Re: Costello's Low Points

Arnold Gallagher wrote:
> lazuli777@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote in news:15823-45259C65-1697@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 3236.bay.webtv.net:
>
> > I agree just About Glad is a masterpiece-I think I've made more pro
> > Elvis comments than negative ones in the totality of my posts. As far
as
> > masterpieces- I don't think Elvis has made a full fledged masterpice
> > since IB.
>
> BZZZZZ wrong answer!
>
> All This Useless Beauty, the greatest musical performance ever by
anyone.
> Even though I apologized and corrected myself and now recognize IB as a
> great masterpiece rather than the boring album I once called it.

At the distance of ten years, I don't know how ATUB's excellence got
past me when it was released in 1996. Not that I ever thought it was
*bad* -- I remember liking it well enough, but just not thinking it was
"top-tier"; that it was strong in spots but lacked cohesion, or
something. I put it aside for a while and only listened once in a while
to isolated tracks. Today it hits me as really potent, consistent,
something that holds together as well as anything he's done.
"Complicated Shadows," "It's Time," and "You Bowed Down" are
electrifying; "Distorted Angel" is marvelously twisted and insinuating
and warped; "Little Atoms" and "Starting To Come To Me" are
tours-de-force of clever Costellian verbal gamesman****p with insanely
catchy music to go with them; and "Poor Fractured Atlas," "Telescope,"
and "I Want To Vanish" are just beautiful songs (although -- heresy
coming -- I think only "Atlas" gets the definitive performance it
deserves; his strained, hung-over vocal masks the full beauty of
"Telescope," and I prefer June Tabor's original "I Want To Vanish" to
the author's "cover" here).

As mentioned earlier in the thread, I find "Why Can't A Man Stand
Alone?" tedious, and "Shallow Grave" is just middling as the Mc & Mac
collaborations go, but two questionable songs (and neither of *those* a
disgrace) out of twelve isn't bad at all.

Todd K