Track Listing
1. Beyond Belief
2. Tear Before Bedtime
3. Shabby Doll
4. The Long Honeymoon
5. Man Out Of Time
6. Almost Blue
7. ...And In Every Home
8. The Loved Ones
9. Human Hands
10. Kid About It
11. Little Savage
12. Boy With A Problem
13. Pidgin English
14. You Little Fool
15. Town Cryer
Review
Could this album be even better than Armed Forces? Maybe I am not sure, it is actually quite a different fish but equally as good. Here Costello goes for the big production using all the tricks in the box with some amazing arrangements and the costumary great lyrics.
It is hard not to like this album, even if you are not a fan of Elvis Costello this is just so well crafted that it is very complicated not to admire it. So, even if you didn't get Armed Forces this might be the one to start you off and then go listen to Armed Forces again.
So you can probably tell I really liked this. This is Elvis at both his most experimental, but also most accessible and also at his best. 1982 has been a pretty nifty year up until now, there are a couple of bad clouds on the horizon but I think it will turn out to be a good year.
Track Highlights
1. Man Out Of Time
2. Shabby Doll
3. Town Cryer
4. ... And In Every Home
Final Grade
10/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
It was voted as the best album of the year in The Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics poll. In 1998 readers of Q magazine named it the 96th greatest album ever. In 1989, it was ranked #38 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s. In 2003, the album was ranked number 166 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The album reached number 6 in the U.K. charts and number 30 in the U.S., but none of the singles charted.
Am I the only one reminded of Rufus Wainwright by this track? Man Out Of Time:
1 comment:
I loved everything Costello LP that preceded this, but I found it to be a mixed bag for me when it came out in 1982. In retrospect, for me this album was the beginning of his long and still ongoing decline into bloated pretension, and it turned out to be the last thing he did that held any interest for me. But having said that, I still find Beyond Belief to be one of the most jaw-droppingly amazing performances he ever recorded.
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