Following the double dip in 1986, Costello waited three years to put out his next album. During that time he signed with Warner Brothers and, as he tells it in the liner notes of Spike, was given a boatload of cash to make his next album. As a result, Costello writes, he took the five potential albums swimming around in his head and put them all out as one.
Indeed, Spike suffers a bit from schizophrenia. Though it is no longer than Get Happy!, Imperial Bedroom or King of America, it lacks those records’ thematic and musical cohesion and as a result feels about twice as lengthy as it is.
Meet Me In Montauk 