Elvis Costello Fan Forum

Listening to it again, I can't help but think that this track would've been twice as good with some self-harmonies or someone doing tight harmonies with EC throughout. The support vocals by Rhiannon Giddens are fun, as are the "whooooos" at the end, but I personally think a large number o...

Sounds like an especially intriguing show. I wouldn't mind hearing a recording, just to see how EC fulfilled the very well-articulated intentions expressed in the pre-show interview...perhaps they can issue it as a 'bonus CD' on some future release, or something.

Married To My Hack doesn't do much for me. Lack of melody is a problem. Elvis seems to stumble around " A carburator" or is it just my ears? I actually think Elvis has grown less nimble as a vocalist over the years. It's as though he's traded dexterity for texture and power. And it hurts ...

Count me among the indifferent. I rather like the lyrics to 'Married to My Hack' - a bit of fun - but I don't get much out of EC's version. Part of it is the total absence of melody. But more important is that EC's just isn't a nimble enough vocalist to deliver all those syllables in such a way as t...

Watched Under the Skin last evening with Lisa- most unsettling. The director, Jonathan Glazer, he did Sexy Beast with Ben Kingsley many years ago, may be a legitimate heir to Stanley Kubrick in his visual abilities. The opening sequence of this film is startling as the images morph into the eye of ...

I do tend to sell Sir Paul short and you are quite correct to point out that there must exist something below the surface facile nature that kept Lennon intrigued. I just have had trouble over the years trying to uncover what it is. I suspect it was and is his superiority as a musician. To have a m...

'Daft' is a particularly evocative word and you use it wonderfully to describe the man. He has always struck me as one of those 'naifs' who blissfully pass through their life, in this case a most charmed one. Your piece confirms for me a long held judgement that I would care little to spend any qua...

I took Tom Doyle's Man on the Run out of my local library the other day and had finished it two days later. Normally, I ignore "rock books" recounting the lives of performers (preferring critical discussions of the work, when I do read about these things), but I found myself intrigued by t...

There's a new Jill Barber album out. 'nuff said.

Ha ha, many of those are hilarious ("misspelling your name" - ) Clearly a lark, not the medium through which to have a meaningful exchange with The Man.

This thread has turned into "Jack's Movie Blog." :( (taps mic) Anyone alive out there? Is this thing on???? Trouble is, I don't see many films, so my contributions hereabouts are scarce. I did watch Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan , a Best Foreign Film Academy Award nominee from around 20...

Phrased perfectly-PD and Otis. Bludgeoned is so evocative of the sound they often produce. It frequently lacks subtlety. PD, as we have discussed before on this page, our boy can occasionally suffer from the same affliction. My immediate reaction to Mumford and Sons, when they appeared on the Gramm...

Mumford and Sons are awful. Just tactless folk histrionics. The older I get, the less tolerance I have for this idea that you have to bludgeon a song into submission. Good singers let the song be itself and get out of the damned way. Yet this lesson - the lesson of singing with taste - seems almost ...

I wonder what it's like to have a part of your life known to hundreds of thousands of people as The Beard Years?

I never minded the look, he resembled a total Tom O'Bedlam. Suited the utterly mad material he was doing at the time.

The remix doesn't do much for me, either. It seems to just lose the focus of the straight "Cash" version. Oh well, no harm done, really.

Great stuff! Some offhanded zingers from Zuel about EC in that piece as well. I'm still trying to figure out whether this - "Costello...is usually - and incorrectly - described as the former punk rocker who made a country album at the height of his pop fame, learnt classical scoring to work wit...

All I know is that apparently it is a huge improvement on MP3s sonically...and its files will be more expensive than the average iTunes song or whatever. I can't claim to be an audiophile at all, so unless I notice a MASSIVE difference I'll personally be unlikely to pursue it, assuming it costs sign...

I listened to this podcast on my way to work and I was laughing through it. The NPR group was analyzing and demolishing all the songs on the list. All the songs were hits and I disagreed with some of the comments, but, for the most part, the discussion is valid. http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/20...

Yes, Jack, it would not surprise me at all if finances play a role in her malaise. I don't know her situation, but I suspect that it's basically akin to living like a student - permanently. That's great when you're 25, but the older you get the more soul-destroying such poverty typically becomes, a ...

She's "pretty sure" she's quitting music:

https://www.facebook.com/kathleenedward ... 7559491305

Sigh...

Interesting that there seems to be a recurring theme of "emotionally stunted, dysfunctional males" in these movies. I wonder if they're putting their finger on a genuine social phenomenon/problem, of if it's a ricochet off a more mythological and Boomer-centric narrative about the Millenni...

That's a great post, Chris. Thanks for that. Beyond the music itself, you are describing a man who was, perhaps above all else, a great citizen of his town and his republic. This is an old idea of civic virtue that used to be commonplace and has now almost completely sunk down below a conception of ...

How can nobody has referenced Pete Seeger's passing in this thread???

Seeger's folk style wasn't really my cup of tea, but only a fool would fail to recognize the scale of his contribution to American music. Fare thee well, Mr. Seeger.

Watched "Jeff, who Lives at Home" on Netflix last night - the result of a compromise with the missus who wanted something "light" while I, as usual, pushed for dramas etc.. A somewhat contrived little tale about two adult, loser brothers (Ed Helms and Jason Segal) and their mom (...

My goodness, Chris, this thread is turning into your private blog entry site! Not that that's not great and all, but... :( Where are all the thoughtful interlocutors to respond to all of these well-developed reflections on cinema?? (I can't add much value here myself - I'm busy out of my mind at wor...