Elvis Costello
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Elvis Costello: This Year’s Model
Review by Jon Savage, Sounds, 1978
THE INSULT that made a man out of Mac(manus). As runs the hype: get sand kicked in your face (or whatever), keep on punching your ...
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, December 2002
Elvis Costello And The Attractions: Armed Forces; Imperial BedroomElvis Costello: Mighty Like A Rose ...
Audio interviews
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages audio, October 1983
Imperial Bedroom vs. Punch the Clock; Emerick vs. Lowe vs. Langer/Winstanley; reassessing his back catalogue and a whole lot more.
File format: mp3; file size: 88mb, total interview length: 1h 31' 39" sound quality: ***
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages audio, 17 April 1991
Mr McManus on new album Mighty Like A Rose: the songs, the production and the musicians; his split from the Attractions; new music, and his admiration for The Band.
File format: mp3; file size: 83.2mb, interview length: 1h 30' 53" sound quality: ***
Interview by Adam Sweeting, Rock's Backpages audio, 1 April 1995
Mr. Eclectic talks about his new album of covers versions, Kojak Variety: about working with L.A. musicians Jerry Scheff, Jim Keltner and James Burton; about his reasons for choosing the songs and his connection to the originals. He also talks about curating London's forthcoming Meltdown festival, and touches on the upcoming Attractions album All This Useless Beauty. Lastly he discusses singing at London's Brixton Academy with Bob Dylan.
File format: mp3; file size: 60.2mb, total interview length: 1h 02' 45" sound quality: ****
Interview by Bill Brewster, Rock's Backpages audio, 18 February 2002
The erstwhile Declan McManus, in the context of new album When I Was Cruel, looks back at the Attractions, punk, Thatcher, and talks about the craft of songwriting.
File format: mp3; file size: 44.6mb, interview length: 48' 43" sound quality: ****
List of articles in the library
Around the bend on Stiff Records
Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 24 April 1977
WHAT KIND of record company would use as its motto the phrase "reversing into tomorrow"? Which record company would define its purpose, on its first ...
Review by Ken Barnes, Phonograph Record, May 1977
A monthly blindfold test by those masters of Slander Rock, Mark Volman & Howard Kaylan ...
Elvis Costello: My Aim Is True
Review by Chas de Whalley, Sounds, May 1977
ELVIS COSTELLO is a cagey sort of fellow. You can talk to him for hours and still not discover quite what makes him tick. ...
Elvis Costello & The Attractions: Island Records, Hammersmith, London
Live Review by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 30 July 1977
THE KING ARRIVES ALIVE ...
Elvis Costello: My Aim is True (Stiff SEEZ 3)
Review by Danny Baker, ZigZag, August 1977
I COULD NEVER see the attraction in classical music, all that hanging about between notes, I mean what do people with great classic collections play ...
Interview by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 27 August 1977
IT'S BEEN a rough old week for Elvis Costello. Last weekend he was right up there in the play lists with his 'Red Shoes' single ...
Elvis Costello: It's Elvis... Pop's New Anti-Hero
Interview by David Hancock, Evening News, London, 3 September 1977
ANYONE WHO dares to cross Elvis Costello is in for big trouble. He always takes revenge. ...
Elvis Costello: My Aim Is True (Stiff SEEZ 3)
Review by Dave Schulps, Trouser Press, October 1977
WHO IS THIS little fella striking a defiant Presleyesque pose on the cover of My Aim Is True? Why, it's Elvis, of course. Not the ...
England's Elvis — The New Sensation on the Rock Scene
Report by Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle, 2 October 1977
OUT OF nowhere comes a musician with no apparent past who looks like a good bet to become the biggest new sensation on the rock ...
Live Review by Tim Lott, Record Mirror, 8 October 1977
A stiff undertaking ...
The Stiff Tour: Stiffs Drugs And Rock 'N' Roll
Report by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 5 November 1977
"SEX AND drugs and rock and roll...sex and drugs and rock and roll...sex and drugs and rock and roll..." Hot damn, m'man, Leicester University is ...
Elvis Costello: My Aim Is True (Columbia JC35037)
Review by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, December 1977
Elvis Costello: New Wave Rock Classicist ...
Elvis Costello: I Fought the Law!
Profile and Interview by Dave Schulps, Trouser Press, December 1977
RARELY HAS MYSTERY surrounded the arrival of a new rock performer the way it has Elvis Costello. Totally unknown a year ago, courtesy of Stiff ...
Elvis Costello & The Attractions: Whisky a Go Go, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 10 December 1977
THE YELLOW posters outside the Los Angeles Whisky and the yellow pins handed to the punters make him out a Buddy Holly figure who murders ...
Elvis Costello, Whirlwind, Soft Boys: Roundhouse, London
Live Review by Jon Savage, Sounds, 28 January 1978
The rise and rise of the perennial wimp ...
Elvis Costello: My Aim Is True (Columbia)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, February 1978
THIS BANDIT SUMMER, this snatcher of heroes, loved ones and possibilities, will be remembered also for leaving behind intoxicating rock and roll, with this album ...
Elvis Costello: My Aim Is True (Columbia)
Review by Jeffrey Morgan, Stage Life, February 1978
LIKE IT OR NOT, you’d better watch out 'cause talent will out, which is exactly why you’re hearing so much about Elvis Costello these days. ...
Elvis Costello: This Year's Model (Radar Records)
Review by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 11 March 1978
THERE'S ONLY one real problem facing the reviewer assessing this, our El's second album, but if it's tricky enough to deal with then at least ...
Elvis Costello: Holocaust In Microcosm
Report by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 18 March 1978
"HEY ELVIIIIIS!!!" There's this blonde gumdrop down the front, see, shaking it down in that demure stoned way that hippie girls seem to favour, and ...
Elvis Costello: Disgust! Irritation? Revenge! Obsession?
Interview by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 25 March 1978
NICK KENT — whose 1977 interview with ELVIS COSTELLO was internationally quoted as the definitive piece on The Man In Glasses — goes back for ...
Elvis Costello: Costello Group Therapy
Report by Peter Silverton, Sounds, 1 April 1978
"KNOCK KNOCK.""Who's there?""Elvis.""Elvis who?""Forgotten already, huh?" ...
Elvis Costello: The Guildhall, Portsmouth
Live Review by Barbara Charone, Sounds, 22 April 1978
THE THEATRE manager of the Portsmouth Guildhall stood in the foyer panicking. "This Costello chap hasn't turned up yet," he mumbled nervously to one of ...
Elvis Costello: This Year's Model
Review by Ira Robbins, Trouser Press, May 1978
I WAS SOMEWHAT HESITANT about falling in love with My Aim Is True. It didn't make my 1977 Top Ten LP list because the songs ...
Elvis Costello & The Attractions: This Year's Model (Radar)
Review by Anthony O'Grady, RAM, 5 May 1978
ELVIS COSTELLO? Probably you've heard of him even if you haven't heard 'Watching the Detectives' on radio or you somehow missed out on the RAM/Stiff ...
Costello, Zevon dazzle beantown
Live Review by Jim Sullivan, Bangor Daily News, 15 May 1978
LAST WEEK, two of rock's most exciting new artists, Elvis Costello and Warren Zevon, played Boston concerts on consecutive nights. Both shows were hotly anticipated ...
Elvis Costello: Elvis Has It All Figured Out
Interview by David Hancock, Evening News, London, 20 May 1978
ELVIS PRESLEY'S death shook many people, but none more so than Elvis Costello's management. ...
Elvis Costello: Close Encounters of the Irish Kind – Belvis in Elfast
Report by Jim Green, Trouser Press, June 1978
THESE DAYS it's a big deal for me to take a train down to CBGB and a major odyssey to get into a record company ...
Elvis Costello is Angry and Convincing: This Year's Model Fulfils Every New Wave Expectation
Profile by Fred Schruers, Circus, 22 June 1978
IT'S 1:30AM IN the Bootlegger Lounge in Syracuse, NY. Elvis Costello, the one with the owlish stare and the spitting mad vocals, the man whose ...
Elvis Costello and the Attractions, Mink DeVille, Nick Lowe: The Orpheum, Boston MA
Live Review by Ariel Swartley, Rolling Stone, 29 June 1978
Costello wins his game of risk ...
Elvis Costello & the Attractions: Dominion Theatre, London
Live Review by David Hancock, Evening News, London, 20 December 1978
Hot rock from little Elvis ...
Elvis Costello, Richard Hell, John Cooper Clarke: Dominion, London
Live Review by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 23 December 1978
WHAT IS it about Elvis Costello that makes us want to know about his home life? And what is it that makes him cover his ...
Elvis Costello, Richard Hell, John Cooper Clarke: Hammersmith Palais, London
Live Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 1979
Are you ready for the fiiinal soluuuuuuuuuuuuuushun (oh yeah)? ...
Elvis Costello: Elvis' Armed Forces
Comment by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 1979
ELVIS COSTELLO is Superman's fantasy of what Clark Kent should have been. He is Buddy Holly reincarnated as an axe-murderer. He is a nasty Woody ...
Elvis Costello And The Attractions: with Richard Hell and the Voidoids
Live Review by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 6 January 1979
WELCOME TO to the working week, seven nights of Elvis Costello at London's Dominion Theatre, virtually opposite the location of the Elvis musical.Will the real ...
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 6 January 1979
IN The Devil Finds Work, James Baldwin opined that white people's hatred of blacks is based on terror, while black people's hatred of whites is ...
Elvis Costello: Elvis Army Is Here To Stay
Report and Interview by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 27 January 1979
CHAPERONED in the back of a hire car, taking in the sights, partaking in entertaining chit-chat about the industry with fellow passengers, I shouldn't feel ...
Armed and Dangerous: The Rise of Elvis Costello
Profile by Andy Schwartz, New York Rocker, February 1979
Oh, I just don't know where to begin... ...
Live Review by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 10 February 1979
An exercise in calculation ...
Elvis Costello: Hammersmith Palais, London
Live Review by Penny Valentine, Melody Maker, 10 February 1979
HAS Elvis Costello finally become an Establishment "star," or is he still mounting a concerted attack against the old-fart fortress? Taking the stage at Hammersmith ...
Elvis Costello: One Itchy trigger
Profile by David Hepworth, Smash Hits, 22 February 1979
ELVIS COSTELLO likes to keep his past a mystery. This attitude has led fact-starved journalists to guess that he was once everything from an escaped ...
Elvis Costello & the Attractions: Arlington Theatre, Santa Barbara, CA
Live Review by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, 3 March 1979
Polite Elvis ...
Elvis Costello: Armed Forces (Columbia)
Review by Ira Robbins, Trouser Press, April 1979
When Bob Dylan broke up with his wife, Sara, a few years ago, the world was treated to the introspective and bitter Blood on the ...
Elvis Costello: Live in New York
Live Review by Roy Trakin, Melody Maker, 14 April 1979
Palladium & Great Gildersleeve's, NYC ...
Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson: Waiting For The End Of The World
Comment by Penny Valentine, Creem, May 1979
TWO GOOD things about rock music: how it makes even cynics get emotionally involved when they least expect it; how the best moments are the ...
Report by Fred Schruers, Record Mirror, 17 May 1979
Elvis Costello puts his foot in his mouth ...
Accidents Won't Happen: The Premeditated Rise Of Elvis Costello
Essay by Peter Silverton, Trouser Press, June 1979
A COUPLE OF days before Christmas, trying to make it home on the London tube before I dropped the bottle of tequila and the Times ...
Elvis Costello: Murder on the Liverpool Express
Report by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 9 June 1979
SO THERE I was at Euston station, seated comforably in the 1st class compartment waiting for the Inter City to speed me to my destination ...
Elvis Costello: He'd Rather Be Anywhere Else But Here Today...
Report by Susan Whitall, Creem, July 1979
NEW YORK — By now, everybody but Bonnie Bramlett's dog have given their side of the Columbus, Ohio brawl between the forces of Stills and ...
Elvis Costello: Costello Beats Anaesthesia
Comment by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 29 September 1979
ELVIS COSTELLO spun the discs for a couple of hours on Radio One's Star Special last week, and the result was the kind of radio ...
Elvis Costello & The Attractions: Ten Bloody Marys & Ten How's Your Fathers (Imp)
Review by Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, 1980
COSTELLO BUFFS will undoubtedly be familiar with this generously-stuffed collection of His Master's Voices from its previous existence on cassette. On the other hand, they ...
Elvis Costello & The Attractions: Get Happy!! (F-Beat)
Review by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 16 February 1980
ON AN otherwise typical day late last October, Elvis Costello strolled through the door of London’s Rock On record shop in Camden Town, the oldies ...
Eivis Costello and the Attractions: Pavilion, West Runton
Live Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 8 March 1980
Fly me I'm Elvis! ...
Elvis Costello & the Attractions: Get Happy!! (Columbia Records 36347)
Review by Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle, 9 March 1980
Among Costello's Best ...
Elvis Costello & the Attractions: Pier Pavilion, Hastings
Live Review by Hugh Fielder, Sounds, 15 March 1980
I can't stand up for long enough to finish the show ...
Elvis Costello: The Elvis Enigma
Profile by Peter Silverton, Sounds, 22 March 1980
WHEN I HEARD the first Elvis Costello single, 'Less Than Zero', I figured it was Stiff's mainstay of the time, Nick Lowe, having a bit ...
Elvis Costello & The Attractions: Get Happy!!
Review by Ira Robbins, Trouser Press, May 1980
The first draft of this review, written on the basis of an American pressing, had to be discarded when an English copy arrived. Sound quality ...
Elvis Costello, The Stray Cats: Rainbow Theatre, London
Live Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 4 October 1980
Smile Elvis, you're in a frontlash situation ...
Heatwave Festival: Crouching Towards Bowmanville Or Elvis: What Happened?
Report by Susan Whitall, Creem, November 1980
I MUST confess to hating "rock festivals" with some passion. My response to the rhetorical "Would you have gone to Woodstock?" question has always been ...
Heatwave Festival: Punk Woodstock Meets The Ugly American
Report by Dave DiMartino, Creem, November 1980
JUST OUT of the Detroit-Windsor tunnel, a friend and I are fighting a losing battle. We're trying to take Canada seriously. ...
Elvis Costello And The Attractions: Trust (F-Beat)
Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 24 January 1981
All trussed up (and nowhere to go) ...
Elvis Costello, Squeeze: Sports Arena, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 7 February 1981
The feeding of the 15,000 ...
Elvis Costello, Squeeze: the Palladium, New York NY
Live Review by Richard Grabel, New Musical Express, 14 February 1981
WHAT DO Squeeze value? Professionalism. Tightness. Songs of classic construction. Entertainment. Making the little girls smile and yell. ...
Elvis Costello: Elvis goes eyebrow
Report by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 28 February 1981
Mr Costello and a high class chatshow confrontation witnessed by Sylvie Simmons ...
Elvis Costello and the Attractions: Trust (Columbia)
Review by 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 ...
How I Spent My Summer Vacation
Report by Betsy Sherman, Boston Rock, 1 October 1981
Merit Badges Goes To Dianaland ...
Elvis Costello & the Attractions: Almost Blue (Columbia FC 37562)
Review by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, January 1982
PITY THE POOR marketing people at CBS faced with explaining Elvis Costello's maverick path through modern rock. Between the eclectic classicism of his Taking Liberties ...
Elvis Costello & the Attractions: Rainbow Theatre, London
Live Review by Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, 2 January 1982
Main Attraction ...
Elvis Costello: Almost Blue (Columbia FC37562)
Review by Jon Young, Trouser Press, February 1982
WHY SHOULDN'T Elvis Costello make a country album? An accomplished dilettante, he's previously drawn from such diverse sources as Tin Pan Alley ('My Funny Valentine') ...
Elvis Costello and the Attractions: Almost Blue (Columbia)
Review by Craig Zeller, Creem, March 1982
I'M REMINDED OF that Honeymooners episode where, in Alice's absence, Ed gives Ralph a hand with the household chores by doing a little ironing. ...
Elvis Costello: Imperial Bedroom (F-Beat)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 3 July 1982
ONE THING Elvis Costello has never learnt is good manners. I don't want to go to Chelsea! I don't want to be a goody-goody ! ...
Elvis Costello & The Attractions: Imperial Bedroom
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, August 1982
THIS IS ELVIS Costello's best yet. I know you've heard that before, and probably about a couple of his albums, but I can't help it ...
Elvis Costello & the Attractions: Imperial Bedroom (Columbia)
Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, November 1982
E.C.'s EMOTIONAL RESCUE ...
Elvis Costello: The Palladium, New York
Live Review by Iman Lababedi, Creem, 31 December 1982
IT HAD been 10 months since I last saw Elvis Costello; in between I'd watched him play footsie with Tom Snyder, straight man to George ...
Report by Betsy Sherman, Boston Rock, 30 March 1983
IF YOU'RE keen to witness a major cultural capital in hibernation, try being in London the week between Christmas and New Years. Just about everything ...
Elvis Costello: Growing Up Angry
Profile by Iman Lababedi, Creem, July 1983
"I'd like to be a funeral director..." — Elvis Costello, 1980 ...
Elvis Costello: Punch The Clock (F.Beat)****
Review by Edwin Pouncey, Sounds, 30 July 1983
ELVIS COSTELLO, the self-confessed Invisible Man, returns. Off come the dark glasses, the bandages are unwound and drop to the floor to reveal his latest ...
The Face Interview: Elvis Costello
Interview by Paul Rambali, The Face, August 1983
ALMOST seven years ago now, the son of dance band singer Ross McManus invented somebody called Elvis Costello. It was possible to do that in ...
Elvis Costello & the Attractions: Punch The Clock (Columbia FC38897)
Review by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 7 August 1983
COSTELLO CLOCKS OUT ...
Elvis Costello: Punch The Clock
Review by Penny Valentine, City Limits, September 1983
"They put the numb into number — the cut into cutie — the slum into slumber — the boot into beauty." ...
Elvis Costello And The Attractions: Punch The Clock (F Beat)
Review by Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, 1 September 1983
PHEW, for a moment there I thought the penny wasn't going to drop in time. Luckily, after a further batch of circumnavigations of the turntable, ...
Elvis Costello: Every Day A Different Book
Interview by Bill Bentley, L.A. Weekly, 22 September 1983
THE SCENE: Austin, Texas. The overbearing Texan had buttonholed Elvis Costello's flamboyant manager, Jake Riviera, at a party in Los Angeles a couple of years ...
Elvis Costello: Master Blaster
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 8 October 1983
WHEN IT COMES TO SOUL, THIS MAN BEATS ALL YOUR WELLERS AND ROWLANDS HANDS DOWN — BUT FOR ELVIS COSTELLO PASSION HAS NEVER BEEN JUST ...
"Now is the time, and the time is as good as any": The Elvis Costello Interview
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, RAM, 25 November 1983
IF THE GREAT GREY they put the numb into number and the boot into beauty, then who, pray, puts the El into the element within? ...
Elvis Costello: 10 Bloody Marys And 10 How's Your Fathers
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 21 April 1984
10 AND 10 is 20 postaged stamps of the left-out-of-mainstream Costello: mislaid or temporarily missing 'B'-side moves, free 45s that got lost on the Press, ...
Elvis Costello, T Bone Burnett: State University of New York, Stony Brook, N.Y.
Live Review by Jeff Tamarkin, Billboard, 5 May 1984
IT WAS THE old, familiar scene of singer/songwriter bearing acoustic guitar and playing for an attentive college crowd. What wasn't so familiar was that the ...
Live Review by Ira Robbins, The Face, June 1984
ELVIS Costello’s 1983 American tour was so boring that even longtime fans found it difficult to remain alert for an entire set of pseudo-cabaret runthroughs. ...
Elvis Costello: Constitution Hall, Washington D.C.
Live Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, July 1984
"I'M GOING TO do something you've never seen me do before," Elvis Costello told the audience at Washington, D.C.'s Constitution Hall as he unstrapped his ...
Elvis Costello & the Attractions: Goodbye Cruel World (Columbia)
Review by Fred Schruers, Musician, August 1984
BEFORE YOU sink into Elvis Costello's latest, brilliant slough of despond, make sure you keep your copy of the lyrics (printed on the album sleeve). ...
Elvis Costello: Goodbye Cruel World (F-Beat)
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 4 August 1984
"WHY MUST I be so lonely...?" ...
Elvis Costello and the Attractions: Goodbye Cruel World (Columbia)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, September 1984
IT'S ALMOST Elvis Costello and the Distractions this time out. Goodbye Cruel World, LP #10 (here in America, at least), has such a desperate busyness ...
Elvis Costello & The Attractions: Hammersmith Palais, London
Live Review by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 13 October 1984
WHETHER one wishes to take into account the possible home truths gleaned from 'rumour' or not – the tittle-tattle here centring on contentions of marital ...
The Pogues, Elvis Costello, The Swamps, Lash Lariat & the Long Riders : Clarendon Hotel, London
Live Review by David Quantick, New Musical Express, 30 March 1985
SAINT PATRICK'S NIGHT the occasion and The Pogues the attraction; in a very large room, the world congregates. Crowds a mile wide inside the lavatories ...
The Pogues, Elvis Costello, The Swamps, Lash Lariat & the Long Riders: The Clarendon, London
Live Review by Chris Heath, Smash Hits, 11 April 1985
They're of Irish descent! They play hectic punk-folk music! They leave no table unturned! ...
A Man Called Uncle: Elvis Costello
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 18 May 1985
What is the Elvis Seal Of Approval worth? Mat Snow asks for a few words of wisdom from pop’s Uncle Brian. ...
Agnes Bernelle: Cabaret in Exile
Interview by Caroline Sullivan, Melody Maker, 1 June 1985
The first time AGNES BERNELLE met Elvis Costello she thought he was an accountant. She's also met Marlene Dietrich and Adolf Hitler, nearly. Now, at ...
Elvis Costello: King Of America
Review by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 22 February 1986
IN BROCADE and jewelled crown, Declan Patrick Aloysius MacManus stares out from the sleeve of King Of America, his beard and spectacles framing an unsmiling ...
The Costello Show Featuring the Attractions & Confederates: King Of America (F-Beat)
Review by Nick Kent, Melody Maker, 22 February 1986
CROWNING GLORY ...
The Happy Death of Elvis Costello
Interview by Nick Kent, The Face, March 1986
A COMIC DRAMA IN THREE PARTS, INVOLVING THE TROUBLED TROUBADOUR IN INTRIGUES OF HIS OWN DEVISING AND NIGHTMARES OF OTHERS' IMAGINATIONS, IN WHICH HE FINALLY ...
Elvis Costello: The Costello Show And Tell
Interview by Richard Cook, Sounds, 1 March 1986
The self-proclaimed 'King of America' talks to RICHARD COOK about his new LP, his uncomfortable relationship with the music press, and the mediocrity of today's ...
Special Feature by Brian Case, Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, 22 March 1986
AT LONG last, it's almost here. Poor old JULIEN TEMPLE has been working on his movie of Colin MacInnes' novel Absolute Beginners apparently since the ...
The Elvis Costello Show: King of America (Columbia)
Review by 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. ...
Elvis Costello & The Attractions: Blood And Chocolate (Imp)
Review by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 13 September 1986
ONE DECADE and 11 albums into a brilliant career, pop's most persistent moniker-monger is still playing the name game: having buried Brother Coward and killed ...
Report and Interview by Lucy O'Brien, New Musical Express, 20 September 1986
In the badlands of Spain, a strange scenario... JOE STRUMMER is shooting everyone in sight, SHANE MACGOWAN has been killed, ELVIS COSTELLO is serving coffee... ...
Elvis Costello: Blood and Chocolate
Review by Mark Cooper, Q, October 1986
ELVIS COSTELLO'S CAREER now consists of a spiral of sidesteps and multiplying identities, all designed to accommodate the extraordinary fecundity of his writing. ...
Elvis Costello: Broadway Theatre, New York NY
Live Review by Jeff Tamarkin, Billboard, 15 November 1986
ELVIS COSTELLO'S five-night stand on Broadway roughly coincided with the World Series, which may have kept die-hard Mets fans at bay. Still, the Costello series ...
Elvis Costello: Royalty Theatre, London
Review by David Quantick, New Musical Express, 29 November 1986
HALFWAY THROUGH 'Watching The Detectives', there is a small fight. When it has been amicably concluded, the thin man in the Buddy Holly specs, striped ...
Elvis Costello: The Royalty Theatre, London
Live Review by Jack Barron, Sounds, 29 November 1986
CROCODILE SMILES ...
Elvis Costello & the Attractions: Royalty Theatre, London
Live Review by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 1 December 1986
Elvis on the loose: Adam Sweeting sees a master in peak form. ...
Elvis Costello And The Attractions at the Royal Albert Hall
Live Review by Len Brown, New Musical Express, 31 January 1987
STEVEN THE computer programmer is in his element. In black and white stripes with red kipper tie, he's sweating, shaking and singing all the words ...
Elvis Costello & The Attractions: The Riviera, Chicago
Live Review by Bill Holdship, Creem, March 1987
ELVIS COSTELLO & The Attractions' early Detroit shows are among my fondest rock 'n' roll memories. I saw him the first time he played the ...
Elvis Costello: Rebirth of a Punk Hero
Profile by Mark Mordue, Sydney Morning Herald, the, 27 November 1987
Mark Mordue profiles Elvis Costello, now in his post-punk phase and about to tour Australia next week. ...
Elvis Costello: Elvis Lives!!!
Interview by Andrew Mueller, On The Street, 18 January 1989
IN THE BEGINNING was the Word. And the word was No.No as in No Interview. Elvis Costello would be talking about his forthcoming album, Spike, ...
Elvis Costello: And So To Bedlam
Interview by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 18 February 1989
If 'you're nobody 'til everybody thinks you're a bastard' then, logically, the universal acclaim received by ELVIS COSTELLO's Spike LP must make him one of ...
Elvis Costello: Spike (Warners)
Review by Terry Staunton, New Musical Express, 25 February 1989
THE DOUR, BEARDED man wearing a crown who stared out from a record sleeve three years ago was an unhappy monarch. An emperor in new ...
Review by Mark Cooper, Q, March 1989
ELVIS COSTELLO'S LAST two albums were released back in 1986. Despite their excellence, the combination of King Of America and Blood & Chocolate suggested that ...
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, March 1989
THERE'S A deceptive balm in the air, a bright December afternoon curdled by icy darts of breeze, as Elvis Costello and Cait O'Riordan stride along ...
Elvis Costello : London Palladium - Good year for the oldies
Live Review by David Cavanagh, Sounds, 13 May 1989
SUNDAY NIGHT AT THE PALLADIUM. The "funny Nazis" from Allo Allo were taking a well-earned rest from their labours, leaving the way clear for our ...
Elvis Costello: Palladium, London
Live Review by Barbara Ellen, New Musical Express, 13 May 1989
GETTING HIGH ON E ...
Johnny Cash: Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Michele Kirsch, New Musical Express, 27 May 1989
I'M GOING by the rest of the crowd on this one, but it would seem that the pleasure to be had in being 'taken back ...
Jerry Garcia and Elvis Costello: Strange Bedfellows
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, March 1991
AS EVERYONE knows, Grateful Dead fans come in all sorts and sizes — including one Elvis Costello. And so, when Musician got the idea of ...
El Hath No Fury: Elvis Costello
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, The Wire, June 1991
"WHEN YOU GET OLD IT'S LIKE they go to the file for the opinions on you," said Elvis Costello last time he was on the ...
Elvis Costello: Mighty Like A Rose
Review by Mat Snow, Q, June 1991
RECENTLY OBSERVED sporting a trainee Father Christmas beard and chewing the fat with Jerry Garcia, Elvis Costello seemed to have completed his self-reinvention as a ...
Elvis Costello: Mighty Like a Mouth
Interview by Richard Gehr, Creem, June 1991
What do we talk about when we talk about pop music? "Rock & roll is a ludicrous response to most things," admits Elvis Costello. ...
Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, Q, July 1991
"I'M BLOWING MY COVER," Elvis Costello announces mournfully, as the sun, knowing no better, blazes happily down on Notting Hill Gate. ...
Elvis Costello: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Terry Staunton, New Musical Express, 13 July 1991
This Year's Muddle ...
Interview by Alan di Perna, Musician, September 1991
On Phil Spector, waltzing with Elvis Costello and "arm playing" ...
Elvis Costello and Martin Amis: Prophets of Doom
Essay by Simon Reynolds, Arena, Summer 1991
The highbrow hysteria of Elvis Costello and Martin Amis ...
Elvis Costello: Can I Be Frank…?
Essay by Mark Sinker, The Wire, September 1992
2005 note: The original manuscript began and ended with some kind of lyrical gibberish swansong for the song as a music-form (in the age of ...
Elvis Costello and the Brodsky Quartet: The Juliet Letters (WEA/All formats)
Review by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 23 January 1993
SINGING OF a cynic's world-view in 'A Sad Burlesque', Elvis Costello mentions 'The pitying smirk'. Funny, a pitying smirk is exactly what the young and ...
Elvis Costello: The Other Side of Elvis
Interview by Chris Heath, Details, April 1993
Two years ago, Elvis Costello was a celebrated songwriter with a bad beard and a sharp tongue. His Latest record is The Juliet Letters. He's ...
Interview by Ira Robbins, Newsday, 1994
Like an old flame breezing back through the door with no more than an indolent shrug and a sly wink, Elvis Costello has returned from ...
Crimes and Misdemeanours: Elvis Costello
Interview by Adrian Deevoy, Q, January 1994
Elvis Costello stands accused: of committing three grievously over-egged albums; of conspiring with classical quartets; of proceeding in a soundtrackular direction; of masterminding The Wendy ...
Elvis Costello: Brutal Youth (Warner Bros.)
Review by Chris Roberts, Melody Maker, 26 February 1994
PRAY TO GOD that Elvis Costello never writes a song about you and relationships. Rather Mike Leigh or Ken Loach documents you, rather a fly ...
Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, April 1994
A PERFORMER as singular as Elvis Costello invites any number of critical perspectives and, needless to say, few gain his approval. Still, here's one. Through ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, January 1995
How the devil are you? I'm having a ball. ...
Elvis Costello: They Think It's All Covers... Er, It Is Now!
Interview by Terry Staunton, New Musical Express, 20 May 1995
After 18 years of being either a sneering young turk or cumudgeonly old bugger, ELVIS COSTELLO has decided it's time for a change – he's ...
Rebuilt to Last: Elvis Costello's Meltdown
Report and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Times, 11 June 1995
Music cannot be divided into the old artificial groups. Elvis Costello has always known this, and now he is paving the way to a more ...
Report by Roy Trakin, Musician, November 1995
And other odd twists of the CD revolution. ...
Interview by Francesco Calazzo, Buscadero (Italy), 1996
What follows is a little chat, later rearranged as an interview, occurred between Pete Thomas (the drummer of the now disbanded Elvis Costello’s Attractions) and ...
Elvis Costello: A Good Year For The Composer
Interview by Keith Cameron, New Musical Express, 29 June 1996
HE IS THE Music Man, he comes from down your way. And he can play. Oh, he can play pretty much anything you care to ...
Elvis Costello: All This Useless Beauty (Warner Bros.)
Review by Dave DiMartino, Musician, 1 July 1996
IT'S EASY to get lost within the sheer bulk of Elvis Costello's work – particularly since most of it, from 1977's My Aim Is ...
Review by Richard C. Walls, Rolling Stone, 2 February 1998
AT THE BEGINNING of Elvis Costello's covers album, there's a little sleight of hand, a misdirecting cue to the listener — a false start, a ...
Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello: Kings of America
Interview by Sean O'Hagan, The Guardian, 19 September 1998
Burt Bacharach had his first hit when Elvis Costello was in short trousers. Costello had hits of his own when Bacharach's star was waning. Now, ...
Elvis Costello with Burt Bacharach: Painted From Memory
Review and Interview by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, October 1998
Two years in the making, the full-on follow-up to ‘God Give Me Strength’, their collaboration from the soundtrack to Grace Of My Heart. ...
Pop Go Costello And Bacharach Onstage
Live Review by Frank Tortorici, sonicnet.com, 15 October 1998
New-wave pioneer and '60s-pop tunesmith open their tour at Radio City Music Hall. Contributing Editor Frank Tortorici reports ...
Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach: Painted From Memory
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, November 1998
ONLY FIVE years ago in the UK, it needed to be reaffirmed that Burt Bacharach is one of the greatest popular musicians of the second ...
Two's Company — Elvis Costello & Burt Bacharach: Painted From Memory
Review by Tom Doyle, Q, November 1998
Mr Long Chin meet Mr Crap Hat. ...
Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello at the Royal Festival Hall
Live Review by Gavin Martin, New Musical Express, 14 November 1998
The stage is in darkness and from somewhere in the wings Elvis sings the opening verse of 'Baby It's You'. It is one of the ...
Interview by Tim Footman, Flipside, 1999
IT'S A TOUGH JOB, but someone's gotta do it. Declan Patrick 'Aloysius' McManus, aka Napoleon Dynamite, aka The Imposter, aka Tiny Hands Of Concrete; a ...
Elvis Costello at the Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool
Live Review by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 19 April 1999
THERE'S BEEN loose talk lately that Elvis Costello is becoming an irrelevance. The only one of his Nineties albums to gain pop acceptance was an ...
Last Night a Record Changed My Life: Attack of the killer organ
Memoir by Colin Irwin, MOJO, October 1999
Elvis Costello was a scrawny 12-year-old — until Georgie Fame opened the door to hipness. ...
Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 11 November 1999
DECLAN MACMANUS took to the stage in 1977, an angry young man sporting Buddy Holly glasses and a strange name: Elvis Costello. But he wasn't ...
Elvis Costello takes up Position of Artist in Residence at UCLA
Report and Interview by Fred Shuster, Los Angeles Daily News, 26 June 2001
Elvis Costello prepares for a year in Westwood ...
Elvis Costello: Beacon Theater, NYC
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 7 November 2001
THIS WAS NOT a show for the half-hearted. Even the nosebleed seats in the Beacon Theater that night ran a hefty $35. For prime position, ...
Elvis Costello: Elvis Gets His Groove Back
Interview by Roy Trakin, Hits, 2002
THE ONCE-ANGRY young man of punk-rock is now practically a pop music singer-songwriting icon. It's been more than 25 years since a bespectacled nerd with ...
Elvis Costello: This Year's Model/Blood & Chocolate/Brutal Youth
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, March 2002
One more time: Elvis's rockest creations in 2CD editions, each with a bonus disc featuring material available on earlier reissues, plus previously unreleased demos. ...
Review by Chris Roberts, Uncut, April 2002
Second phase of Bonus-packed reissue programme for Costello catalogue ...
Elvis Costello: When He Was Cruel
Review by Ira Robbins, salon.com, 30 April 2002
MICK JAGGER HAD A POINT when he announced "it's the singer not the song" – the young Rolling Stones were perfectly content to beg, borrow ...
Classics and Newer Tunes, a Full-Circle Mix by Elvis Costello
Live Review by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 30 May 2002
Elvis Costello: UCLA Ackerman Grand Ballroom, Los Angeles ...
Interview by Graeme Thomson, The Herald, 23 August 2002
YOU DON'T REALLY interview Elvis Costello. It's more a matter of tossing a few loaded questions at him then taking cover as each enquiry explodes ...
Elvis Costello: Mighty Like A Rose
Retrospective by Nick Hasted, Uncut, November 2002
SUMMER 1991, AND Elvis Costello's kingdom was about to crumble. In the world outside, it was the year of Screamadelica, Nevermind, Blue Lines and dance ...
Elvis Costello & The Imposters: Cruel Smile
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 10 January 2003
ELVIS COSTELLO is one of those artists that people love. Not just listen to and like, not just appreciate and admire, but actually wholly love, ...
Nobody talks like Elvis Costello
Interview by David Hepworth, The Word, April 2003
On the eve of his second quarter century Elvis looks back, sideways but most of all forward. "I've started to sing from directly inside of ...
Elvis Costello: Get Happy!!/Trust/Punch The Clock [New Editions] (Edsel)
Review by Jon Wilde, Uncut, October 2003
"OH, I JUST DON'T know where to begin," Elvis Costello swooned in the opening line to his lusciously hummable 1979 hit 'Accidents Will Happen'. ...
Elvis Costello: Elvis Goes North
Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Inside Entertainment, November 2003
MY EDITOR thinks Elvis Costello's latest album, North, is a lot like Frank Sinatra's 1954 classic In the Wee Small Hours. He's right: both recordings ...
Elvis Costello: A Dream Comes True
Report and Interview by Adam Sweeting, Gramophone, 11 January 2004
A ballet from pop legend Elvis Costello based on Shakespeare? How did the musical changeling meet the challenge, asks Adam Sweeting ...
Elvis Costello: Almost Blue/Goodbye Cruel World/Kojak Variety
Review by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, September 2004
AS THE AMBITIOUS Costello reissue programme heads towards completion, the contents of the bonus discs take on a greater significance, bolstering releases that may struggle ...
Elvis Costello and the Imposters: The Delivery Man
Review by Ben Thompson, Daily Telegraph, 20 September 2004
RECORDED AT Sweet Tea Studios in Oxford, Mississippi, with guest appearances by Emmylou Harris and Lucinda Williams, The Delivery Man initially looks like a bold ...
Elvis Costello: Complicated Shadows: The Life And Music Of Elvis Costello by Graeme Thomson
Book Review by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, October 2004
Only the man himself could have done better ...
Elvis Costello & The Imposters: The Delivery Man (Mercury)***
Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, November 2004
EMERGING FROM AN uneven middle period of marital discord, free-range experimentation and ill-advised beards, the artist formerly known as Declan MacManus appears to have upped ...
Elvis Costello: A Man with a Mission (In Two or Three Editions)
Interview by Bill DeMain, Performing Songwriter, Fall 2004
ELVIS COSTELLO is about to take over the world. No, he's not going to reveal himself as a nefarious arch-villain in league with Doctor Octopus ...
Elvis Costello with Emmylou Harris and the Imposters: Central Park SummerStage
Live Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 19 July 2005
IT SEEMS SLIGHTLY ridiculous now, but Elvis Costello's 1981 Almost Blue came with a sticker warning: "This album contains country & Western music & may produce radical reaction ...
Elvis Costello with Emmylou Harris: SummerStage, Central Park, NYC
Live Review by Mac Randall, New York Daily News, 20 July 2005
"PITY ABOUT IT BEING so cold and all," Elvis Costello cracked toward the beginning of his Central Park SummerStage concert last night. ...
Elvis Costello: The Right Spectacle
Film/DVD/TV Review by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, November 2005
Anthology of 27 videos for hits, near misses and ones that got way. ...
The Rock Snob's Dictionary: An Introduction
Book Excerpt by David Kamp, Broadway Books, February 2006
2021 AUTHOR'S NOTE: This was written in 2005 and does not entirely hold up today. (But most of it does.) ...
Interview: Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint
Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Inside Entertainment, May 2006
ELVIS COSTELLO is rock's renaissance man. Along with writing and recording his own songs — some of the wittiest and most acerbic in the pop ...
Paul Simon: Bloomsbury Theatre, London; Allen Toussaint: Bush Hall, London
Live Review by Mark Pringle, Rock's Backpages, 3 June 2006
LET'S LOOK at what Paul Simon and Allen Toussaint share. They both wrote songs that helped shape this thing of ours, this culture we've shared ...
Geoff Emerick: Recording the Beatles
Interview by Jeff Slate, Tape Op, January 2007
I'D COME TO A midtown Manhattan law office to meet Geoff Emerick, the infamous engineer on most of the significant recordings by the Beatles, to ...
The lasting legacy of 'Shipbuilding'
Retrospective by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 5 April 2007
During the Falklands war, Elvis Costello wrote a passionate elegy for a lost way of life that still resonates today, says Robert Sandall. ...
Report by Larry Jaffee, Mediaware, June 2007
YES, THE PRE-RECORDED music industry is mired in the throes of a tailspin from which it most likely will never recover. This, of course, is ...
Retrospective and Interview by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, September 2007
Thirty years after the release of My Aim Is True, Elvis Costello is set to revisit his classic debut. Terry Staunton looks back at the ...
Various Artists: The Big Stiff Box Set
Review by Stuart Maconie, The Word, December 2007
THE '70S BEGAN and ended in turmoil, with strikes, crises, terrorism, class war and new political orthodoxies on the march. ...
Elvis Costello: Secret, Profane & Sugarcane
Review by Bud Scoppa, Uncut, July 2009
WHEN ELVIS COSTELLO and T-Bone Burnett first crossed acoustic guitars in 1984 in the guise of the Coward Brothers, each was seeking a new direction. ...
All Star's Concert For T Bone Is Well Done
Live Review by Jim Sullivan, Boston Herald, 18 October 2010
I FIRST SAW T Bone Burnett in 1975 when he was 27 and one of the less-known musicians on Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue tour. ...
Elvis Costello & The Imposters: The Return of the Spectacular Singing Songbook
Review by Terry Staunton, Uncut, January 2012
REVIVED IN summer 2011 on a lengthy series of dates across America (and coming to the UK in May 2012), The Spectacular Spinning Songbook is ...
Overview by Graeme Thomson, The Word, March 2012
Because sometimes the only way musicians can actually talk to each other is by writing songs ...
Elvis Costello: SECC Clyde Auditorium, Glasgow
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 15 May 2012
LOOKING AND SOUNDING like Eric Morecambe's impish rock-star nephew, Elvis Costello revealed his hitherto untapped talents as a music-hall comedian at the debut British date ...
The Music of Prince: Carnegie Hall, New York
Live Review by Alan Light, MSN.com, March 2013
PRINCE HAS long been considered a gold standard as a singer, guitarist, stage performer, and producer. He's such a singular force, though, that he hasn't ...
Interview by Dorian Lynskey, MOJO, September 2013
Forged in the unlikely surroundings of an American late-night TV show, the transatlantic union between Elvis Costello and The Roots' drummer and co-frontman Questlove has ...
Interview by Jim Sullivan, Rock's Backpages, January 2014
IT WAS 1983. Six years Elvis Costello had been in the public eye — but it had also been six years of antipathy toward the ...
Elvis Costello and Wendy James: That Year's Model
Retrospective by Graham Reid, The New Zealand Herald, 26 January 2015
TRANSVISION VAMP were one of those British bands who got through the door in the post-punk/New Wave era, but didn't quite know what to do ...
Elvis Costello: Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink (Blue Rider Press)
Book Review by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Chronicle, 18 October 2015
Elvis Costello's autobiography offers musical influences, celebrity anecdotes and rock and roll mythology. ...
Elvis Costello: Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink
Book Review by Chris Charlesworth, Just Backdated, November 2015
LIKE A HANDFUL of rock stars I have encountered along the way – among them Townshend, Bowie and Zappa – Elvis Costello would have made ...
The 30 best live concert albums of all time
Guide by Ian Winwood, Daily Telegraph, 22 April 2020
LAST WEEK, A STORY appeared in the New York Times that predicted that live music would not return to the world's stages until the autumn ...
see also Ross McManus
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