I've often felt that too. He hates us, but he needs us, and he hates that he needs us.cwr wrote:, on some level he hates the fact that his fan base consists of a lot of obsessives like him who obsess about every little nook and cranny of his body of work.
The Gibson Interview: Elvis Costello, Dec. '10
Re: The Gibson Interview: Elvis Costello, Dec. '10
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Ypsilanti
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Re: The Gibson Interview: Elvis Costello, Dec. '10
Absolutely! I'd hate us if I were him. Wouldn't you? God help him if he ever reads what's written on this site. I'm sure he'd be totally creeped out--Elvis fans are way beyond mere obsessives. Myself included.wardo68 wrote:I've often felt that too. He hates us, but he needs us, and he hates that he needs us.
More generally...
Look, I know the people on this site who have the most to say regard me as a starry-eyed fanboy idiot. OK. Whatever. But I really don't understand why you all take it for granted that whatever Elvis says, he's being disingenuous. Why is the starting point always that if he says one thing, he means something else? He has said repeatedly that he's happy to be a working musician, like his father. He has been clear about the relief he felt at not having to be a "Pop Star" and the freedom that gave him to create the kind of career he felt he could be proud of. How does that translate into wanting the brass ring, better chart placement, more record sales, etc? Why does that make him a greedy bastard?
Since it's pointless to speculate about things I cannot actually know, I'd rather assume Elvis is probably being more-or-less forthright most of the time. It seems weird and a little mean-spirited to assume everything he says is automatic bullshit. But that's just me...
So I keep this fancy to myself
I keep my lipstick twisted tight
I keep my lipstick twisted tight
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Jack of All Parades
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Re: The Gibson Interview: Elvis Costello, Dec. '10
Ypsilanti- do not for a moment consider you some 'starry eyed fanboy idiot"- never have. A fan and sometimes a fanatic, but those are hardly negatives. You thankfully and frequently have something of interest to say about our 'obsession'. But I do think you tend to over generalize, and this is an example. I, and others, are not saying that everything that EC says or does is disingenuous. What I have repeatedly said is that there are aspects of his life and certain statements by him that I find disingenuous. The corporate ad and 'corporate gig' and the crying of poverty are things I have trouble with on a personal fan level. And what he says and does in relation to these items is disingenuous. You are correct in noting that we cannot really know what is going on in his life and within his mind; it is pointless to speculate about such things. I agree. However, I take EC as an artist seriously and that is why when I note discrepancies in his actions and statements I will make note of them. I do not find that obsessive or creepy; I do find it respectful of an artist I admire and continue to be engaged with for going on 33 years- guess that makes me a 'fanboy geriatric'!
"....there's a merry song that starts in 'I' and ends in 'You', as many famous pop songs do....'
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Poor Deportee
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Re: The Gibson Interview: Elvis Costello, Dec. '10
From what I gather from interviews and occasional moments of lyrical self-indulgence (e.g., WIWC #1) EC has an exaggerated sense of how interested we are in the details of his personal life. I myself don't give a rat's ass who he's married to; it's the work that interests me. And I don't see how an artist could rationally condemn people for being interested in his work! I'll grant that there are cases of obsession - Dylan and The Beatles seem to have had the worst of this, where evey utterance is pored over as if it's the Sermon from the Mount - but it seems to me that EC has not been a victim of this to any extreme extent. Frankly, if EC has a problem it's not that we're uncritical fawners but that we're not fawning enough ('you sit in judgement and bitch'). He probably sees this as mediocrity presuming to judge his courageous talent.
Yet ultimately the only way an artist can really make a case against committed followes of his work is by denying the importance or merit of the work itself. Nobody goes around attacking admirers of literature for putting a lot of energy into interpreting and discussing their preferred texts, or musicologists for studying in great depth their preferred music. Indeed, that's part of a civilized, cultured life, on many accounts. Why shouldn't the same hold for major works of popular music? Is there something intrinsic to the verse-chorus-verse-chorus form that automatically makes it trivial, beneath the attention of serious people? I can't believe that that's EC's position.
Another thing (if I can risk boring people). I've been pondering this issue of EC's commercial ambitions and I think there's another way of looking at it. Rather than seeing his desire for popular success as sheer money-grasping or celebrity-hunting, we could think of it in the following terms. From the 1960s until perhaps the early 1990s, popular music served cultural functions akin to those served by poetry in the Victorian era. Large, mass audiences looked to elite popular musicians to (a) capture the zeitgeist ('this is who we are, what our reality is, now'); (b) express aspirations and ideals, point the way the culture should be going ('imagine there's no heaven,' 'the times they are a-changin,' 'it belongs to them let's give it back,' etc.); and (c) carry the idiom of pop music forward in interesting ways (the 'new sound'). Some time in the 1990s, due to a combination of a fragmented and niche-defined marketplace and the sheer inspidity of hit music, this role for pop seems to have died. It lives on only in faint echoes, as with the discourse around Kanye West.
It could be that what EC REALLY wants is to be part of an influential conversation - to be able to meaningfully address the culture on any of these three axes. But in the fractured marketplace today, that is basically impossible. (The last ones to do it may have been U2 and Nirvana). Could be that what he really wants is not so much money and fame, as the kind of cultural role that songwriters used to have. If so, I can't really blame him.
Yet ultimately the only way an artist can really make a case against committed followes of his work is by denying the importance or merit of the work itself. Nobody goes around attacking admirers of literature for putting a lot of energy into interpreting and discussing their preferred texts, or musicologists for studying in great depth their preferred music. Indeed, that's part of a civilized, cultured life, on many accounts. Why shouldn't the same hold for major works of popular music? Is there something intrinsic to the verse-chorus-verse-chorus form that automatically makes it trivial, beneath the attention of serious people? I can't believe that that's EC's position.
Another thing (if I can risk boring people). I've been pondering this issue of EC's commercial ambitions and I think there's another way of looking at it. Rather than seeing his desire for popular success as sheer money-grasping or celebrity-hunting, we could think of it in the following terms. From the 1960s until perhaps the early 1990s, popular music served cultural functions akin to those served by poetry in the Victorian era. Large, mass audiences looked to elite popular musicians to (a) capture the zeitgeist ('this is who we are, what our reality is, now'); (b) express aspirations and ideals, point the way the culture should be going ('imagine there's no heaven,' 'the times they are a-changin,' 'it belongs to them let's give it back,' etc.); and (c) carry the idiom of pop music forward in interesting ways (the 'new sound'). Some time in the 1990s, due to a combination of a fragmented and niche-defined marketplace and the sheer inspidity of hit music, this role for pop seems to have died. It lives on only in faint echoes, as with the discourse around Kanye West.
It could be that what EC REALLY wants is to be part of an influential conversation - to be able to meaningfully address the culture on any of these three axes. But in the fractured marketplace today, that is basically impossible. (The last ones to do it may have been U2 and Nirvana). Could be that what he really wants is not so much money and fame, as the kind of cultural role that songwriters used to have. If so, I can't really blame him.
When man has destroyed what he thinks he owns
I hope no living thing cries over his bones
I hope no living thing cries over his bones
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Emotional Toothpaste
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Re: The Gibson Interview: Elvis Costello, Dec. '10
great post, p.d. i think you're right. it is part of my lament about the poor sales of NR. not money or quantities exactly, but that there isn't a more widespread understanding and recognition of how good this c.d. is at expressing and challenging this world of ours, its franticness, the lies and money trails, and even e.c.s talk about 78s and vinyl as beautiful objects to hold, the non-autotuned musicians grouped facing in each other in a room...this is all very real timely and important and it really should be part of an influential conversation that we, on this board, are having, but that isn't especially evident or desired in the wider music world of "pop"ularity.
Re: The Gibson Interview: Elvis Costello, Dec. '10
I think EC just wants to be loved.
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Jack of All Parades
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- Joined: Sun Apr 12, 2009 11:31 am
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Re: The Gibson Interview: Elvis Costello, Dec. '10
PD says:
"From what I gather from interviews and occasional moments of lyrical self-indulgence (e.g., WIWC #1) EC has an exaggerated sense of how interested we are in the details of his personal life. I myself don't give a rat's ass who he's married to; it's the work that interests me. And I don't see how an artist could rationally condemn people for being interested in his work! I'll grant that there are cases of obsession - Dylan and The Beatles seem to have had the worst of this, where evey utterance is pored over as if it's the Sermon from the Mount - but it seems to me that EC has not been a victim of this to any extreme extent. Frankly, if EC has a problem it's not that we're uncritical fawners but that we're not fawning enough ('you sit in judgement and bitch'). He probably sees this as mediocrity presuming to judge his courageous talent.
Yet ultimately the only way an artist can really make a case against committed followes of his work is by denying the importance or merit of the work itself. Nobody goes around attacking admirers of literature for putting a lot of energy into interpreting and discussing their preferred texts, or musicologists for studying in great depth their preferred music. Indeed, that's part of a civilized, cultured life, on many accounts. Why shouldn't the same hold for major works of popular music? Is there something intrinsic to the verse-chorus-verse-chorus form that automatically makes it trivial, beneath the attention of serious people? I can't believe that that's EC's position.
Another thing (if I can risk boring people). I've been pondering this issue of EC's commercial ambitions and I think there's another way of looking at it. Rather than seeing his desire for popular success as sheer money-grasping or celebrity-hunting, we could think of it in the following terms. From the 1960s until perhaps the early 1990s, popular music served cultural functions akin to those served by poetry in the Victorian era. Large, mass audiences looked to elite popular musicians to (a) capture the zeitgeist ('this is who we are, what our reality is, now'); (b) express aspirations and ideals, point the way the culture should be going ('imagine there's no heaven,' 'the times they are a-changin,' 'it belongs to them let's give it back,' etc.); and (c) carry the idiom of pop music forward in interesting ways (the 'new sound'). Some time in the 1990s, due to a combination of a fragmented and niche-defined marketplace and the sheer inspidity of hit music, this role for pop seems to have died. It lives on only in faint echoes, as with the discourse around Kanye West.
It could be that what EC REALLY wants is to be part of an influential conversation - to be able to meaningfully address the culture on any of these three axes. But in the fractured marketplace today, that is basically impossible. (The last ones to do it may have been U2 and Nirvana). Could be that what he really wants is not so much money and fame, as the kind of cultural role that songwriters used to have. If so, I can't really blame him."
Nicely articulated, PD-my only difference would be that I think he is a combination of the two elements- the desire for monetary rewards and the equally strong desire to be relevant-a cultural mover. Sadly, I do not think he possesses either at this time. I still propose the radio route with a show along the line of Piano Jazz or Dylan's Old Time Radio Theme Hour. His unique and eloquent thought processes might connect to a wider audience with such a format. Come off the grid and charge the batteries and play with the kids and over time filter the dross from the gold in recorded form in a more discriminating and economically efficient model. I firmly believe he is an archivist at heart and by nature and would really enjoy his pursuing that part of his nature in such a forum. After all, this is the man who has repeatedly stated that his 'school house' has been the off the beaten path 'album shops' he has frequented in his travels and throughout his adult lifetime. It is in this light that I think he will ultimately find his "cultural" relativity. As Wordsworth decried a few years back:
"Where are your books?- that light bequeathed
To Beings else forlorn and blind!
Up! up! and drink the spirit breathed
From dead men to their kind.
You look round on your Mother Earth
As if she for no purpose bore you;
As if you were her first-born birth,
And none had lived before you!"
Just a thought.
"From what I gather from interviews and occasional moments of lyrical self-indulgence (e.g., WIWC #1) EC has an exaggerated sense of how interested we are in the details of his personal life. I myself don't give a rat's ass who he's married to; it's the work that interests me. And I don't see how an artist could rationally condemn people for being interested in his work! I'll grant that there are cases of obsession - Dylan and The Beatles seem to have had the worst of this, where evey utterance is pored over as if it's the Sermon from the Mount - but it seems to me that EC has not been a victim of this to any extreme extent. Frankly, if EC has a problem it's not that we're uncritical fawners but that we're not fawning enough ('you sit in judgement and bitch'). He probably sees this as mediocrity presuming to judge his courageous talent.
Yet ultimately the only way an artist can really make a case against committed followes of his work is by denying the importance or merit of the work itself. Nobody goes around attacking admirers of literature for putting a lot of energy into interpreting and discussing their preferred texts, or musicologists for studying in great depth their preferred music. Indeed, that's part of a civilized, cultured life, on many accounts. Why shouldn't the same hold for major works of popular music? Is there something intrinsic to the verse-chorus-verse-chorus form that automatically makes it trivial, beneath the attention of serious people? I can't believe that that's EC's position.
Another thing (if I can risk boring people). I've been pondering this issue of EC's commercial ambitions and I think there's another way of looking at it. Rather than seeing his desire for popular success as sheer money-grasping or celebrity-hunting, we could think of it in the following terms. From the 1960s until perhaps the early 1990s, popular music served cultural functions akin to those served by poetry in the Victorian era. Large, mass audiences looked to elite popular musicians to (a) capture the zeitgeist ('this is who we are, what our reality is, now'); (b) express aspirations and ideals, point the way the culture should be going ('imagine there's no heaven,' 'the times they are a-changin,' 'it belongs to them let's give it back,' etc.); and (c) carry the idiom of pop music forward in interesting ways (the 'new sound'). Some time in the 1990s, due to a combination of a fragmented and niche-defined marketplace and the sheer inspidity of hit music, this role for pop seems to have died. It lives on only in faint echoes, as with the discourse around Kanye West.
It could be that what EC REALLY wants is to be part of an influential conversation - to be able to meaningfully address the culture on any of these three axes. But in the fractured marketplace today, that is basically impossible. (The last ones to do it may have been U2 and Nirvana). Could be that what he really wants is not so much money and fame, as the kind of cultural role that songwriters used to have. If so, I can't really blame him."
Nicely articulated, PD-my only difference would be that I think he is a combination of the two elements- the desire for monetary rewards and the equally strong desire to be relevant-a cultural mover. Sadly, I do not think he possesses either at this time. I still propose the radio route with a show along the line of Piano Jazz or Dylan's Old Time Radio Theme Hour. His unique and eloquent thought processes might connect to a wider audience with such a format. Come off the grid and charge the batteries and play with the kids and over time filter the dross from the gold in recorded form in a more discriminating and economically efficient model. I firmly believe he is an archivist at heart and by nature and would really enjoy his pursuing that part of his nature in such a forum. After all, this is the man who has repeatedly stated that his 'school house' has been the off the beaten path 'album shops' he has frequented in his travels and throughout his adult lifetime. It is in this light that I think he will ultimately find his "cultural" relativity. As Wordsworth decried a few years back:
"Where are your books?- that light bequeathed
To Beings else forlorn and blind!
Up! up! and drink the spirit breathed
From dead men to their kind.
You look round on your Mother Earth
As if she for no purpose bore you;
As if you were her first-born birth,
And none had lived before you!"
Just a thought.
"....there's a merry song that starts in 'I' and ends in 'You', as many famous pop songs do....'
Re: The Gibson Interview: Elvis Costello, Dec. '10
I must say i'm really glad i joined this board. best of the new year to all