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Elvis Costello

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 ...

Elvis Costello Re-releases

Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, December 2002

Elvis Costello And The Attractions: Armed Forces; Imperial BedroomElvis Costello: Mighty Like A Rose ...

Audio interviews

Elvis Costello (1983)

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: ***

Elvis Costello (1991)

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: ***

Elvis Costello (1995)

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: ****

Elvis Costello (2002)

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

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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 ...

Blind Date with Flo & Eddie

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 ...

Elvis Costello

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 ...

Ian Dury & The Blockheads, Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, Wreckless Eric — Bunch Of Stiffs Tour: Town Hall, High Wycombe

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 ...

Elvis Costello: Armed Forces

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... ...

Elvis Costello & the Attractions, Richard Hell & the Voidoids, John Cooper Clarke: Hammersmith Palais, London

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 ...

Elvis Costello: What'd I Say?

Report by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 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: 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 ...

I See London

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 ...

Elvis Costello Live

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 ...

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 ...

Absolute Beginners

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 ...

A Fistful Of Pesetas

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 ...

Elvis Costello - Spike

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 ...

Elvis Costello in Love & War

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 ...

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. ...

Elvis Costello: The Misfit

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  ...

Larry Knechtel Emerges

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 ...

Elvis Costello’s Brutal Truth

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 ...

Elvis Costello: Brutal Youth

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 ...

Elvis Costello

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 ...

Why Are Records Too Long?

Report by Roy Trakin, Musician, November 1995

And other odd twists of the CD revolution. ...

Pete Thomas on Elvis Costello

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 ...

Elvis Costello: Kojak Variety

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 ...

Elvis Goes Mellow?

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. ...

Fathers & Sons: The Costellos

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. ...

Elvis Costello: Reissues

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 ...

Elvis Costello

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. ...

Flogging A Dead Horse: Reissuing back catalog ad nauseam is no way to revive an ailing record industry

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 ...

Elvis Costello: True Stories

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 ...

Writing To Reach You

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 ...

Elvis Costello and Questlove

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 ...

This Year's Elvis Costello

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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