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Of all the British new-wave rockers, Elvis Costello, who will play a concert March 7 at the St. Paul Civic Center Theater, has been the most successful in terms of both critical and audience approval and seems to stand the best chance of having a long-time career. Costello's first album, My Aim Is True, had sold in excess of 300,000 copies by last summer, and the follow-up, This Year's Model, sold that much during its first month.
The new one, originally titled Emotional Fascism, was produced, as were the others, by Nick Lowe, and it is a more elaborate production this time around, elaborate to the point of whimsey: The mock Ferrante & Teicher piano on "Party Girl," for example, and the tinkling harpsichord on "Green Shirt." Costello's staccato, gruff voice is over-dubbed on a number of tracks and is used with more variety and insinuation than in the previous discs.
As far as the material, Costello's penchant for writing catchy tunes and his often mordant wit continue in a production that, in the sense of carrying through an over-all scheme, is his best so far. In Armed Forces the combat metaphor extends in societal as well as interpersonal battles. The enemy is the coercive, authoritarian mind that deflects people from their own desires and individuality. In "Senior Service" a young man is told about the supposed benefits of a secure, normal life: "They took me in the office / And they told me very carefully / The ways I could benefit / From death and disability."
In "Little Hitlers" and most of the other songs the emphasis is on the way people manipulate and dominate one another on a one-to-one basis, and as always, the lines are clever and often insightful: "It's the words we don't say that scare me..." Costello sings in one part. "Her mouth is made up but her mind is undone."
Costello remains a strange, twisted persona. Was he called a "nerd" in high school? We'll never know. You never know about nerds. Sometimes they really develop into something. Costello's talent is compelling, and we will be hearing more from him, I am sure.
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