I loved North and I can appreciate TDM, bu his last brilliant record for me was Painted From Memory.
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very good summary. Beside from that, I do actually give The Deliver Man a go every now and then!charliestumpy wrote:Although I like them all because they are EC, I play the ones up to 'Brutal Youth' quite a lot, and those since and including BY not much - old memories ...
wordnat wrote:WWIC, despite some wonderful songs, already sounds somewhat dated due to its harsh, "trendy" production. Whenever EC goes the "flavor of the month" route (PTC, GCW, SPIKE), he fails....
Quite true! But in spite of the "no fussing about" approach, it really comes across that all the players had a good time making that record. It seems relaxed and fun. Another nice thing about Momofuku is the variety in the songs--quite a sharp contrast between, say, "Turpentine" and "Harry Worth", for example. The record is something of a sampler--but not in a bad way--the songs are still threaded together just enough to make a cohesive whole--a real album.As to "Momofuku", besides the strong songs you cite, what makes it work for me is the speed with which it was produced-no fussing about in the studio-get the track down and move on. It approaches that "throwing together sharp, incisive, immediate pop songs"
No Get Happy!!???deerfried wrote:"Greatness" is a difficult word to quantify. I love/admire/cherish many parts of virtually every Elvis record, but when I think of his truly GREAT albums, I don't think he's had one since King of America. In my mind, that was the last time he put out a truly indispensable, balls-to-the-wall masterpiece. (And his other works of greatness are: Imperial Bedroom, Trust, This Year's Model and Armed Forces)
More and more I think I just see Costello as a completely different artist to the rest of you. I think he started off with two brilliant albums, dipped slightly with ARMED FORCES, then steadily declined through the 80s and had only occasionally excellent records (KOA, Blood and Chocolate, maybe even Spike) up until The Delivery Man (my favourite of his albums), and I've loved almost everything from then on in. I think he stayed with the Attractions way too long, and he got hit badly by the 80s disease due to having a prominent keyboard player. I think, in many ways, he's the best he's ever been now. Certainly the best he's ever been as a singer.deerfried wrote:I don't think he's had one since King of America. In my mind, that was the last time he put out a truly indispensable, balls-to-the-wall masterpiece. (And his other works of greatness are: Imperial Bedroom, Trust, This Year's Model and Armed Forces).