Just like I missed out on the 2007 summer hit ‘Umbrella’ and discovered Rihanna about a year and a half after the fact, somehow Estelle’s ‘American Boy’ passed me by in the summer of 2008. I guess this is what I get for not listening to the radio (or, as is often the case now, listening to fruity XM stations like ‘The Coffee House’ that play the same alterna-safe artists in constant rotation).
I don’t know much about Estelle other than her nationality (British) and that she had an international hit with this song. Kanye West joins her on the track but I don’t believe either of them wrote it. It was produced by Will.i.am, who is quite good at this sort of thing.
It was four years before Costello released another solo album — 2008’s Momofuku. He did put out an album with Allen Toussaint in the middle there, but I haven’t heard it enough to feature it here. I’ve been meaning to give it a listen but haven’t gotten around to it.
After browsing the EW summer preview, I’ve compiled the following list of 18 movies I want to see over the next four months. The surprising and refreshing thing about this summer is the variety of interesting (on paper, at least) non-tentpole films coming out. My top three are actually small-budget romances.
A year after When I Was Cruel, Costello released the only original album of his that I’ve chosen not to own — a collection of MOR ballads called North. I think I listened to the album twice before coming to terms with the fact that I’d never listen to it again. Even worse than the uninspired Goodbye Cruel World, it’s the only time in Costello’s career that he didn’t even make it out of the gate.
Four years after Painted From Memory, six years after All This Useless Beauty and eight years after Brutal Youth, Costello finally released another rock-n-roll album.
Meet Me In Montauk 