A Combination of Things

Album #1

I sat through the entire ceremony last night, including the nauseating Enchanted songs, and i feel pretty good about how the whole thing went down. I liked most of the nominated films and performers so i was rooting for everyone unless you were associated with Juno.  Good Work everyone!

Moving on…

One of the things i’ll be doing, when there is nothing else i really feel like writing about is commenting on my list of Top 15 Favorite albums of all-time. This is a pretty eclectic list but not frustratingly so. My taste tends to swing in a specific direction so there wont be any gangsta rap or bone head county music on here. I will unveil my list one record at a time and hopefully if you havent heard this particular record you will get yourself a taste. So, entry #1 (in no particular order, unranked, im just going to list them as they were when i originally jotted them down) belongs to:

Elvis Costello and the Attractions - Blood and Chocolate

The last album he did with the Attractions until All This Useless Beauty is also the best Attractions record since Armed Forcesand where that record may not have been made by a group of guys that loved or even liked each other they at least had momentum on their side and obviously cruised through that record like a rock and roll knife cutting melted butter. Not only that but the songs on Armed Forces could have been carry overs from This Years Model making that exact period Elvis’ most successful in marrying his two favorite things, hating people and writing the catchiest melodies since the Beatles were holding your hand and taxing the pennies on your eyes. Those records were easy. When the first song on Blood and Chocolate, the title track, kicks in with its bare E chord  you can imagine him struggling somewhat to come-up with a decent guitar line before finally deciding to just bang on one chord for 4 minutes loathing the thoughts running through his head making it impossible to concentrate. the whole record stinks of this kind of anger and frustration. His band, the best backing band in the history of rock, this is arguable im sure but in that argument im taking the Attractions, was freaking breaking up, mainly because he hated his bass player and the cherry on top of the already too cherry laden sundae is he gets divorced. These songs specifically, Home is Anywhere you Hang your Head, I Want You, Battered Old Bird, and Crimes of Paris, sound like they were wrenched out of Elvis against there will, thrown on a recording console and stapled and nailed down with pneumatic air guns. Is there any other reason for Home is Anywhere you Hang Your Head to be so slow and his vocal performance so mannered and so off key on occasion? doesn’t it sound like the songs are fighting their own existence? In Battered Old Bird they use a reverse tape loop to lead into the bridge and kiss my grits if it doesnt sound like the record has finally decided it just cant take it anymore and come hell or high water its going back to the dark pool it had been swimming in inside Elvis’ head. Fortunately, it didnt and we have this amazing record to listen to. This is the first Elvis record I ever bought. at the time those Rhino reissues were a big deal (it has since be reissued again by Hipp-o but unless i finally wear out my copy I will be avoiding spending another couple hundred of dollars replacing records that need not be replaced) and i made sure i bought each one the day it came out. I poured over Elvis’ newly composed liner notes watched him get fat and bearded, weird and then back to normal, ive heard him be great and not so great all within the space of track 1,2, and 3 on the same record, but this record front to back is fantastic, fantastic, fantastic. I think in away, it ruined my life. Anyone that knows me knows that i have a slightly cynical side to myself. Am I totally blaming Elvis? No but did he and this record play a major part, i have to believe that they did. Its the record where you can hear Elvis loose his faith in marriage, his band and himself, and when something like thats going down, even the jauntiest acoustic coffee shop pop tune, like Crimes of Paris, is going to sound like you are singing through a smirk while poking people in the eyes with the head of your guitar. Fantastic!

Tags: , 15 Records, Elvis Costello