River in Reverse discussion

johnfoyle · Post by **johnfoyle** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 7:09 am

RIR didn't make the Mercury shortlist -

http://www.utvlive.com/newsroom/indepth ... 10862&pt=e

So now it's a matter of waiting for Grammy nods.

mood swung · Post by **mood swung** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 1:33 pm

I started to say 'oh, he's a shoo-in for the sympathy vote', but then I realized that they might just have a special New Orleans/Katrina category, and Faith Hill seems to have a lock on those.

Post by **BlueChair** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 1:39 pm

Elvis' place in music history has long been solidified and we have The River in Reverse to enjoy for ourselves. So really, does it matter how many awards the album gets nominated for?

mood swung · Post by **mood swung** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 1:47 pm

Oh, yes. It's vitally important. Life or death stuff. I want my taste validated by the people who gave Jethro Tull the Best Metal award. I want the Great Unwashed Stamp of Approval that only a grammy can give.

Post by **spooky girlfriend** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 1:49 pm

I think everyone is just crossing their fingers for him to get a bit of well-deserved recognition. He's pretty used to being blown off on many counts by now though, and even if no awards come of RIR it still won't stop EC from making excellent music.

pophead2k · Post by **pophead2k** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 2:07 pm

I want to see the album recognized because I think it is not only enjoyable, but important. Of course I'm biased, but I'd like to think that any effort to keep New Orleans and the plight of many of its citizens in the public eye is welcome indeed. Besides, Allen is a genius and it is high time he is publically recognized as such! Who else can pull of the socks and sandal combo so elegantly? No one!

King Hoarse · Post by **King Hoarse** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 2:59 pm

Just a thought about his UK status:

I asked for the CD at HMV Heathrow on June 22nd, hoping for a tax free bargain. Since it was quite new I started looking on the top 40 shelf but no luck there. New releases? Nope. "Must be in the EC section" I thought, but there wasn't even one of those. "Fishy" I thought, and asked. The first guy hadn't heard about the album, so he asked his collegue who said they had had a few copies but returned them all earlier in the day as they hadn't sold any of them.

Sad state of affairs really.

(But I landed the latest brilliant Frank Black double CD for less than a tenner so I went on my merry way. One spectacled blob's loss is another one's gain etc.)

VonOfterdingen · Post by **VonOfterdingen** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 5:57 am

After being released for 3 weeks I still hadn't seen a Danish review of River in Reverse. I contacted the most important Danish music-webside and they had not recieved the album. They have now: http://gaffa.dk/anmeldelser/view.php/mreview_id=31936

I also spoke to a Danish music critic a while ago, and he hadn't even heard of it. He wrote this review 2 weeks ago:
http://politiken.dk/VisArtikel.sasp?PageID=464599

Both are 5/6 star reviews - Im happy to help spread the word about the album in this 'Who is that Elvis Costello guy'-country.

Post by **BlueChair** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 5:58 am

Since when do people review albums out of 6??

King Hoarse · Post by **King Hoarse** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 7:32 am

Good job, Von! The piece for iByen is the best review of RiR I've read. Would make me check the album out even if I didn't know any of the musicians involved, (ie. in Bizarroworld).

VonOfterdingen · Post by **VonOfterdingen** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 7:45 am

BlueChair wrote:Since when do people review albums out of 6??

Music and films in Denmark are always rated 1-6 stars. I think it's the same in Sweden and Norway. In Sweden they often use a dice

King Hoarse · Post by **King Hoarse** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 8:41 am

VonOfterdingen wrote:
BlueChair wrote:Since when do people review albums out of 6??
Music and films in Denmark are always rated 1-6 stars. I think it's the same in Sweden and Norway. In Sweden they often use a dice

How true! You'd think Luke Rhinehart was a Swedish reviewer.

thepopeofpop · Post by **thepopeofpop** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 8:44 am

There's an inverse relationship between the number of Grammies won and the actual quality of a record, surely. I suppose they might have accidentally have given one of those awards to something good once or twice...

No problem getting RIR over here but it's not exactly troubling the upper reaches of the charts, that's for sure. It's not even troubling the lower regions of the charts as far as I can ascertain. Somebody's buying the thing, but I think there's some kind of filter on the charts. They don't include sales to people with musical taste I suspect.

There's got to be something to this theory - Elvis greatest hits never hit the top 100 in the USA and within a few years was certified platinum. How do you sell a million records without um, charting? Funny that.

so lacklustre · Post by **so lacklustre** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 11:34 am

Artistes with more than 100,000 comedy hats are automatically excluded from the charts. That'll be it.

verbal gymnastics · Post by **verbal gymnastics** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 4:42 am

King Hoarse wrote:I asked for the CD at HMV Heathrow on June 22nd

I wonder how many people would actually be interested in buying a specific album at an airport - would you save much money? I must admit, if there was an album I wanted I wouldn't buy it at an airport unless I was a real completist and wanted a version from a different country. Then again, if I was in Japan I would be tempted to look...

thepopeofpop · Post by **thepopeofpop** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 6:34 am

so lacklustre wrote:Artistes with more than 100,000 comedy hats are automatically excluded from the charts. That'll be it.

The problem arises when the number of comedy hats exceeds the sales of the current album

verbal gymnastics · Post by **verbal gymnastics** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 8:00 am

Perhaps they could do something similar to what they did with Get Happy and give away a copy of the album with each hat. You could have a limited edition.

thepopeofpop · Post by **thepopeofpop** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 8:19 am

verbal gymnastics wrote:Perhaps they could do something similar to what they did with Get Happy and give away a copy of the album with each hat. You could have a limited edition.

But then they might be accused of rigging the sales... of the hats...

They could throw in a fake beard too, just for good measure. And little cutouts of the Imposters. They're just like a real band, only smaller. And, I dunno, little Bruce Thomas stress balls, or something. Throw everything at this one, I can smell a hit in the making!

Poor Deportee · Post by **Poor Deportee** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 9:26 am

I've been thinking about this for a while...

The politics of 'River in Reverse' bother me. Now don't get me wrong, of course I agree that the US government behaved horrendously, as did the some of the media; I agree that the ineffectual response was the logical outcome of decades of gutting the American state of its capacity to serve citizens domestically due to self-serving tax cuts by the wealthy elite, an anti-state right wing ideology, and bloated military expenditure; and most of all I agree that Katrina exposed underlying and massive injustices at the heart of American society, particularly the intolerable gulf between rich and poor and (worst of all) the continuing status of African Americans as underclass.

Right. What bothers me is that Elvis Costello is, albeit in a musically suave way, sees fit to go around lecturing Americans about these problems. There seems to me something presumptuous and ill-mannered about this British songwriter, recently transplanted to Canada of all places, wagging his finger at Americans for what ultimately is a domestic matter. 'You run your society badly, you jerks.'

The contrast is with his utterly devastating, and perfectly appropriate, assaults on Thatcherism in England. That was his home turf, he was living it - a cry from an embedded, engaged soul in a convulsing society. EC's Katrina activism, however, has a whiff of borrowed outrage, not to say glib celebrity self-righteousness, about it. (In that, it reminds me of Gordon Lightfoot's 'Black Day in July,' a Canadian lecturing Americans on their racial problems...as though Canada didn't have its own sins.) Does EC understand American society? Unlikely. At best he is a dilettante in this realm of comparative sociology and social criticism - which is the politics of the first-year undergraduate, embarassing really.

So the whole thing makes me squirm a bit. Tell me, am I the only one to whom this has occured? Any thoughts?

Post by **BlueChair** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 9:49 am

Are you talking about the song or the album? Cause most of the album's songs were written decades ago. As for the song itself, Elvis may have written it alone but I don't think it's pointing-fingers at Bush any more than a track like "Button My Lip" from The Delivery Man.

In any event, you have to remember that RIR is a collaboration with Allen Toussaint, a New Orleans native, who watched the U.S. government's lousy response to Katrina as his city declined into natural and social disarray.

Furthermore, I've heard this complaint by Americans for years. I think it's easy for Americans to consider everything that goes on in their country to be a domestic issue and nobody else's business, but members of the international community are much more affected by what goes on in the U.S. than you may think. There's emotion tied in - we all have friends and family in the States who we care about, but also economic things... for example, as U.S. interest rates increase so does the value of the Canadian dollar. And when gas prices skyrocket there, they also do here.

Who Shot Sam? · Post by **Who Shot Sam?** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 1:36 pm

BlueChair wrote:Furthermore, I've heard this complaint by Americans for years.

Yeah... dumb Americans. The idea that only American citizens have a right to criticize our political leaders or their policies is frankly ludicrous. These same people seem to want to have a say in everyone else's business, but when it comes to taking criticism from an outsider (or even, increasingly, from other Americans), it gets their backs up.

johnfoyle · Post by **johnfoyle** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 4:51 pm

I just got this promo item -

Since they are all Verve artists there is , understandably, an overlap of credits.

Tedeschi's album is produced by Joe Henry , Greene's album feature Imps Pete Thomas and Davey Faragher, you know about 'Tears...' and (tangential) Ollabelle supported Elvis at the Joe's Pub launch of RIR.

Poor Deportee · Post by **Poor Deportee** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 4:52 pm

Hmmm. Well, I'm NOT American. I'm Canadian. And I think that when Americans do things in (or to) the rest of the world - e.g., invading Iraq in violation of international law - that is of course everyone's business and fair game for attack. After all, it affects us all. I just find it impertinent to get up on a public sopabox and lecture other countries about their INTERNAL business when you don't live there and probably know jack about it except what you've seen on the news.

Also - and this might be what really bothers me - I find that it comes off as an affectation. It's like a cause Elvis is putting on, like a hat - much as he puts on different musical hats, but without the same force. Social criticism has to come from a place of genuine, of-the-moment outrage, not a dilettantish adoption of other peoples' causes, for whatever reason.

(Side note: Another artifical bit is the reference to Archangels in 'Ascension Day.' Here's Elvis, who hasn't affirmed any sort of substantial spirituality in his music in 30 years, suddenly affecting the language of gospel allusions? Give me a break. I don't make a fetish of authenticity by any means, but stylistic borrowing has to meet the real person at some point or it's just more affectation).

And I'm not really talking about the album, except perhaps the especially finger-wagging 'Broken Promise Land.' More the concert and promotion around it, with EC tut-tutting the US for how it runs its own affairs.

However, if we see him as Toussaint's mouthpiece (doubtful given the respective temperments of the two men!) then I'm prattling on about nothing, of course.

thepopeofpop · Post by **thepopeofpop** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 10:19 pm

Poor Deportee wrote:However, if we see him as Toussaint's mouthpiece (doubtful given the respective temperments of the two men!) then I'm prattling on about nothing, of course.

Of course he's not Toussaint's mouthpiece, but he does have the "Allen Toussaint Stamp Of Approval".

I think this is all Elvis' honest reaction. He's not one for calculated political moves, he just writes from his gut. On this one his gut is telling him that not enough white people are making a noise on this issue.

What does it tell you that the only white artist to have made a serious artistic statement about the whole issue is a guy from England? Don't criticise Elvis - sure he's an outsider but he's saying stuff because other people aren't. If it seems galling that an Englishman should have the impertinance to do this - well, yes it should seem galling, but maybe not for the reasons you've suggested.

johnfoyle · Post by **johnfoyle** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 12:59 am

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0728/p13s02-almp.html

Christian Science Monitor, MA

Arts & Entertainment>Music / Performing Arts

from the July 28, 2006 edition

Elvis Costello & Allen Toussaint - The River in Reverse (Verve Forecast): While restless Elvis Costello ponders what he wants to be next - Opera singer? Jazz composer? Fireman? - he and New Orleans legend Allen Toussaint have collaborated on a feisty, bittersweet tribute to the Big Easy that stands with the best work either has done to date. Costello reaches back 25 years to find his "Alison"-era voice, soulfully caressing seven well-chosen Toussaint nuggets and a half-dozen new songs, including Costello's accusatory title song in which he wonders, "How long can a lie be told?/ What would I take in exchange for my soul?/ Would I notice when it was sold?" Toussaint's rollicking piano anchors the well-oiled, horn-accented backing band, the unmistakable sound of a New Orleans well worth fighting for. Grade: A-
- John Kehe