He was hitting the same notes as his younger self, but he made no attempt to imitate them. When Costello performed "Radio, Radio" to a gathering horde of Police fans in Buffalo's HSBC Arena on May 3, he sang the line about biting the hand that feeds him with conviction. They just don't do it for me." Three years later, when the Police and Elvis Costello and the Attractions were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Costello was asked his opinion of the Police's performance: "They were bloody dreadful." There is nothing at all by Led Zeppelin, the Doors, Michael Jackson, or Sting. When Costello listed his 500 favorite CDs for Vanity Fair in November 2000, he made a point of noting whose music was absent: "You will see that some very famous names are missing completely.
But since he didn't earn the title of angry young man for nothing, we know that he's not shy about sharing his hatreds as well as his passions, and anyone familiar with his musical objects of enmity would be perplexed by his current role as the opening act for the Police during their North American stadium and arena tour. The B-side covers of "My Funny Valentine" and "Gloomy Sunday" were early hints of his curatorial passion. He knows his Schubert Lieder, his Miles and Coltrane albums, his Mozart and Wagner operas, and his Ethiopian '70s pop so extensively that he could be rock 'n' roll's most prodigious aesthete, or at least archivist. The bite of Costello's music has always been as keen as his musical appetite. Here's a couplet from "The Beat": "I don't wanna be your lover / I just wanna be your victim." Ouch. Those songs still have legs - along with teeth. Yet no matter how many times he's repackaged, the Elvis Costello of the late '70s will not become harmless. The album has recently been given another lavish reissue treatment, this time by Universal (the previous two were by Rykodisc and Rhino), and with each reissue, complete with new liner notes and bonus tracks, Costello racks up yet another sale of the back catalog. "I want to bite the hand that feeds me / I want to bite that hand so badly / I want to make them wish they'd never seen me."Īgainst a backbeat of pulsating bass and tremulous keyboards, Elvis Costello first sneered these lines thirty years ago on "Radio, Radio," the caustic finale of the raucous second side of This Year's Model, his major-label debut. Elvis Costello's Momofuku: A portrait of love and lustĮlvis Costello's new album is a worthy addition to his seemingly endless catalog of beauty and bile.
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