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The good news is that Elvis Costello has finally included the lyrics to the songs on his new album. "Imperial Bedroom."
The bad news is that Costel-lo saw fit to print the lyrics to the 15 songs on the record sleeve as if they had just been ripped from the pages of novel.
The talented songwriter didn't bother with the nicety of separating the songs from each other, meaning that the words all run together in seemingly endless lines of type. Reading them becomes an almost impos-sible task.
Oh well, Elvis Costello has never been an easy man to understand, so why Should reading his lyrics be any different.
Costello, of course, is the angry, British rock anger who confouded many of his fans last year by releasing, "Almost Blue," a collection of country tunes written by American songwriters.
Musically, 'Imperial Bedroom" has little to do with country music, but, thematically, the influence lingers on. The classic country themes of loving and drinking dominate the record.
Costello has never been accused of being a romantic as his songs dealing with relations between the sexes were always cast in harsh, bitter terms. All anybody looking for a definition of the phrase, "emotional fascism," has to do is put albums like "This Year's Model" and "Armed Forces" on the turntable and give them a few spins.
"Imperial Bedroom." despite its title, isn't like that. Costello has written reasonably tender songs in the past, but never like many of those included on this record.
Apparently, Costello has decided that human kindness isn't such a bad thing. It's hard to believe that the guy who penned song like "Almost Blue" and "Human Hands" is the same man responsible for the virulent "Two Little Hitlers" and "Green Shirt."
Costello has definitely mellowed and its had an adverse affect on his songwriting.
Not that romanticism is a bad thing, but I think the Costello of "Armed Forces" was a much more interesting character than the person who shows up on "Imperial Bedroom."
He is masterful songwriter, and that craftsman-ship always shows up on the new album, but the material — the substance of the songs themselves —is not nearly as interesting as what appeared on pre-vious efforts.
"Imperial Bedroom" is Costello at his least compelling.
The softening of his lyrics has been compounded with a softening of his musical approach. Costello has been moving away from the guitar attack that he leaned on in the past over the course of his last few albums and -Imperial Bedroom" brings it full course.
The new record is completely dominated by Steve Nieve's keyboard& especially the piano. Nieve is extremely talented, as are the rest of the Attrac-tions, but the tunes just don't have the "oomph" that characterized Costello's better work.
Another disturbing aspect of the record is the failure of many of the songs to even make an impression. This is the first Costello album that contains large amounts of filler. "Trust," his last record, had a couple of tunes that fit in that category, but the problem has multiplied here.
And that's a shame because Costello has been one of the few artists able to fill both sides of an album with songs that mattered. After all, this is the guy responsible for "Get Happy," a record with 10 songs on each side, every one of them a gem.
Hopefully, Costello is simply going through a fallow songwriting period. It would be a sad occasion if the man who proved himself the best songwriter to appear in the late 1970s is losing his touch altogether.
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