I don’t return to Elvis Costello’s 1991 album Mighty Like a Rose very often, but when it first came out I was in love with it.
A sticker on the album’s cover promised it was his best, most inventive work since Imperial Bedroom, which was overselling it, but it does have its share of baroque gems.
And the best album of 1982 is… Elvis Costello’s Imperial Bedroom.
Over the next two weeks I’ll feature albums unfamiliar to me that topped critics lists in 1982. When searching for those titles, I often came across Costello’s baroque pop masterpiece, knowing full well that it would top my own list. The album topped the Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll that year. It’s the record that really cemented Costello as a critical favorite.
Here’s a nice song culled from the bonus tracks of a reissue of Elvis Costello’s Goodbye Cruel World.
Costello is such a prolific songwriter that anytime I hear a new track I immediately assume it’s his own composition. But this song was actually written by Richard Thompson and has been performed by both him and his (one-time) wife Linda.
Elvis certainly does it justice here.
For the second straight year, my wife’s birthday falls on a Random Weekend day, allowing me to play the old “whatever song comes up is your birthday dedication” game.
Last year the needle landed on the Cirque du Soleil version of The Beatles’ ‘I Am the Walrus.’ Let’s see what 2014 has in store…
Finishing up my week of favorite artists who didn’t make the cut on my list of decade-best albums is Mr. Elvis Costello.
Costello released two albums in the past five years: Wise Up Ghost, his 2013 collaboration with The Roots; and 2010’s National Ransom. If one of those records were to make my list, it would have been the latter.
Meet Me In Montauk 