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Elvis Costello and the Attractions: Trust (Columbia)

Richard Riegel, Creem, May 1981

"ACCESS" IS a word that has never tripped lightly off Elvis Costello's devilishly silver tongue. As in "Access All Areas," rockbiz parlance for an unlimited backstage pass, the type Costello and manager Jake Riviera have been only too glad to issue to hopeful interviewers and photographers, over (these same journalists') dead bodies. Or consider that recent minority-rights cause, "access for the handicapped." Even for the disabled group potentially most amenable to Mr. Costello — rock critics, with their "special" need to take their audio-visual reality cut with a minimum of print coherence — there were no lyric sheets. The gimpy textual analysts among Costello's public could be damned.

Total word count of piece: 741

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