Brutal Youth by Elvis Costello (1994)
Sorry it’s been so long since my last post, those of you out there who give a hoot. This is the busy time of year for me at work blah, blah, blah…Last week I finished watching the ten-part documentary Ken Burns made about “Jazz.” Pretty interesting stuff and maybe I’ll comment on it in the future since it really deserves it and might save you the 18 hours of watching it if you’re not freakishly into music like certain people I could name.
While I personally have been on a jazz kick fueled by the above, my Excel spreadsheet seems to be getting a little sentimental, picking out some of my favorite artists. Today, Elvis Costello.
A Random CD Review from the Stutzman Memorial Library
Brutal Youth by Elvis Costello (1994)
Man, what a fabulous album we have here! And I do mean an album. Not a mere collection of songs. This whole disc has a dynamic, “live-in-the-studio” vibe, thanks largely to Tchad Blake’s engineering. Blake is known for being the most influential proponent and developer of binaural recording in the studio. Basically what he would do is record certain parts with two room mics positioned on the ears of a “dummy head.” I’m not sure how many tracks of each song were recorded in this manner, but the end result is a hyper-realistic audio experience that makes you feel like you are in the room, especially when listening through headphones. There are some kind of physical phenomena that occur when sound is picked up by your ears that is not reproducible by traditional close-mic’ing. Maybe it’s caused by your ears receiving the sounds at very slightly different times. Anyway, I assume that this method of recording is one of the things that produces this album’s “vibey-ness.”
Quite simply, this is Costello at his best if you ask me- catchy melodies, succinct arrangements, stripped-down instrumentation, and guitars that sound like they’ve had thirty or so years to learn how to resonate. Stylistically there is some edgy pop “13 Steps Lead Down,” reserved balladry “Still Too Soon to Know” and some straight-ahead rock “20 % Amnesia,” but it all showcases great memorable hooks and some pretty smart harmonies. The melancholy of the closing song “Favourite Hour” with just EC at the piano alone made the disc worth the cost for me.
I don’t know what the story is with why Costello dropped his band The Attractions, but this album, (among others), makes me think that he was just as good without them as he was with them. He strikes me as the kind that might be a bit bossy with his songs, kind of like a Jeff Tweedy-type guy. But that’s mere conjecture.
I highly recommend that anybody who doesn’t own this album to rectify that situation, put it on around 6 or 7 in the evening and just crank it. I dare you to try to not sing along.
posted by Mike @ 4:13 PM
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