National Ransom - November 2010

[johnfoyle]

Hear , hear!

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2 ... _album.php

Elvis Costello Has a New Album. Yes, Some of Us Still Care.

By David Stoesz

Nov. 27 2010


The short version for people who, like me, hate to read reviews: National Ransom, featuring Americana and pop sounds, was recorded in Nashville and LA by T-Bone Burnett, with Leon Russell, Marc Ribot, and two of the Attractions. It's one-third tedious, one-third solid, and one-third great.

It's hard to get good information about Elvis. He puts out music at least twice as fast as most musicians half his age (ten studio albums since 2001 to the Shins' three). His varied output--those ten most recent records span rock, country, and classical--excites as much antagonism as it does admiration.

On his IFC talk show, "Spectacle," Elvis recently apologized to Sting for saying such nasty things about him back in the day. In his old age he seems to have developed solidarity with others whose ambition draws scorn. (Personally, I prefer Asshole Elvis to Magnanimous Elvis. In an interview he was once asked to comment on a list of musicians, and when he came to Sting's name, said something along the lines of, "Sting? Sting?? I don't know of this Sting person you speak of. I thought that was a smudge on your paper." But I can appreciate that that level of bitterness isn't sustainable.) At any rate, I've found that with reviewers getting so bent out of shape and worked up, there's no subsitute for actually listening to the music myself.

National Ransom finds Elvis working the same basic template as last year's Secret, Profane & Sugarcane, with another cover by comics artist Tony Millionaire. Again, traditional country instrumentation is augmented by other far-ranging sounds, and again the melodies rarely settle into the comfortable grooves that the steel pedal guitars and mandolins lead the ear to expect. There's something almost jazz-like in the way Elvis stretches and angulates the phrases of the folk lament "All These Strangers":

There was a deal done in Benghazi and Belgrade
Upon a scimitar or other crooked blade
Ransacks and loots, vacated suits
And pistol points but never shoots,
Army sitting in a locomotive yard without their boots


If you can even follow all that, you might find yourself wondering how you got there from the simple tale of jealousy the song started with ("I saw my baby talking with another man today"). The thing is though, these are fantastic lyrics, each compact image a story in itself. Right up to the last line anyway, which pushes the meter from eccentric to unwieldy.

Can't he just give us a regular ol' pop song for once, the kind he does so well? As if in answer, Elvis tosses off "I Lost You," a happy, simple tune with a hook that the otherwise tense-sounding band works over with relieved joy.

That Elvis is in need of an editor is a common complaint. But he can't help himself. Even on highly dubious roads, he charges forth with the enthusiasm of a suicide bomber. "A Slow Drag With Josephine," meant as a jaunty bit of 1920s-inspired fun--complete with by-jove gum-crackery, hip flasks, and skiddle-daddle-do's--is unmitigated ear irritation. Even when following his simple pop instincts, he can go terribly wrong, as on "The Spell That You Cast," with its relentless hook that doesn't hook.

But he's working hard on National Ransom--a sweaty-palmed Vaudevillian conjuror on a soap box in the back alley that is his career at age 56. And he pulls off more than a few dazzling tricks. "You Hung the Moon," a gorgeously crooned ballad about a WWI widow, could just as easily be about the treatment of the current generation of war vets and their families:

So slap out his terrors
And sneer at his tears
We deal with deserters like this
From the breech to the barrel, the bead we will level
Break earth with a shovel, quick march on the double
Lower him shallow like tallow down in the abyss
You hung the moon
From a gallows in the sky
Choked out the light in his blue lunar eye
The shore is a parchment
The sea has no tide
Since he was taken from my side


One of my all-time favorite Elvis songs is called "The Milk of Human Kindness," which he called his attempt to create a blast of pure cheer like "High Hopes." He closes National Ransom with another song in that vein, "Voices in the Dark." It's so happy and silly, I find myself getting out of bed some mornings just so I can hear it.

You could argue that you shouldn't have to work so hard to get to the pleasurable part of an album. But music isn't about arguing. And there's something stirring about an artist you grew up with continuing to make records with such unabated creative energy. Besides, I never want to be one of those sad nerds who write break-up notes to Elvis ("I stuck with you through string quartets, the Charles Mingus Big Band, and Burt Bacharach, but this time you've gone too far!"). Giving up on him now would be like giving up on myself.

There was a recent profile of Elvis in the New Yorker that went by in a flash of writerly virtuosity and imparted almost no new information. There were a few good quotes though. "I've gone through the door and can do whatever the fuck I want," he said one point. And, "I play for those who are listening."

[cwr]

"I play for those who are listening."

This seems like an Elvis Costello mission statement if ever there was one! I feel like this should be the first thing you see when you arrive at his website...

And yes, "too many tracks" does remind one of Mozart's "two many notes" critique...

[Jack of All Parades]

Thank you for sharing that piece with us Mr. Foyle. Catches my ultimate feeling about the album after many listens. The album offers a number of treasures for me of which I have noted in other threads but there is also tremendous dross. Still its ratio of good tracks to dross is much greater than SP&P where only one track stayed with me and he did not write it. Ultimately, really glad he is writing for those who will listen.

[Otis Westinghouse]

It's one-third tedious, one-third solid, and one-third great.[/b]

Sounds about right to me. It gets a lot better a) with a few repeat listens (often the sign of greatness - music that doesn't reveal its true splendour till the second or third listen) and b) listening to it in 3-4 song chunks, rather like the way it comes on vinyl. I still want albums to work as coherent wholes that you can listen to straight through (and Mozart's to many notes are like Costello's too many words on many songs, and not at all like too many songs).

It does have an incredibly diverse range of genres going on, and it does seem to sum up Costello the Musicologist very well, to the point where the vaudevillian/pre-war elements seem to be both enjoyable and rather irritating at the same time.

Robert Harris, the historical novelist, chose 'Everyday I Write the Book' on Desert Island Discs today (it was his and his wife's song of couplehood - when they got together, he had a job and had to write evenings and weekends, so every day he was writing the book), and it sent me back to PTC as a contrast to NR, and I remembered how much I loved it at the time and how it seemed to speak for the England of 1984 that I was a university student in (particularly as I saw him at the Birmingham Odeon in a knockout show on the tour). It made me realise how far he's come, though the rather good (even if it doesn't reveal anything new, per se, it's well written and a good career overview) New Yorker article makes a comment that Almost Blue in a way was the record of the early 80s that most predicted how his career would develop. The article also has illuminating descriptions of Costello hanging around backstage with his backing band, keen to be involved in the musicianly discussions of other players on the scene, etc. I guess part of me wishes he still had some of the ironic distance that made King of America such a great record, rather than taking on the identity that makes T Bone Burnett, also cited in the NY article, say that he thinks of Elvis as American. On one level I resent the Americana obsession and the endless performing in the US and the incredible and arrogant lack of it in this country (no band tour of any sort since 2005).

He can still knock out a great song though, and pretty well everything on this record has something that redeems it in some way. The slower, quieter ones here are often the best. I'm very taken with One Bell Ringing, for example, and immediately hear in it (possibly due to unusual guitar tunings, among other thing, I'm not sure) a huge resonance of mid-70s Hissing of Summer Lawns into Hejira era Joni Mitchell. Maybe he's going for a bit of a Brazilian harmonic feel with it. Very impressive song.

There's a lot of creative vitality in it, which can only be good. Not sure I need the additional four of National Ransack on top - a quick listen indicates they are more throwaway, but I soon stopped, deciding to come back to them after more listens to the album.

[Jeremy Dylan]

On one level I resent the Americana obsession and the endless performing in the US and the incredible and arrogant lack of it in this country (no band tour of any sort since 2005).

I'm not sure what you mean by 'this country', but if you mean the UK, he did a band tour earlier this year - I should know, I was at two of the shows.

[cwr]

I'm very taken with One Bell Ringing, for example, and immediately hear in it (possibly due to unusual guitar tunings, among other thing, I'm not sure) a huge resonance of mid-70s Hissing of Summer Lawns into Hejira era Joni Mitchell.

I hear this, too, in a big way! EC sort of downplayed the comparison in one interview when it was brought up, but I find that completely disingenuous-- it sounds like the song EC would have written if asked to write "in the style of" Hissing Of Summer Lawns! And we know he loves Joni Mitchell and that album in particular...

I would personally love it if EC decided to write an entire album of imagined "lost" songs from his favorite albums. It's a total parlor game, but I have no doubt that a) EC would excel at it and b) the results would end up being far deeper than the conceit would suggest.

What would EC's "Pet Sounds" song be like? Or his "Astral Weeks"? His "Revolver"?

[Otis Westinghouse]

On one level I resent the Americana obsession and the endless performing in the US and the incredible and arrogant lack of it in this country (no band tour of any sort since 2005).

I'm not sure what you mean by 'this country', but if you mean the UK, he did a band tour earlier this year - I should know, I was at two of the shows.

Weren't they mostly solo? That's what I recall reading. I saw him at Hyde Park with the Sugarcanes, but the point is he does about 25 US shows for every one in the UK. And never, ever anymore in Ireland. I regret this shift in his affiliations.

[Jeremy Dylan]

Considering the Sugarcanes all live in the US, it's a lot more cost-effective to tour that country (which has 5 times the potential audience to draw from too) then it is to fly them all out to the UK. Pete Thomas and Davey Faragher are also US-based, so that makes US tours more practical for the Imposters as well.

As for Ireland, he and the Sugarcanes did a gig there on July 1 this year.

[jardine]

cwr: maybe we could compile this ourselves.

his revolver song? Dr. Luther's Assistant, hoover factory
hissing? one bell ringing
fred astaire rko movie soundtrack: voice in the dark

[Poor Deportee]

The thing about this album is - yes, it's uneven. I skip past several tunes routinely myself. BUT it has about 5 songs that rank with the absolute best work of EC's career (Jimmie, Church, Moon, Dr. Watson, Strangers) and a few more 'merely good' songs of jaw-droppingly high quality (Josephine, Bullets, One Bell, definitely the splendid, I-want-it-played-at-my-wake Voice in the Dark, possibly That's Not the Part). Plus a couple of agreeable minor tunes (Five Small Words, Jezebel). All told that is enough stellar quality in sufficient quantity (12 songs by my count!) that, if you edited out the dross, you'd have an regular-album-length effort that just might represent the pinnacle of EC's career. I find it hard to complain about 'uneveness' given such fecundity.

The shocking thing about the great material on this album is that it represents such an unexpected return to the powerhouse wordcraft of legend. It seems to have been years since EC had so much sheer fun with language or displayed such outrageous creativity with it. As random examples, consider

He’s a privateer as dusk gets near
A brigand after dark, his victim lined with chalk
A corsair, filled with horsehair to the core (!!)
Dashed on your eyes of Adamantine, you despised his stripling whine

or the zany double-entendres involved in 'A Voice in the Dark' and 'Josephine.' This is the first record in a long while that convincingly displays sheer lyrical inspiration pouring effortlessly out of him as it did in his prime. Not that it's just a return to old glory; many of these songs represent new ground for him. What's fundamentally shocking is to see his muse return full-bore like this. That core of 10-12 good-to-great tunes is dazzling in a way no album of his has been in perhaps 20 years.

I'd add that expectations for what constitutes a 'masterpiece' may be a bit ridiculous. Uneveness has always been the MO of long albums. Even Blonde on Blonde had a few lightweight moments, the White Album is a glorious mess, and KOA - often held out as his best record - still has some ragged parts. The weaker stuff represents just surplus from the creative nova at the heart of all these records. Same for this one.

[Jackson Monk]

Well, I could write a long review of the record but I'll keep it short and sweet. I'm not over keen on 'My Lovely Jezebel' and 'The Spell that you Cast' but it's a fucking great record. I haven't enjoyed an EC CD this much in years. What's not to like? My top 5 are all fantastic:

Bullets for the New born King
Stations of the Cross
Jimmie
One Bell
I Lost You

I just don't understand how an EC fan on this board could not love the record for those songs alone....and it is streets ahead of SP&S.....whole planets ahead!! Indeed, I can't recall such a renaissance in EC's career. I was beginning to give up because I never swooned at TDM like others and I was totally underwhelmed by RIR (which I can't remember playing for some time) but I'm officially back on board.

[alexv]

Ditto, Jackson. For me, this is the best EC record since PFM, and I always viewed that as a collaboration with a very heavy BB contribution. There were hints of NR in parts of Momofuku, but particularly when you compare NR to TDM, RIR and Sulphur it's almost as if this record is GH by comparison. It's not perfect, but for now I only have 3 skippables.

I agree with PD that a lot of the appeal is the welcome return to crazy wordplay.

I don't understand this "1/3, 1/3, 1/3" idea. Or the notion that the record is uneven. We are talking 16 songs and maybe, maybe you can come up a few run-of-the-mill EC songs (Jezebel, Spell, I lost you), and one (for me) awful song (NR), but the rest, what are we talking, 12 songs? That's a full record. When I think uneven I think a record that as a whole fails to meet expectations or is unfulfilling. Surely not the case here.

We can each come up, I think, with differing lists where of those 12 songs we each conclude that at least 5 are top-notch and the rest are damn good EC songs, particularly when you compare to his output over the last decade or so. How can this be seen as 1/3 whatever, or as an uneven effort. You compare it to IB or GH or AF, or even KOA, and yes it comes up short, but those days are gone, and what he's come up with, at this late stage in his career is really amazingly good.

[Otis Westinghouse]

Maybe I'll get it more with playing it more, but I was more inclined to listen to RIR when it came out. Maybe it's to do with the fact that the opening track is a let-down. Much is impressive, but so far it doesn't inspire me. I've only played it once the whole way through and suspect that, as per the last, that might be the only time. We shall see.

[Jackson Monk]

Maybe I'll get it more with playing it more, but I was more inclined to listen to RIR when it came out. Maybe it's to do with the fact that the opening track is a let-down. Much is impressive, but so far it doesn't inspire me. I've only played it once the whole way through and suspect that, as per the last, that might be the only time. We shall see.

Well mate, your choice, but that would be a big mistake IMHO.
Play it for tracks 7-11 if nothing else...although then you'd still be missing out on the rather splendid Jimmie, Stations and Strangers....all great stuff for me. Bullets and One Bell may well be contenders for my top 50 EC tracks ever...which is some feat.

As for SP&S,it does have few songs I still like to listen to. I love the closing 3 tracks and How Deep is the Red.

[pophead2k]

I listened to it several times through and then purposely left it alone for a couple of weeks (filled the intervening time with GCW bonus disc). When I returned to it yesterday, I found myself loving it even more than initially. Great sign for me.

[sweetest punch]

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/mu ... music-2010

The year in roots music, 2010

Not necessarily the year’s best, hottest or most influential roots music and country recordings, these 10 are, however, rewarding and worthy efforts that will enhance any collection, listed in no particular order

1. Elvis Costello, National Ransom (Universal Music): The second phase of aging Brit-rocker Costello’s adventures in post-modern Americana boasts exceptional — often humorous and sardonic — insights into the state of the ailing republic, loads of adventurous musicianship and an authentic folk-country patina, thanks to producer T-Bone Burnett.
(...)

----------------------------------

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/art ... 36074.html

Top 2010 American Roots Music Highlights

Since American Roots music is difficult to define, it might be easier to just let you listen to some of the year's best … like Robert Plant's Band of Joy. His latest album finds the 61-year old singer mixing old time country and bluegrass sounds with the blues on songs like Richard and Linda Thompson's "House of Cards."
(...)
Chicken and Egg is Tim O'Brien's newest CD, and it doesn't stray from what we've come to expect from this stellar singer-songwriter-instrumentalist. Also releasing strong singer-songwriter CDs this year were Ray Wylie Hubbard, Kevin Welch, Elvis Costello, and Elizabeth Cook. Bands including The Punch Brothers, and The Incredible String Dusters were also busy this year.
(...)

------------------------------------

http://www.columbian.com/news/2010/dec/ ... musicians/

2010 a banner year for musicians.

(...)
Any year that includes new CDs from Los Lobos, Richard Thompson and John Hiatt is bound to be a good one for music. Add in the fact that Alejandro Escovedo, Elvis Costello and the Hold Steady also released albums this year, and you had some serious talent contributing to the 2010 CD pool. Yet only two of those artists made my top 10 list. It’s not that any of the six artists disappointed. In fact, Los Lobos and Thompson are nominated for Grammy Awards. They just had unusually tough competition this year. For my money, 2010 was the best year in music at this point of the young century. Picking the 10 best this year was a challenge, but here’s my ranking:
(...)

[johnfoyle]

Record Collector (Jan. '11) includes NR in it's New Albums Of The Year section, commenting ' Ever the spontaneous master of his own destiny, Costello makes the music he wants, when he wants. Densely plotted and constantly surprising, this is comparable to his late 7os work'.

Spectacle: Season One is included in DVDS Of The Year.

[sweetest punch]

http://www.kentucky.com/2010/12/26/1579 ... -funk.html


Musical favorites, from fuzzy funk to 'Cha Cha Cha'

(...)
4. Elvis Costello, National Ransom: Tales of deceit and death — some painfully romantic, others wickedly clever — bring together elements of Costello's greatest Attractions and Imposters records with the grassy accessibility of his newer Sugarcanes band. Through it all, Costello maintains a rock sensibility as scholarly as it is poetically punkish.
(...)

[verbal gymnastics]

I keep reading about what a great track I Lost You is but it just doesn't do anything for me. Other people have slated Dr Watson I Presume yet I love it.

Different strokes and all that.

[Jeremy Dylan]

I love both.

Did anyone get NR for someone for Xmas? I've gifted two copies.

[jardine]

yep. 3

[Jackson Monk]

I keep reading about what a great track I Lost You is but it just doesn't do anything for me. Other people have slated Dr Watson I Presume yet I love it.

Different strokes and all that.

I really like 'I Lost You' but I absolutely ADORE 'Dr Watson'. The latter is rapidly growing into an all-time fave for me. When I first heard it, I couldn't get into it at all. Great things come to those who wait!

[Otis Westinghouse]

I'm all for things that take six listens, a lot of my favourite Lloyd and Ron songs are like that. My problem with this record is getting to six! I just can't do it. Not even a third playing for most of the songs. Should I hand my card back?

[Jackson Monk]

Just a taste thing I guess Otis. If I remember correctly, you were a big TDM fan, whereas I hardly ever play it now. I'd take this new album over TDM every time...the TDM title track in particular leaves me cold, but he still plays it a lot, so I guess he thinks it's great. I find it a total dirge.

Maybe if you leave it for a few months and try again. I recently played the last Grizzly Bear album (Veckatimest) for the first time in a year having never understood the praise it received before. It finally clicked and it has been a constant on the ipod for a week now. Strange how the mind works.

[Jack of All Parades]

VG- I am with you when it comes to "I Lost You", a minor little 'trifle' that lost its freshness for me after the first listen-now it is continuously skipped when I play through the album but "Dr. Watson, I Presume?" is something I regularly look forward to playing in the album sequence. Otis, I like NR, but do not rave about it. It has a higher quotient of strong songs[including two in Jimmie and the Moon song that rank for me amongst EC's best ever] than many albums of the last 15 years from him so by subtraction that becomes a positive for me. Can understand where you may be turned off if nothing particularly grabs you in initial listens. Have to admit if I were a new listener coming to the album and had the title track as my introduction I too would be turned off unless I was willing to listen on. Jackson, is probably right, given time you may come around to at least a third of the record.