a $30 sealed copy of North on vinyl on ebay. Patience pays off !

[Kevin Davis]

My personal opinion is that "North" remains Elvis's most solid, fully-realized program of front-to-back songs since "Get Happy."