I wonder if at some point an artist can release too many albums, too many songs.
I don’t mean that in the sense of running out of steam, though that is certainly the case for some long tenured musicians (The Rolling Stones, for example, who continue to record despite their best work being 40 years behind them).
The dozen or so albums Elvis Costello has released in the new millennium have run the gamut from work for symphony orchestras and jazz pianos to hard-edged country, alternative folk and a pop-funk collaboration with The Roots.
But the best of them may well be 2008’s Momofuku, the most conventional of the bunch.
Eschewing the high-concept themes of Costello’s other recent work, Momofuku was bashed out over a few weeks and released with little fanfare. And it’s exactly what the doctor ordered.
Elvis Costello has collaborated with a boatload of artists over the years. He’s written songs with Paul McCartney, Aimee Mann, Burt Bacharach and Loretta Lynn, to name a few. A few years back, he wrote a song with Kris Kristofferson and Rosanne Cash and the trio planned to cut an album together, though that didn’t come to pass (at least not yet).
I like that an artist as prolific and excellent as Costello makes the time to write with other musicians. He clearly doesn’t need to do it. His muse is on speed, he could write original material from now until the day he dies. But he must get something out of these collaborations — even if it’s just the pleasure of sharing a room with somebody whose work he admires.
Despite his forays into jazz and easy listening, every so often Elvis Costello returns to his roots and puts out a good old-fashioned rock-n-roll record. Such was the case with 2008’s Momofuku, his follow-up to the jazz collaboration The River in Reverse.
Named after the inventor of ramen instant noodles, the album was assembled in six days almost on a whim. Costello had been working with Jenny Lewis on her next album, Acid Tongue, when he decided to bring the same players (including two of The Attractions and Ms. Lewis herself) into the studio to cut a batch of songs he’d recently written.
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.
Momofuku was as spontaneous a recording as Costello has yet put out. Far from the high concepts and meticulous production of previous albums, this one happened almost by accident. Costello was recording some songs with Jenny Lewis for her album Acid Tongue when he got the bug to lay down some tracks of his own. So he quickly wrote a new batch of songs and recorded them with Lewis on backing vocals and her session players, which included members of his band The Imposters.
Meet Me In Montauk 