— David Hepworth
Befitting an individual who earned a healthy amount of praise (four Singles of the Fortnight in the eighties, tying him with The Cure and Pet Shop Boys), Elvis Costello's relative lack of success proved to be an ongoing concern for Smash Hits writers. Tim De Lisle felt that his nibs needed a "big hit that will become a standard", something that wasn't in the cards for SOTF "Man Out of Time". Ro Newton was too busy appreciating the man's genius and the overall brilliance of "Tokyo Storm Warning" to get caught up in something as trivial as his chart potential but Richard Lowe is hopeful that "Veronica" will bring him back into the "Fun 40" (it did indeed do so even if he was probably thinking of something better than number 31). The critics loved him so what was wrong with the record buying public?
It hadn't always been this way. Costello's early career had seen him enjoy a decent run of nine Top 40 hits on the bounce, from "Watching the Detectives" through to "New Amsterdam", a period that coincides with the closest he ever came to being a singles act. Debut album My Aim Is True is a big favourite of many fans but the highlights ("Less Than Zero", "Alison", "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes", as well as "...Detectives" off the American edition, amazingly the only hit of the bunch) are those that were also released as 45s. Follow-up This Year's Model is strong from top to bottom but it almost sounds like thirteen singles shoved together. 1979's Armed Forces is a bit uneven like My Aim Is True and there's a reason everyone's favourite number from it is "Oliver's Army". Again, Get Happy!! from a year later sounds like a giant sprawl of singles, its label reading '20 GREAT HITS' in the top right corner being only somewhat of a joke. Costello's best songs were singles; his best albums had as many singles as possible.
Fifth album Trust came out at the start of 1981. For the first time, it didn't feature any major standouts; on the other hand, it was commendably low on LP filler. There's the sense that its fourteen tracks all belong, even if "Lover's Walk" and "Luxembourg" aren't quite as solid as the others. Having fourteen cuts may not seem like anything special but most of The Beatles' classic albums had that many tracks (A Hard Day's Night and Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band would have if not for rejected George Harrison numbers) and, indeed, Trust has something of the throwback sixties record about it for that reason. Many of these great Fab Four albums didn't include singles on them — With the Beatles, Beatles for Sale, Rubber Soul, Pepper, as well as double set The White Album — and, in spite of the demands of their American label Capitol, didn't need them. Standalone and/or film tie-in singles kept them at the top of the charts while their albums remained largely untouched. (The much ballyhooed Revolver had the double A-side "Eleanor Rigby"/"Yellow Submarine" released from it but it's unlikely that the single made much of a difference in how it has been appreciated)
"From a Whisper to a Scream" was the second and final UK single culled from Trust and it makes me wonder how Costello, his fellow Attractions, label F-Beat and any other concerned parties went about choosing their 45's. First release "Clubland" only got to number 60 in Britain and it too seems like an unlikely chart hit. Was "You'll Never Be a Man" deemed potentially too sexist? Did Costello fear alienating his fans by putting out the XTC-inspired "White Knuckles", a song whose inspiration he had to keep secret from his laddish bandmates? Was "Strict Time" nixed for being too bloody wordy, even by Costello's lofty standards? All fourteen of its cuts comes with at least one 'but' as far as commercial potential, with "From a Whisper to a Scream" and American release "Watch Your Step" as perhaps the closest.
Still, single or deep cut, hit or flop, "From a Whisper to a Scream" is indeed a gem as David Hepworth says. With some crunchy guitar chords and Bruce Thomas' bouncy guiding bass, it opens with a pop. The dueling vocals of Costello and guesting Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze manage to contrast each other in the verses while the two come together effectively in the chorus. The harsh and occasionally nasty singing of the former makes the more child-like singing of the latter a welcome addition. Its a relentless track and it's only until long after the fact that you realise he never bothered with a middle eight.
Great as it is, however, it doesn't come close to the full scope of Costello's considerable abilities, as well as those of his fellow Attractions. A better appreciation of them can be found on the Trust album itself, something that would carry forward the following year on the similarly hit-free masterpiece Imperial Bedroom. (The two albums bookend the release of Almost Blue, a collection of country music covers which resulted in the Top 10 single "A Good Year for the Roses"; I once worked in a bookstore with a guy who said it was his favourite Costello album which is tantamount to saying "I don't like Elvis Costello all that much") These two LPs represent him at the peak of his powers. So what if the hits had all dried up?
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Yoko Ono: "Walking on Thin Ice"
People have softened on Yoko Ono over the last few years but you still don't hear people praise her singing very much, do you? When people make fun of her unique vocals they don't appear to be referencing this song, even though it happened to be the biggest hit she made under her own name. Hepworth reckons that its chances of doing well are mainly down to the aftermath of John Lennon's murder (he was "working on [it] the night he was turned into a crime statistic") but surely they could've scraped the bottom of the barrel with something under his name if they really were after yet another sure-fire hit. It did all right (number 35, a peak it would hit again over twenty years later) but it has since been hailed as a bit of a classic, better than much of what ended up on John and Yoko's Double Fantasy album. Hepworth points out that Lennon's "sheet lighting guitar solo" is an example of how he "decided to leave the boundary-breaking" to his wife and he's right, especially considering how shockingly conventional Ono sounds on this same record. In any case, "Walking on Thin Ice" was a baby step towards her eventual rehabilitation in the eyes of the public and it would go on to be covered by (well, fancy that!) Elvis Costello. Fuzzbox would also go on to do a version of it at the end of the eighties; I wonder what it's like...
No comments:
Post a Comment