what to buy from elvis costello?

This was covered quite recently here but you may be looking for some of his more recent offerings as this is a recent recording.

You cannot go wrong however with "King of America"



SJB

Armed Forces still does it for me,along with Blood & Chocolate, All This Useless Beauty, & his collaboration with Allen Toussant entitled The Rivers In Reverse. King Of America, with the previous recommendations would give a fairly broad representation of his good stuff. Mind you, Man out of Time is still one of my favourite Costello tracks.
Matt.

sloop, manicatel,

thanks for the hints. that should be sufficient for the start. and sorry for starting this issue again. did a search with the exact words from above and - probably due to severe grammar errors - got no result that suited my needs.

cheers!

I am a big fan of EC for the period from 1977 to 1986. I would recommend

Get Happy
King of America
This Years Model

I also really like Almost Blue as I think that he demonstrates his vocal skills on the country material and also that he was way ahead of his time in taking on a style that was, at that time, unfashionable.

I would strongly recommend as follows:

• Imperial Bedroom - (this is flawless in my opinion)
• Get Happy! (short pithy songs with so many melodic and rhymic hooks it is almost ridiculous. Once again no dud songs here)
• Trust - (Every song is good here with some vey smart lyrics - bu smart lyrics abound on all is albums)
• Blood And Chocolate - (songs that veer into slightly more epic proportions and with dense overall musical delivery. I found it took a littl adjusting to but found it to be most satisfying. I do think it is pretty melodramatic at times both lyrically and in delivery - but what the hey!)

He is a master singer/songwriter. And his catalogue is chock-a-block full of excellence but in my opinion the abovementioned fend off the others by a slim margin. But its all personal taste in the finish.



Norman

quote:

Trust - (Every song is good here with some vey smart lyrics - bu smart lyrics abound on all is albums)

sorry about the typo's in this. His lyrics may be very smart but from that posted effort my certainly need work on. I think the meaning still came through though.

cheers

Norman

So far I have bought:

Armed Forces
King of America
Get Happy

Whilst in my opinion King of America is the best I would recommend them all.

Try and look out the expanded 2CD sets. Great sound and loads of songs (50 in the case of Get Happy).

I really need to check out some more.

Cheers

worm

My favourite is Punch the Clock from 1983 - includes Shipbuilding. This Year's Model and Armed Forces are the classics. Not very keen on his recent work.

I vote for My Aim Is True some great songs on it - Welcome To The Working Week, Alison, Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes, Waiting For The End Of The World and Watching The Detectives - IIRC.

Another vote for Imperial Bedroom - brilliant, but you've got to have This Year's Model in the collection, and maaaybe Armed Forces, but if you only buy one, get Bedroom
Cheers
John

gratefully a friend of mine has turned out to posess most of the recommended album. will borrow out to check before i buy

petite disclaimer: though i do not condemn ripping music i guess in the end you will need to buy the music you love. a copied disc just never gets the same attention as an original.

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned All This Useless Beauty.

Elvis definitely peaked early with My Aim is True, Armed Forces and This Year's Model.

Blood and Chocolate is probably the best of his later albums.

For sentimental reasons, and as a big fan, I truly love Painted From Memory and North. But that's just me.

dear folks,

i think it is always nice to let people know what happened after their recommendations were given.

well. the matter was taken out of my hand. a good friend and self-declared costello-addict gave me two cds for my birthday (i've told him about my love for the edith-and-the-kingpin-version).

- north
- painted from memory

first of all. i fell in love with both of them, north for the more serious moments of being sentimental paint from memory for the brighter moments in life.

north is about to enter one of the lists you put together when asked to name a few really important albums in your life. (the one with the 100 entries for a start. it even might rise into the one with 50. time will tell)

all of them i like for their sense of instrumentation, his voice - guess the stuff he is famous for???

now i ordered some more stuff, namely juliet letters and another one on deutsche grammophon, which i believe will still my hunger for more nicely arranged strings, horns and whatever.

after that i will come back to king of america and the others. so, after all, i guess i will end up working myself through his works in less than six months.

thanks for your help again which is very much appreciated.

The Story Of Elvis Costello. 9:30 tonight, BBC 6music.

quote:

Originally posted by Malky:
The Story Of Elvis Costello. 9:30 tonight, BBC 6music.

Thanks - I'll give that a listen.

buy the rights for his next 50 songs, if you can get them for a tenner. they'll be bound to earn you some money.