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How much do you like Elvis Costello's music? (1 Viewer)

How much do you like Elvis Costello's music?

  • 5 - He is Epic

    Votes: 13 10.9%

  • 4 - I like him and listen to his music

    Votes: 42 35.3%

  • 3 - Indifferent, no strong opinion

    Votes: 43 36.1%

  • 2 - Not a fan, try to avoid

    Votes: 17 14.3%

  • 1 - Terrible, makes me want to puke

    Votes: 4 3.4%
  • Total voters
    119
I won't go so far as to say epic, but I have always liked him and like many 80s artists, appreciate him more now than in his heyday.

One of my favorite LPs of the 80s was Get Happy, in which a lot of the songs, were really short and had almost unfinished quality to them.

And he did the definite version on that release with "I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down" which reimagines the Sam and Dave R&B song. 

Here is an extended version:

https://youtu.be/FCoDLlvd9UE

Also, Shipbuilding from 1983 is pretty cool too, with a trumpet solo by Jazz great Chet Baker. The lyrics were written by Costello and originally had been recorded by Robert Wyatt reaching #35 on the UK charts.

https://youtu.be/l_aLSsjZMr8

 
With Sondheim gone, our greatest solo songwriter. I do wish he'd stayed unhappy, though, cuz i need his output more now than i did then. But i've always pointed young musicians to Squire McManus when they've asked after the ingredients of tunesmithery

 
Along with The Clash and Warren Zevon, one of the reasons I survived some miserable teen years.  His first four records stand up with the best debut runs by any artist anywhere.

I voted Epic.

 
I love two albums: This Years Model and Trust. I like or love every song on those two albums. Then there are a few other albums in which I like 2-3 songs, mostly his earlier material. 

 
Most people are saying that Elvis's older stuff is better. And I get that. I just want to encourage folks to check out Secret, Profane, & Sugarcane. It was produced by T Bone Burnett and its a bluegrass/americana type album. I love it.

 
If you played one of his songs for me I wouldn't be able to tell you who did it. Like the most popular thing he's ever done, the song that catapults him into a "pick your HOF" category, the song that people call iconic...yea I wouldn't know it was him.

I voted indifferent.

 
I'm between a 3 and a 4.  I don't actively seek out his songs but also will enjoy one if it comes on the radio.  Pretty sure I own a greatest hits CD.

And I can't think of him without remembering his "appearance" in 200 Cigarettes. I may be the only person that actually loved that movie.

 
I’m not a fan at all and don’t get the love.  Is there a song of his that is so great that I will become a fan?  

 
whoknew said:
Most people are saying that Elvis's older stuff is better. And I get that. I just want to encourage folks to check out Secret, Profane, & Sugarcane. It was produced by T Bone Burnett and its a bluegrass/americana type album. I love it.
Click to expand...


All of Costello's many albums have a song or a turn of phrase that makes the listen worth my while.  Secret Profane & Sugarcane was kind of a throwback to King of America.  I also liked the record he did with the Roots among his recent stuff.

His new album The Boy Named If will be released next Friday

 
Prefer the earlier stuff so much more than the later stuff, but you gotta give this guy credit for being a prolific producer too. 

 
whoknew said:
Most people are saying that Elvis's older stuff is better. And I get that. I just want to encourage folks to check out Secret, Profane, & Sugarcane. It was produced by T Bone Burnett and its a bluegrass/americana type album. I love it.
Click to expand...


I have posted about this 2018 album in here before - love it.  Look Now

Burnt Sugar Is So Bitter - collaboration with Carole King ...gives me chills - and several tunes on this album are so good.  

 
scorchy said:
I'm between a 3 and a 4.  I don't actively seek out his songs but also will enjoy one if it comes on the radio.  Pretty sure I own a greatest hits CD.

And I can't think of him without remembering his "appearance" in 200 Cigarettes. I may be the only person that actually loved that movie.
Click to expand...
You may very well be  :lol:

 
I give him a "2", although I recognize his worth and importance.  Just for me personally, lyrics are fine and all, but if the sound and atmosphere of a song are lacking I move on.

 
He has some nice songs, but i dont have any of his stuff bar Veronica in my collection. Pump it Up was sampled for a song in the 00s i liked.

 I have friends that go crazy for his stuff. If he farted on a record, they would buy the 7”, 12”, LP and dance remix of it. 

I can see why the OP doesn’t get it, because I don’t either, but It’s a real thing that some adore him and his music.

 
I voted 3 but I would say I am between 2 and 3. I probably change the station more often than not when he comes on.

 
Odd case where I think the handful of songs I've heard I've really liked, but I've never sat down and listened to an album or explored his stuff more.  

 
Love the comparisons to Joe Jackson.  Two of my favorite artists.  Would recommend just getting yourself a greatest hits of Costello and see which era you like the best.  Like Jackson, every album is different.  Jazz, swing, strings, instrumental, rock, punk.  Painted From Memory by Costello and Burt Bacharach is one of my favorite albums ever.

 
Still one of my favorite rock star quotes ever was by David Lee Roth:

"The reason most critics like Elvis Costello is because most of them look like Elvis Costello."

:lol:   :lol:  

As for Elvis and his music, I only know a handful of songs, and they are all okay.  I could see him end up being someone I never really check out or someone I one day get into a big way out of nowhere (like I did with XTC in 2018 or Taylor Swift in 2021).  Time will tell.  None of the songs I have heard have ever given me the urge to investigate further. 

 
beer 30 said:
If you played one of his songs for me I wouldn't be able to tell you who did it. Like the most popular thing he's ever done, the song that catapults him into a "pick your HOF" category, the song that people call iconic...yea I wouldn't know it was him.

I voted indifferent.
Click to expand...
yeah this is me. I know the name and I’m sure I’ve heard a song or two by him but if someone offered me $100 to name a song of his or hum a few bars I’d leave broke 

 
HellToupee said:
I tip my hat to Elvis Costello the producer.
Click to expand...


Costello is as unprolific as a producer as he's been prolific as a performer and songwriter.

Among his handful of production credits, The Specials and Squeeze's East Side Story are stone classics and The Pogues Rum Sodomy and the Lash is a tier below.  I suspect Costello was more of an A&R type producer assisting the artists with song selection and the performance side.  His engineers were probably tasked with twiddling the dials.  Costello and Nick Lowe both worked extensively with engineer Roger Bechirian during their primes.

 
Eephus said:
Costello is as unprolific as a producer as he's been prolific as a performer and songwriter.

Among his handful of production credits, The Specials and Squeeze's East Side Story are stone classics and The Pogues Rum Sodomy and the Lash is a tier below.  I suspect Costello was more of an A&R type producer assisting the artists with song selection and the performance side.  His engineers were probably tasked with twiddling the dials.  Costello and Nick Lowe both worked extensively with engineer Roger Bechirian during their primes.
Click to expand...


this seems all too vague.

 
I look nothing like Elvis Costello and never did (though my thick black frames sure tried).

He's awesome. This Year's Model is an absolute classic of an album, one I found later in my years. You don't have to be an angsty teen to like his music. (Just an angsty adult.)

Joe Jackson is fantastic, too. 

 
Those disco synthesizers
Those daily tranquilizers 
Those body building prizes
Those bedroom alibis
All this but no surprises for this year's girl
 

 
I can only imagine this pumping out of a stereo in NYC circa 1978...

We're all going on a summer holiday
Vigilantes coming out to follow me
Heard somebody say, they're out to collar me
Anybody wanna swallow me?

Takes two to tumble, it takes two to tango
Speak up, don't mumble if you're in the combo

On the beat (On the beat)
On the beat (On the beat)
'Til a man comes along and he says
"Have you been a good boy, never played with your toy?
Though you never enjoy, such a pleasure to employ"

See your friends in the state they're in
See your friends getting under their skin
See your friends getting taken in

So much about music is a temporal dialectic that it's no wonder that those who weren't there or those who lost touch don't get the old or the new. It's all a long process in the popular culture of answer and response. Elvis answered the excesses and dreaminess of prog with some good old power pop, a breath of fresh air, an antidote to the long-windedness so popular at the time. Too talented for the punks, his was a more subtle refinery of words and music. 

Awesome. 

 
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Not sure how to phrase it properly, but there are a core group of songs I really like. I don’t know, maybe 30. Beyond that, I have no great desire to listen to EC. Maybe once or twice a year. Couldn’t really get into the entirety of his catalog. Given that he has like 32 studio albums, that probably means I like 5% of his repertoire maybe? And I probably couldn’t name one of his songs from the past 25-30 years. 

 
dunno if its my old age or a decade of hanging with y'all's elevation of strummy, foursquare, democratized boilerplate, but its become that ive divided popular music into two spheres - stuff that makes me count to four and stuff i like. i could take the Joe Jackson associations, but a little bit of post-punk snide is the only commonality between Elvis Costello and Graham Parker. for the purposes of those who didnt like or get when i called out "single-groove" music, i'll call the difference "shape". whether it's song structure, hookishness, rhyme scheme, syncopation, attitude or, indeed, musicality, i'm usually following Squire McManus, looking forward to what's next. I always know where Laird Parker is and what he's doing,, so it's the difference between a marquee & a billboard. as when i upset @Mister CIA by besmirching Lucinda Williams's exquisite sameness, it aint brilliant if i'm tapping my watch by the time you get to it. when i can tell one Wilco song from another, i'll get back to you...

 
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I have a two disk 'best of' album that I like to play.  Great music!  Add to that the whole debacle of the Radio Radio SNL performance, and he's Aces in my book.

tldr:  He was told not to play the song "Radio Radio"( a song about how the radio industry controling the air waves).  He played 5 seconds of some other 'popular' song, stopped and started playing 'Radio Radio'.  He was banned from SNL for DECADES after.

Radio Radio

The song made waves in the US after Costello and the Attractions performed the song on Saturday Night Live. Originally, the Sex Pistols had been invited to perform on the broadcast (hosted by Miskel Spillman, an elderly woman who won SNL's "Anybody Can Host" contest), but visa problems prevented the band from appearing. After the Ramones turned down the chance to fill in—Joey Ramone later wrote, "We don't substitute for anybody"—Elvis Costello and the Attractions were invited. A reference to Sex Pistols' manager Malcolm McLaren's inability to get his band visas was made by drummer Pete Thomas who, during the performance, wore a shirt with the words "Thanks Malc".

Costello was to perform two songs on SNL: "Watching the Detectives", which Costello felt was a "good choice for our opening number, as the Attractions had now made the song their own", and "Less Than Zero", Costello's debut UK single. Columbia Records had insisted that Costello perform the song, but Costello objected on the grounds that the song was too "low-key" and too old, and its subject matter—the song was about British fascist Oswald Mosley—was too unfamiliar for American audiences.[23] SNL music director Howard Shore noted that Costello sought to buck pressure from his label during the show.

On the night of the performance, Costello and the Attractions began playing "Less Than Zero". After a few bars, he turned to the Attractions, waving his hand and yelling, "Stop! Stop!" He turned to the audience and said,

I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen, there's no reason to do this song here.

Costello and the band then played "Radio Radio" instead. SNL producer Lorne Michaels was reportedly furious, giving Costello the finger throughout the duration of the performance. When asked about this, Costello replied, "I'm not going to say that's true. Bill Murray told me that at the 25th-anniversary party. He said, 'Don't let Lorne tell you he was in on the joke. I remember him doing that.' So I'm not saying it; Bill is saying it. Lorne can take it up with Bill. I don't know". Costello was banned from Saturday Night Live until 1989. He reflected, "It felt good, but it was hardly a revolutionary act".

Costello referenced the incident during SNL's 25th anniversary show in 1999, where he burst in on Beastie Boys during their performance of "Sabotage" and, after reprising his famous introduction of the song from the original performance, played "Radio Radio" with the Beastie Boys backing him.

Costello said later that the inspiration for the last-minute song change came from Jimi Hendrix's 1969 performance on the BBC television show The Lulu Show. Hendrix was scheduled to play his hit, "Hey Joe", but stopped midway, saying "I'm going to stop playing this rubbish". He then began performing Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love"—dedicating it to the recently broken-up Cream—until he was pulled from the air. Costello recalled, "It was like watching your television go out of control".

 
Costello's new album The Boy Named If is out today.  Fans of his classic records with The Attractions should find a lot to like in his latest one.

 
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