For Elvis, no more good rockin' tonight

elvis costello: the sweetest punch

A few years ago, Elvis Costello had an after-school special confession to make: he had never learned to read...music. Rock hits like "Every Day I Write the Book," it seemed, were the work of a musical illiterate. True to after-school form, though, Costello vowed to get help. And thus, Elvis was born again.

What followed was an unlikely pairing with lounge lizard Burt Bacharach called Painted from Memory. The new Costello was more mature, more refined, and a little more boring. Sadly, some of us were just as happy not to join him in his quest for musical erudition.

Lucky for Costello, a mostly instrumental album called The Sweetest Punch proves he has plenty of new friends ready to take our place. Bill Frisell, guitarist, impresario, and reader of music extraordinaire, arranged this elevat(or)ed version of Painted from Memory, officially notarized with three vocal performances by Costello himself.

As The Elvis Formerly Known as Artist tells us in his brief liner notes, "Much of The Sweetest Punch was recorded while Burt and I were still completing Painted from Memory. I didn't dare listen to these interpretations until our record was safely delivered to the factory." You can understand why. It's really pretty scary to imagine a grown 40-something man decked out in flannel and designer glasses softening the tunes of a rock legend. You have to ask yourself who's going to want to listen to this: people who love Elvis Costello so much that they'll plunk down $14 to hear him sing three songs, or people that hate him so much that they'll pay anything to hear his golden songs get all fucked up?

Even more mysterious is that this album isn't complete shit. It's actually kind of good, in an arch sort of way. It testifies to just how much ass Costello kicks as a songwriter that two species of clarinet, a saxophone, trumpet, and trombone can't cover up his soulful, original melodies. You could make out to several of these tunes.

Take "Toledo." You're thinking: Spain, 1979. A jilted lover, held against his will in a hotel for tourists, is forced to listen to a lounge singer fight his backup band for control of a tired melody. Then, something changes: we get to the bridge. The orchestra stops trailing the vocals. Costello has us in Ohio, fantasizing about more cosmopolitan climes. It all melts into a dream of a dream, something plain and plaintive.

The same oblique sincerity haunts "I Still Have That Other Girl," a duet featuring diva Cassandra Wilson. Costello gets his vibrato on and belts like a champ. He's a man clad entirely in leather who's not afraid to cry. Are you going to call him a wimp?

Some of the instrumental tracks, however, which make up most of the rest of the album, induce nausea. Frisell sucked the life out of The Sweetest Punch, and left in its place something that just sucks. It only makes things worse that someone has included the original lyrics to all the songs, not just the ones with vocals. I guess you could sing along with the bass clarinet if the spirit moved you. Other tracks, though, aren't so bad; "The Long Division," for one, is the perfect accessory to a rainy day and a broken heart.

All in all, it should be reassuring to his fans that Elvis has not completely left the building. He overcame his musical illiteracy five years ago; he certainly can overcome his literacy now. (UNI/Decca)

—Ian Blecher

Back to A&E...