Oh, I just don’t know where to begin.
So much for a quiet week between Christmas and New Year’s! Today, on eMusic U.S.: The entire Elvis Costello catalog. And more! Follow us after the jump!
Elvis Costello, and Elvis Costello & the Attractions: All the major records, and clearly the next subject of an eMusic Icon. Costello’s catalog is a gold mine, that much is fairly well-known, but seeing how many back-to-back perfect records the man made is still cause for significant pause. I’d love to hear, in the comments, your favorite EC albums and songs — and let’s debate the merits of where, specifically, he started to fall off (if he did). For my part: my all-time personal favorite, for pure punch-per-second, remains Get Happy!, and between the two Big Breakthroughs, I’d give This Year’s Model the edge over My Aim is True. Blood & Chocolate is my choice for the last end-to-end Great Elvis Costello Record (“Tokyo Storm Warning”! “I Want You”! “Battered Old Bird”!) Though I’m also going to go out on a limb and rep a little for the very-late-period, very-overlooked Momofuku, which finds Elvis collaborating with Jenny Lewis and Jonathan Rice throughout. I’d also put its pithy, prescient opening line, “In the not very distant future/ when everything will be free,” among the best Costello album-starting salvos. Your turn!
Also arriving today, and well worth your time and money:
Jamey Johnson, The Guitar Song: Think of Johnson as the latest in a long line of country music outlaws, a lineage that includes both Merle Haggard and Steve Earle. An ex-Marine, hard drinker and no-bullshit type, he got his start as a behind-the-scenes country music songwriter (that he wrote “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” should not be held against him, and he’d probably break a bottle over your head if you tried) before stepping up to the mic himself. The Guitar Song is a double-album concept record divided into a dark half — the first disc — and a light half — the second. I know contemporary country can be a hard sell around these parts, but Johnson is cut from a different cloth — a dirty plaid cloth that smells of bourbon — and I’d recommend a skim through the samples to see if this is your thing.
Brief Encounter, Special Release: Whoah! Another nice surprise! This album has a long, fantastic history. Brief Encounter were a funk band in the late ’70s; Special Release, their 1977 album, was revered by collectors and hip-hop producers and, as these things often do, immediately fell out of print, its few existing copies fetching outrageous sums. “Not anymore!” sez the always-excellent Jazzman Records. They quietly slipped Special Release back in print, and it’s as vibrant and resilient as it was when it first came out, loaded with gorgeous soul harmonies, bright horn charts and grizzled, grooving bass lines. Guess what? HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Discuss! The Fiona Apple version of “I Want You” has now become the definitive version, much like the Nirvana version of “The Man Who Sold the World,” by Bowie’s own admission, has become the definitive version.
so excited for the dirty beaches full-length; so disappointed I’ll have to wait until COMCAST repairs my home network tomorrow to download/comment on it.
did anyone mention the bug’s infected ep arriving? It is fantastic.
Get Get Happy! I remember when this came out, thinking, “Twenty songs? Are you kidding? What IS this?!?” It took me a couple of years to get over my skepticism and actually listen to the thing, proving once again that I am an idiot. Far and away my favorite. It’s worth holding out for the deluxe version, though. The alternate version of Riot Act will rip the top of your skull clean off all by itself.
I think his last unqualified success was Imperial Bedroom, and for all that it’s currently the top download, it still feels somehow underrated. It’s almost too painful for repeated listenings in the same session, though. Sinatra could have put Town Crier on “Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely.” Should have, maybe would have, if only Elvis was out of diapers at the time.
Probably all that you need to know about my wife and me is that Get Happy! is my favorite, and Imperial Bedroom is hers.
After nearly 30 years of trying, REALLY trying, I still think Almost Blue is a waste — like The Beatles releasing an entire album of George’s Indian songs between Rubber Soul and Revolver or something — but Elvis earned a mulligan. Play through, sir, play through.
It’s astonishing enough that he released as many amazing “proper” albums as he did in such a short time, but it’s even more astonishing when you see what DIDN’T wind up on proper albums. If you don’t plan on buying the deluxe edition of every single Elvis release from the 70s and early 80s, then both Taking Liberties and Out of Our Idiot are MUST BUYs. I generally prefer the latter, which I think holds up really, really well, even if you own all the deluxe editions. Highly, highly recommended.
Trust deserves special attention. I think both this and, to a lesser extent but still true, Armed Forces are better as entire albums than the first two, but they had the misfortune not to crater the entire world and cause the extinction of the dinosaurs the way that My Aim Is True and This Year’s Model did. But seriously, Trust in dead last for downloads right now? I can only hope that this is an artifact of everything showing up at once, because, dude, this infamy must not stand. Comfortably my second favorite that, other than being lumped in with “the first four,” I almost never hear singled out. Don’t miss it.
Joe-will we be getting any more of the deluxe/expanded Elvis Costello records?
If I remember correctly, the expanded Elvis Costello discs originally came out on Rhino Records, who seem to have lost the rights. That run of 2-disc sets is all gone from the market, which is a shame because they were each near-perfect as far as deluxe editions went.
Hey man emusic messed up this record is not on sale untile 3 31- please take it down immeditaely.
Specifically, the dirty beaches lp. Take it down now!
“Specifically, the dirty beaches lp. Take it down now!”
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Pardon me? What do you mean?
Oh. Somehow I missed the first of your two comments. I’m sure eMusic will correct it, and the disc will be back, hopefully on release date?
I don’t know if you read this blog or the comments, but in case you do, I love this band. I hope this disc is a huge success for you.
Hey Brandon:
It looks like there’s an error in the metadata — specifically, the release date we were given for this title. We’re looking into it with the distributor.
Dirty Beaches now unavailable, with a message on the album page saying it will return in late March.
Are the Rykodisc and Rhino reissues hard to find now? I can’t imagine why anybody would buy an Elvis album with zero bonus tracks instead of the 7-15 tracks they used to come with.
Yes, they’re really hard to find. I replaced my Rykodisc editions w/ the 2-disc versions, which had much better audio and also the music-nerd benefit of giving you one disc with the original tracklist, leaving all bonus material on the second disc (my personal preference). Probably eBay will have some, maybe used record shops.