On that ground, perhaps this will turn out to be the Elvis album for people who know they're supposed to like Elvis, but really mostly don't. Unlike most of his classics, they can put this album on in the background of their nice dinner party with the accountant friend and his wife.
Setting aside a couple of crappy albums of covers, North may eventually rate as the least interesting collection of original songs in Elvis career.
Folks, I'm the original Elvis Costello fan, faithful through new wave and ballads, country and classical. If he can't convince ME that this is worthwhile, then it really ain't much.
Obviously he's (quite understandably) enthralled by his hot jazz singer fiance, but I would have hoped that new love would inspire better songs. Perhaps we'll just have to wait for the tragic breakup for him to get any good songs out of the deal.
On top of which, the CD came with some lame encryption- though that may just be on the downloadable bonus track. For starters, this cost baby brother five minutes of his life cracking that in order to get his copy. Far worse, they're wanting top commercial dollar for a set of recordings ultimately clearly inferior to the mp3 files available on the net for free. In any case, it'd be a waste to spend $15 on disc you're unlikely to want to hear more than a couple of times.
Then there is the bonus download, the title song "North." You have to have a pin number from the cd, and then you have to download a goddam wma format file. This nothing song is SO not worth the bother.
Indeed, you really needn't bother with any of this, though. If you're a big Elvis fan, you'll need to hear this for yourself, I suppose. I recommend that you go to Kazaa and look it up. You should probably start by downloading the last song, "I'm in the Mood Again." It's as good as any of them.
Article comments
1 - Sean H.
Remember the posts from earlier this Summer about EC's inane remarks at the songwriter's dinner? Isn't it funny how right around the time artists feel the need to begin expressing their political feelings most explicitly, the quality of their work starts to, well, suck. Witness the most recent efforts by Messrs. Earle, Young and now Costello.
2 - Tom Johnson
And I will counter: North is one of the best things I've heard from Elvis in a long time. "It doesn't sound much at all like Painted From Memory or The Juliet Letters- two far superior albums on all levels." You are entirely misguided on this - for starters, North sounds VERY much like PFM, minus the Bacharach cheese-quotient, and is obviously similar to TJL due to the string presence on some tunes. As for not having "hooks," you must have read the same review I did that everyone started quoting after they'd read it too. The album isn't a rock album, Al, and it doesn't need to have hooks like a rock album would. And thank God it doesn't.
The biggest problem this album faces is Elvis' own fanbase, the majority of whom are stuck on one "version" of Elvis they particularly like and won't accept anything outside of that. As I've stated before, I hate "fans" - they are detrimental to a musician's ability to learn and grow. Luckily, Elvis has never cared about pleasing fans and has let his creative muse wander wherever he's felt it needed to go.
As for North being the lowest point in his career? Are you seriously trying to say it ranks lower than Goodbye Cruel World?
Encryption? Where did you buy your copy, Al? There is no encryption on the US release, and if I understand correctly, you're in the US, right?
And puh-leeeze, North is nothing, nothing at all like Norah Jones. North is pure jazz balladry, where Come Away With Me is more "contemporary lite-jazz" than anything else. It's pretty obvious you're not a jazz person, Al, because jazz people ARE enjoying North.
3 - Al Barger
Hooks are not a pop only phenomenon. That's just a broad phrase to describe any catchy melodic or instrumental phrase. Those famous first four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, for example, make a pretty strong hook.
This is broadly in the range of the Norah Jones album, as a polite kind of supper club jazz vocal record.
Simply having some strings doesn't make North comparable to TJL though. Hey, "Kashmir" has strings too, and I definitely wouldn't confuse Zep with Elvis.
Goodbye Cruel World definitely rates well above North. GCW probably is one of Elvis' lesser albums, but it still has "I Wanna Be Loved" and "The Only Flame in Town" and my personal favorite, "Inch by Inch." I'm not so thrilled by the production sound of the album, but there are definitely at least several outstanding songs. The album is significantly underrated. It is mediocre only by the exacting standards of Elvis.
Again, despite the text of this review, you seem to want to lump me in with the crowd what only accepts a silly narrow vision of Elvis' stylistic abilities. This does not describe my outlook at all. I LOVE the wandering aspect of Elvis. I don't want him to keep making This Year's Model again and again.
Some jazz starts getting far afield from my primary musical interests, but not this stuff. I still have some difficulty digesting some hardcore Coltrane, but the Elvis and Norah Jones albums here are relatively easy for a pop music fan to understand.
They're working with simple, basic pop song structures. The North album probably has less weirdness in song architecture than most Elvis albums. Some freaky architecture would have made the stuff more interesting.
It's not that I don't get it. I pretty well understand what he's done here (it's distressingly straightforward), it's just that it's not especially interesting. These songs are just not very memorable, not one of them. Maybe I'll listen to it a few more times and come back at Christmas with a mea culpa, but I don't see it.
4 - samk
The problem with North is that it is impossible to listen to - all the songs merge into one big mishmash of banality. The primary reason is the vocal sound - the arrangements are all fairly adequate. The record and the songs themselves are ok/mediocre if overwhelmingly self-indulgent. But I don't understand why so many critics are hailing the singing as his best ever. Costello's vocals are mixed increasingly loud on his recent records (PFM included) and they expose him as a singer who never hits the notes first time - he almost always needs to slide up in an ungainly fashion. The melodies are also very awkward and magnify the vocal problems. This record doesn't know what it is - lounge/jazz/quasi-classical or pop. It might be better if he got someone else to produce. To my mind, his good records are all produced by Nick Lowe or T-Bone Burnett, with the possible exception of PFM. Let's face it, the Juliet Letters, For the Stars and maybe North are approaching disaster status.
5 - Al Barger
SamK, gotta call you out for dissing The Juliet Letters. That was an outstanding album. For starters, it was a unique effort- it doesn't sound much like any other record anyone else has made. More specifically, it had quite a few really outstanding catchy songs, "Jacksons, Monk and Rowe" and "I Almost Had a Weakness" and "Swine" and "This Offer Is Unrepeatable" and "Dear Sweet Filthy World" being particularly outstanding.
I wish he'd give us another "disaster" like that.
6 - samk
Dear Al
Well we may have to agree to disagree or disagree to agree on this one. It was a record that, while I admired him for doing it, just didn't seem to quite work. It was always a difficult assignment cos it hadn't really been attempted in that way. The songs you refer to are indeed strong, the lyrics in particular, however he's kind of tried to invent a new category of popular music, or insert himself into the classical world. While I think it's great that he's extending himself, who wouldn't enjoy it with the money and resources at his disposal, I think there are too many people, I'm not pointing the finger here, who blindly adore everything he does.
I'm a big fan and will probably keep buying his records cos what he does is invariably interesting, if ONLY interesting. But someone should tell him to turn his vocals in the mix and give us a bit more subtlety.
OK, I'll give you Juliet Letters cos it was brave, interesting and, even if I don't like it, I can see its merits. North and For the Stars should never have been released.
Cheers
Samk