The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Pretty self-explanatory
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jardine
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by jardine »

This always puts me in mine of an old habit I had going back to 1965 [me 14 going on 15] of putting Beatle songs on a list with a top ten typed with the red-ink ribbon [i still have a couple in a box somewhere!]. And now, what am i to do with North? The White Album? Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest? and Dragonnewwarmmountain? Who's on first?

I still want to "top five" things, but that itch has settled now a lot. It used to satisfy something. It used to be a kind of sorting mechanism, I suppose. For me, it has come down to -- is this worth spending my life over, using up some of my fading hearing and attention? If I may say so, back in the day, The Moody Blues served their function and I'm glad of it in retrospect, but i don't need to be listening to them anymore. they are no longer 'on the list'.... They didn't "last." Anyway, morning babble from the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Just my way of absorbing the backs and forths.
sulky lad
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by sulky lad »

Lovely Jardine, May all your days be filled with music you love abs cherish no matter how far up the scale. Thanks for your wise words especially personally on a torrid work day ! Glad bless you !
JPadoo
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by JPadoo »

After taking an extended break from TBNI, returning to it is amazingly rewarding. It’s a REALLY REALLY good record. No doubt about it. Putting it on the same level as Get Happy!! is a bit crazy, since I believe that is the greatest record EVER made!, but hey, I don’t particularly care for Sgt. Pepper or Abbey Road, so what do I know.(Rubber Soul and The White Album much preferred)…Anyways, as they say, it’s definitely a top 10, maybe top 8 EC LP for me for whatever that’s worth. (BTW, Imperial Bedroom doesn’t make my top 10, so there’s no accounting for one’s personal taste).
Hawksmoor
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by Hawksmoor »

JPadoo wrote:After taking an extended break from TBNI, returning to it is amazingly rewarding. It’s a REALLY REALLY good record. No doubt about it. Putting it on the same level as Get Happy!! is a bit crazy, since I believe that is the greatest record EVER made!
You have a kindred spirit here. In fact, Get Happy!! is possibly the only LP that I don't even need to own. Every word and every note is so seared onto my mind that I can 'hear it' any time I want to.
jardine
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by jardine »

yep. this is why 'how often i listen to a, b or c" isn't a good measure of how much i cherish certain music.
njbp
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by njbp »

May I offer a contrarian opinion. I am a 1977 vintage EC fan. My bona fides are that I’ve seen Elvis over 150 times (even taking my elderly Mother to the original Brodsky shows) in the UK (where I used to live) and the US (where I now live). I have bought every record and book and TV show and curio along the way. I have played the piano with Steve, recorded with Bruce, and declined selling a Western shirt to Pete. If I was ever invited to appear on Desert Island Discs I could very happily take eight tracks by Elvis (not just the early funny/angry ones; The Final Mrs Curtain is a career highlight IMvHO). My confession, after this long mea culpa, is that I don’t particularly care for The If Boy. EC said, early on, he didn’t want to repeat himself and circle the drain (I paraphrase). The brutality of his youth was what attracted me when we were cruel. It’s absence (not withstanding it’s imminent reappearance in my direction I anticipate), and it’s faint echoes on If are what perturb me now. I apologize if my screed represents a glitch in the matrix.
jardine
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by jardine »

nearly agree. loved listening to it, once again amazed by himself, but don't find it is sticking much, despite my admiration at a distance. I can't really tell if that is becasue i was 27/8 when mait and tym came out and am now over 70 and simply can't/don't/won't listen the same way. I recall dylan saying something like this about his post-2000 lps, that listeners don't listen the same way. i can't remember exactly for how long in 1966 i carried blonde on blonde under my arm everywhere i went...it was a long time. But then, i've got a recent CD that i am utterly smitten by and, well, just about carry it around with me every where i go... 8)
Hawksmoor
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by Hawksmoor »

jardine wrote:nearly agree. loved listening to it, once again amazed by himself, but don't find it is sticking much, despite my admiration at a distance. I can't really tell if that is becasue i was 27/8 when mait and tym came out and am now over 70 and simply can't/don't/won't listen the same way. I recall dylan saying something like this about his post-2000 lps, that listeners don't listen the same way. i can't remember exactly for how long in 1966 i carried blonde on blonde under my arm everywhere i went...it was a long time. But then, i've got a recent CD that i am utterly smitten by and, well, just about carry it around with me every where i go... 8)
Yep, I can resonate with all of that - although 15 years down the line from you, the principle is the same. I was punk/new wave era, and a lot of the seminal records of that time are hot-wired into my brain in ways that a 2022 LP will never, ultimately, be able to do. All Mod Cons, Searching for the Young Soul Rebels, the first Clash LP, The Skids' Scared to Dance, Siouxsie and the Banshees' The Scream, and obviously Elvis stuff like TYM/Armed Forces...these LPs have also had 45 years to settle themselves into my long-term memory and become the touchstones for what a great LP is.

And as others wiser than me have pointed out, (a) no music will ever sound quite like the music you discovered when you were 14; and (b) something weird and slightly unsettling happens to pop music when you're about 23. The main reason I have spent 45 years listening to, and collecting, pop music - to the tune of about 4,000 CDs/LPs now - is that one Thursday tea-time I was kicking a ball around in the local park. Another kid (whom I didn't really know very well, as it goes) told me that the Sex Pistols were going to be on TOTP that night and his parents had forbidden him from watching it.

Up to that point I hadn't really taken much interest in pop music, or bought any records, or even heard of the Sex Pistols. But by God, I wanted to now, didn't I? How exciting is that - a pop group so dangerous that your parents wouldn't even let you see them? It was utterly intoxicating. But the reality of getting older is that I'm never going to feel quite so excited about pop music ever again, am I? I think my last gasp was probably 1996 - and in fairness, I was 32 by then. The MSP released 'A Design for Life' (their first single after Richey disappeared), and before it was actually released I recorded it on a cassette - probably from the John Peel show. The next morning I had it on in the car, driving to work, and had to pull over and burst into tears because it affected me that deeply.

I don't think I'll ever feel that way about a pop record ever again. But is that because pop music has deteriorated, is it because I'm past that point in my life, or is it because nobody - myself included - listens to pop music in the way we did c1960-1990?
jardine
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by jardine »

must say i've had a couple of things that were similar in shape and feel over the past few years...but i guess we're into a topic for another thread. in those two cases, it became one of those "buy everything they have done"...one person stretching back to 1990, the other [my wallet was relieved!] back to 2014.

in both cases, finding them was sheer happenstance -- pitchfork reviews that just happened to lead to youtube that just happened to lead to...etc. what's deeply missing is there are no longer huddles in the deep evenings with friends, listening and listening again together. sometimes i hestate even telling old friends for fear they won't like this new stuff.

so here's to elvis, eh? [sorry, canadian]. despite all the coming and going, 45 years of "What???" and this latest, whatever else, is a beautiful thing however it might measure up or down. lucky us.
Newspaper Pane
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by Newspaper Pane »

jardine wrote:must say i've had a couple of things that were similar in shape and feel over the past few years...but i guess we're into a topic for another thread. in those two cases, it became one of those "buy everything they have done"...one person stretching back to 1990, the other [my wallet was relieved!] back to 2014.

in both cases, finding them was sheer happenstance -- pitchfork reviews that just happened to lead to youtube that just happened to lead to...etc. what's deeply missing is there are no longer huddles in the deep evenings with friends, listening and listening again together. sometimes i hestate even telling old friends for fear they won't like this new stuff.

so here's to elvis, eh? [sorry, canadian]. despite all the coming and going, 45 years of "What???" and this latest, whatever else, is a beautiful thing however it might measure up or down. lucky us.
Exactly. "Lucky us" that this artist can put out a work like "TBNI" at this stage of the game. Remarkable.
sulky lad
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by sulky lad »

Absolutely! Aren’t we fortunate not to have someone releasing material that we might buy out of loyalty and then feel heartbroken to think they had sunk to such a low level. Not thinking of anyone in case you think I’ve someone in mind but there have been so many tailings off . Didn’t Elvis once say he wouldn’t be around to witness his decline - well he’s still here producing great albums !!
Hawksmoor
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by Hawksmoor »

sulky lad wrote:Absolutely! Aren’t we fortunate not to have someone releasing material that we might buy out of loyalty and then feel heartbroken to think they had sunk to such a low level. Not thinking of anyone in case you think I’ve someone in mind but there have been so many tailings off . Didn’t Elvis once say he wouldn’t be around to witness his decline - well he’s still here producing great albums !!
Exactly. Well...there are others of that generation who keep up the pace, to be fair. Paul Weller for one, although I assume for him it's partly about the amount of alimony from so many marriages and children! And although I don't know the figures, I'd assume that people like Elvis, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney and so on...financially, they don't actually need to work again, ever, for the rest of their lives, do they? So it's still exciting for me that Elvis is (a) so committed to writing and recording (great) new songs; and (b) so blindingly obviously interested in popular music, and in talking about it at every opportunity. We are very lucky.
Arnie
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by Arnie »

Out of 5 stars, I'd give this one 3. And I tried. The Boy Named If, not getting what that means ... the title song is tedious and Spinal Tap'ish. Hard to listen to. 70% of the album is not at all good, but the parts I do like are really outstanding. Penelope. Paint the Red Rose. and Mr. Crescent.

Farewell is okay. :D The rest of the album is Elvis in exploratory outer space, and not good discovery. Sorry.
GCM
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by GCM »

There's no need to apologise for not liking the record. I've read all the gushing reviews and enjoyed the increased exposure Elvis has received with the release of TBNI. But however much I've tried, I just don't like it much and haven't gone back to it very often.
Turn The Red Rose Blue is outstanding and a couple of the others are pretty good, but in the main it's just not for me.
cwr
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by cwr »

I'm finding the contrarian opinions refreshing, especially the way they're being expressed here-- not in any way bitter or angry, just clear-eyed that we all receive these things differently depending on where we are situated in our lives. Not everything connects!

I'm super aware that, as a fan who got on board in high school with The Juliet Letters, I absorbed EC's 1977-1992 back catalog quite differently than someone who who had been absorbing each new album as it was released in order. I didn't hear any of EC's "departures" as a diversion from the norm, because I had *started* out with a song cycle for voice and string quartet, telling stories in the forms of different kinds of letters. An album like Spike was less surprising to me at that point than a record like TYM.

Costello has made so many records and written so many songs that, at this point, a fan who's heard it all has an almost overloaded brain, even more so if (as I suspect is the case with many of us) EC has also served as a music recommendation machine over the decades, constantly pointing to his influences and inspirations.

This makes each new album a joyful surprise but also an additional 11 to 15 songs added to the pile, to be processed and experienced and compared and contrasted to what has come before.

For me, hearing a song like "The Difference" is almost like magic-- how can it be that he can still surprise and thrill me at this point, with a new song that doesn't feel like it is copying some past glory or veering into territory that isn't playing to his strengths?

I don't know how he does it. But I also totally understand why two different, equally enthusiastic fans would have a totally opposite reaction to any new Costello record. Sometimes-- and this gets truer as I get older-- an album arrives at either the right moment or the 100% wrong moment for me to connect with it. (I recently revisited the R.E.M. album Reveal, which I found pleasant-sounding but dull when it first came out, and it occurred to me "if R.E.M. reunited today and made this exact album TODAY, I would probably be really excited to hear it.")

The Boy Named If and Look Now (and, to a lesser extent, Hey Clockface) are records I never thought would happen. I had sort of given up on the idea that EC would ever make more new albums after things had seemingly slowed in the years following National Ransom, with him only really making records if someone else coaxed him into the studio. I figured he had just lost the interest in doing it, and it made me sad but grateful for what we had. I'm sort of doubly grateful for this recent burst of activity, at least in part because I had given up on it ever happening...
Hawksmoor
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by Hawksmoor »

cwr wrote:I'm finding the contrarian opinions refreshing, especially the way they're being expressed here-- not in any way bitter or angry, just clear-eyed that we all receive these things differently depending on where we are situated in our lives. Not everything connects!
What a great post, and makes me think about the way we all connect with these records, over time.
cwr wrote:ICostello has made so many records and written so many songs that, at this point, a fan who's heard it all has an almost overloaded brain, even more so if (as I suspect is the case with many of us) EC has also served as a music recommendation machine over the decades, constantly pointing to his influences and inspirations. This makes each new album a joyful surprise but also an additional 11 to 15 songs added to the pile, to be processed and experienced and compared and contrasted to what has come before.
Exactly that, and that's surely one of the joys of this forum.
cwr wrote:For me, hearing a song like "The Difference" is almost like magic-- how can it be that he can still surprise and thrill me at this point, with a new song that doesn't feel like it is copying some past glory or veering into territory that isn't playing to his strengths?...
Really echo this. Looking back over my own experiences, one of the constants has been (a) buying a new Elvis Costello LP; (b) rushing home to play it (or more recently, watching out of the window for the Amazon delivery van to pull up, thinking 'c'mon, you bastard, where are you?'; (c) playing the LP for the first time and thinking 'phew, think this is still pretty good'; and (d) best of all, hitting that moment that makes you jump out of the chair and think 'yes - he's done it again!'

For Imperial Bedroom that was perched in my brother's bedroom (can't even remember why I wasn't playing it downstairs on the 'main' record player) and the moment when the 'noisy' intro to 'Man Out Of Time' gives way to that Dylanesque main riff. For King of America it was sitting in
the student house I then lived in, playing it on somebody else's record player, and the middle eight of 'Lovable' ('they say they're going to bury you deep...'). For All This Useless Beauty it was hastily trying to get a first listen on my own between getting home from work and heading out for a meal with friends, and it was the glorious cut from the ending of 'Starting to Come to Me' into the pounding intro to 'You Bowed Down'.

For The Delivery Man it was listening in the car on the way to work, and the exhilarating middle-eight of 'Story in Your Voice' ('far away, not far enough...'). And yes, for The Boy Named If it was exactly that catchy hook in 'The Difference' when he first goes into 'do you know, do you know...'!
cwr wrote:I don't know how he does it. But I also totally understand why two different, equally enthusiastic fans would have a totally opposite reaction to any new Costello record. Sometimes-- and this gets truer as I get older-- an album arrives at either the right moment or the 100% wrong moment for me to connect with it.
Yep. I'm not the biggest fan of North to this day. But I totally accept that I hated it when it came out, mainly for personal reasons. Because of what was going on in my life, hearing Elvis singing about going through a break-up but then immediately finding a wonderful new lover just made me think 'well, good for you, pal, good for ****ing you! I hope you're having a great time!' And sure, that's a pretty dumb reason to dislike a pop record, but there it is.
cwr wrote:The Boy Named If and Look Now (and, to a lesser extent, Hey Clockface) are records I never thought would happen. I had sort of given up on the idea that EC would ever make more new albums after things had seemingly slowed in the years following National Ransom, with him only really making records if someone else coaxed him into the studio. I figured he had just lost the interest in doing it, and it made me sad but grateful for what we had. I'm sort of doubly grateful for this recent burst of activity, at least in part because I had given up on it ever happening...
Strongly feel this too. One of the reasons I love him so much, as a writer and as a performer, is that incessant sense of prolificity. Itchy feet. That whole thing of 'yeah, that was a great record, but listen, I've written a new song now - you wanna hear it?' I love that. He's always talked about packing it all in, but I remember a Pete Thomas interview - probably in the 1990s - where he said something like 'oh yeah, he's been going to pack it in next week ever since I've known him!'

But like you, since about 2010 he had really been big on this idea that making LPs was a fool's errand, certainly in financial terms (and I'm sure it is, actually!). Which made me a bit sad, as he did seem to be sticking to that idea, for a while. So the return to making LPs post-2018 is just glorious - particularly when they're this good! And he's still hinting at 'more surprises'.
Neil.
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by Neil. »

Yeah, I love those moments that hit you on first listen, Hawksmoor!

One I particularly remember was when the hook phrase FINALLY landed after the long, snaking melody that led up to it. It just seemed SO right! I love that song!
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by Miclewis »

I love how on an EC album that the song that you like the least ends up being a real favorite. For TBNI, I cringed a little when I first heard “Mistook for a Friend” - now I love it.
For Look Now, it was “Dishonor the Stars”. Then there is “In the Darkest Place”, “The Name Of This Thing Is Not Love”, “Dear Sweet Filthy World”, etc…
Hawksmoor
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by Hawksmoor »

Miclewis wrote:I love how on an EC album that the song that you like the least ends up being a real favorite. For TBNI, I cringed a little when I first heard “Mistook for a Friend” - now I love it.
For Look Now, it was “Dishonor the Stars”. Then there is “In the Darkest Place”, “The Name Of This Thing Is Not Love”, “Dear Sweet Filthy World”, etc…
Interesting examples. For what it's worth...

'Mistook Me for a Friend': I was fine with it on first listen, but didn't think of it as a stand-out track. Now it's my most frequent Go-To when I have three minutes to spend listening to a TBNI track. It's clever, funny, has a catchy tune, and Pete is on fire for this one.

'Dishonour the Stars' was my least favourite on first listen, and probably...still is. I don't hate it or anything, it's pleasant enough but (a) nothing in the lyrics really grabs me, and (b) it doesn't seem to have much of a tune. Compared with everything else on the LP, obviously. Compared with what most other singer/songwriters can come up with, it's still genius.

'In the Darkest Place': now that is genius. Arguably the best thing on the LP - for me - it's haunting, melodically superb and lyrically brilliant. The moment the first chords kick in, I'm taken to a different place. And when it goes to 'but I only have to tell myself...' One of his most captivating songs about losing your lover - and obviously, the competition for that is fierce.
sweetest punch
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by sweetest punch »

https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle ... 81068.html

Elvis Costello: 67, and it's time for this year's model to reflect
Elvis Costello is still creating new music, but in recent times has been looking back to his classic albums, and tales from his childhood

Unlike some of his contemporaries, Elvis Costello has never rested on his past glories. The London-born singer-songwriter’s career has been marked by his desire to keep pushing on.

This makes it all the more interesting that he is now choosing to look back – with a Spanish language remake of 1978’s This Year’s Model, a reissue of 1979’s Armed Forces and a new album, called The Boy Named If, that mines his formative years in Twickenham and then Birkenhead for stories.

Speaking from New York City where he is in the midst of rehearsals for his upcoming tour, the 67-year-old, born Declan MacManus, explains that this jolt of reflection was unplanned.

“It comes out of you,” says Costello. “The album was a series of stories or snapshots or whatever you want to call them – times in life and the different confusions and discoveries, and the shame and the misery.

“Whatever it is, they came to me all at once. I didn’t really sit down with a big template with a big C on it to say concept record. I never think like that. You just write some songs and then you go, ‘Oh well, I guess my mind was circling around all these things and that’s the topic’.”

It’s just after 8am where Costello is and his voice is a little hoarse. An early riser, he’s been awake since before 6am, ahead of a day of band practice. Costello enjoyed a productive lockdown with his wife, Canadian musician Diana Krall, and their teenage twin boys in Vancouver. He released two albums – the first was Hey Clockface, which was full of big rock songs and razor-sharp wit – and completed other much-anticipated projects (more on that later).

Costello was playing in the UK in March 2020 when, in his words, “things started to unravel”.

“I recognised that the situation was a little bit volatile and people were starting to stay away – they were not completely sure what was happening,” he recalls “So I called it. I said, I don’t think it’s a fair thing for my crew, for the band and particularly for the audience to offer them the opportunity to come to a crowded, heated place if you don’t know what this is all about.”

When it became apparent live performance was not coming back any time soon, Costello found other ways to work.

“I’m fortunate in that sense,” he says. “Some people have a job where they have to get on a method of transport to be with people and go somewhere to make sure they keep the lights on. I would say that I was extremely fortunate to have that purpose in life, that I do something that I can work on in isolation, and I’ve found a way to do it over distance.”

With a gruff laugh, he adds: “I put some records out which hopefully cheered somebody up.”

Costello is not one to demand sympathy but the pandemic took its toll. He lost his friend, music producer Hal Willner, to complications brought on by the virus and had to attend his mother Lillian’s funeral virtually due to travel restrictions.

“My mother, she had come through a long life with a lot of determination to be involved as much as she could be,” he offers. “I have the joy of knowing that she was at our last concert in Liverpool and had a wonderful time. If you can stay in the game until you’re 93, you are doing pretty good.”

Now his most pressing concern is his imminent return to this side of the Atlantic in in June. No Irish date has been announced yet, but in tow for the UK gigs will be his band of the last 20 years, The Imposters – Steve Nieve on keyboards, Pete Thomas on drums and Davey Faragher on bass. Respected guitarist Charlie Sexton, a regular in Bob Dylan’s backing band, is also joining them for the run of dates.

“One of the possible rhythm sections of a rock and roll band is the connection between the singer and the drummer,” he divulges when asked how the new songs will fare live. “Usually the rhythm section is the bass and drums. But it frees the other members of the band to play differently if the words are driving through the centre, which they are on a lot of these songs.

“That’s the sort of thing that Pete Thomas and I have worked towards. We just did it naturally from the start. So whenever I go to that kind of approach there is an understanding, we don’t have to say anything. It doesn’t require us to explain it. And that’s also good, not too much theorising, just play and feel it and it’s there.”

One of the many projects Costello completed during lockdown was a collection of songs marking his 30-year collaboration with legendary American composer Burt Bacharach, the man behind hits by Cilla Black, Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones and The Carpenters. Last summer they were in Capitol studios with a 30-piece orchestra recording two more songs for the album. Now they are just waiting to finalise the packaging.

“For all of the achievements of his catalogue, he is curious about the next song,” says Costello of his friend and collaborator. “He doesn’t have an arrogance about, ‘Well, I know how it goes because I wrote Walk On By or I wrote Alfie’.

“Even the fact that in 1995, I think it was, when we were first asked to write together, that he was open to writing music together, which is something you’ve never done. So right there our collaboration is different to every other collaboration he had ever been in.

“And although obviously there are songs where he had the sole responsibility for the music, there are others that were written in musical dialogue. And that’s better than going to college. All these things that you assume you understand from listening to the songs from the outside become a different calculation when you’re within the song and you’re trying to resolve a phrase.”

All this looking back has encouraged Costello to reflect on his own reasons for going into music. Indeed, the MacManus family fell into music by chance.

Costello’s great-grandfather was killed in an accident on the dockside in Birkenhead and his great-grandmother died shortly after. Their children were shipped off to an orphanage in Southall where all learned to play musical instruments.

Costello’s grandfather made his way playing jazz on luxury trans-Atlantic cruise ships until the 1930s and his father, Ross, was a jazz trumpeter and vocalist who regularly played on the Irish circuit.

To Costello, this linage is important. “Working son so often follows working father into the same field – and that is the case,” he reflects.

“But if John MacManus – that’s my great-grandfather – had not fallen into a hole on the float docks in Birkenhead and a ton of coal fallen on top of his head, I might be up there swinging a mallet, digging a ditch.

“The important thing is we still work with our hands and we still work with our wits.”

The Boy Named If is out now and Elvis Costello tours the UK in June
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
sweetest punch
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by sweetest punch »

https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-ne ... ar__36918/

Official Top 20 Biggest Americana Albums of 2022 so far

The top Americana albums of the year to date revealed, in partnership with our friends at Sweet Home Alabama

(…)
Elsewhere, Elvis Costello & the Imposters' The Boy Named If places fifth at the year's halfway point.
(…)
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
sweetest punch
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by sweetest punch »

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/best-rock-albums-2022/

Top 20 Rock Albums of 2022 (So Far)

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1. Elvis Costello & the Imposters, 'The Boy Named If'

Since the start of his career, Elvis Costello has traded in the most convoluted of emotions: jealousy, spite, heartbreak, regret and revenge coupled with guilt. Over the years, his ability to get to the point has gotten sharper, as evidenced on The Boy Named If, an album of exceptional sonic quality with bright, pop-rock hooks and sly wordplay. But he's no longer the Angry Young Man as he enters the abyss of adulthood. Costello emphasizes that growing up doesn't happen overnight and is rarely painless. Loss of innocence comes at a high price.
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
cwr
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by cwr »

Given that we are now in a period where EC & The Imposters are able to work remotely, the distinction between the sessions for TBNI and the Rusty EP is different than in the days when making a new record meant everybody going to a particular city and studio and booking days to record.

One thing I'm wondering is if there are tracks that didn't make the album (or the Rusty EP, for that matter) or if the "at home" dynamic means they are able to work at a pace that doesn't include trying out another 5 or 10 potential songs as they go, the way they might if they had an expensive studio for a specific period of recording time.

Look Now, for instance, has the 4 bonus tracks on the 2nd disc, plus 4 more on the Purse EP, and I'd bet just about any amount of money that there are unheard songs from those sessions.

I'm less confident that TBNI has any "outtakes" but I'd love to find out I'm wrong with that hunch.

It does feel like EC & The Imposters could basically make as many new albums as they want to without any of us knowing about them until they want us to.
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migdd
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by migdd »

Unsubstantiated rumor has it that EC and the Imposters (along with Charlie Sexton?) have recorded a new album at Magnetic Metallic Studios in Memphis. EC was reported to have mentioned finishing a new album with the Imposters at one of the recent UK dates. The studio has said that the band had booked time there this past May. We'll see.
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Re: The Boy Named If, new album by Elvis & The Imposters, January 14, 2022

Post by sulky lad »

migdd wrote:Unsubstantiated rumor has it that EC and the Imposters (along with Charlie Sexton?) have recorded a new album at Magnetic Metallic Studios in Memphis. EC was reported to have mentioned finishing a new album with the Imposters at one of the recent UK dates. The studio has said that the band had booked time there this past May. We'll see.
I’m not sure he mentioned that at the gigs I went to - maybe I wasn’t paying attention but I don’t think he ever mentioned anything about a new album. It might have been a comment on some promotional “hearsay” functions but not at any concerts to my knowledge !
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