“Totally fucked up”: the classic albums Elvis Costello can’t stand listening to
We’re all fans of The Beatles, that much is a given, but no one is quite the mega fan like Elvis Costello.
The 1970s new wave superstar was proud to stand on the shoulders of giants he loved, and they came no bigger than The Beatles. Sure, we all love The Beatles and the glittering catalogue of tracks that they provided for us, but for Costello, it ran deeper – they were the barometer by which all great rock and roll bands should be measured, and more importantly, how all great albums should be measured.
But even when the band were playing live, they nailed that one aspect of musicality that so many of us wildly misunderstand. The live version of a song should never sound like the recorded one, for that is not the point. That approach negates all of the nuance and unpredictability of a good live show, and The Beatles understood that, altering the blueprint of their already established hits to have a little bit more pop while on stage.
So true greatness, by Costello’s ear, had to be the mastery of both parts. It’s no surprise that his career saw him follow the pathway of duelled artistry, where his live show reputation was just as good as his recorded, becoming something of an unexpected punk icon in the late ‘70s. The vibrant essence of his greatest performances was captured in a bottle and laid down with careful consideration in the studio.
So when certain artists burst onto the scene and sought to carry the torch he honourably grabbed from The Beatles, he kept a close eye on the relationship between the live show and the recorded version, in the hope that they would achieve similar greatness. Unfortunately for one British icon, PJ Harvey, the Costello verdict was pretty damning.
He said, “I remember seeing PJ on The Tonight Show. She stood there with just a guitar and did ‘Rid of Me’. It was like seeing Howlin’ Wolf on Shindig! So great. And then I got the record [Rid of Me], and it was nowhere near as good, but it didn’t matter. For me, the record sounds like shit.”
But Costello wasn’t too keen on apportioning all the blame on Harvey. Instead, he fired shots at the producer, who, to his mind, wasn’t just responsible for ruining Harvey’s album, but another one from an iconic position with such a fierce live reputation.
He continued, “That guy [Steve Albini] doesn’t know anything about production. He might be the second-worst producer of a great record after Jimmy Iovine, who totally fucked up [Bruce Springsteen’s] Darkness on the Edge of Town. It sounds like Bruce is in a fucking shoe box full of tissue paper.”
There was no room for mediocrity in Costello’s mind, who had crafted his understanding of modern music from the greatest band to ever do it. But PJ Harvey and Bruce Springsteen both proved that they had enough performance mettle to push on through criticism and eventually make albums that made the very highest grade.
