The Elvis Costello Show: King of America (Columbia)
Tim Riley, The East Village Eye, April 1986
ALONGSIDE ALL the "detritus" that Greil Marcus writes about on Elvis Costello's King of America, there's an inventiveness despite the way it turns on itself. "…Half-remembered friends, lovers, chance acquaintances" yes, Marcus, but all self-consciously encountered. all spit from the former self of every critic's favorite whipping post, the late great Elvis Costello, namesake of the Elvis Costello Show and from here forward known as Declan Patrick Aloysius MacManus (what's a new myth without a few name?). Everything hums on this record, from the lyricism of the words to the flow of their meaning, even when they deflect rational sense.
Total word count of piece: 763
