Albums of My Life - 1996 - Elvis Costello and the Attractions "All This Useless Beauty"

by Steve Pick

19 years and 17 albums into his career, Elvis Costello released what sounds to me on most days like his masterpiece. Of course, it's not really fair to pretend an artist only has one masterpiece in him, especially since 8 of those previous 16 deserve consideration alongside All This Useless Beauty as absolutely essential listening, and none of the other 8 are less than good. (Have I mentioned before I think Costello is the greatest songwriter of all time?)

Something less than two years before the release of Beauty, Costello reunited his old band the Attractions for an album, Brutal Youth, which attempted to give his fan base what it thought it wanted. Brutal Youth appeared the year after Costello's most (unfairly) maligned record, The Juliet Letters, on which he teamed with classical musicians the Brodsky Quartet. There are some gorgeous songs on that album, but a lot of fans weren't interested in following Costello outside the pop realm. So, for Brutal Youth, he called in drummer Pete Thomas and keyboardist Steve Nieve to rock things up again. Bassist Bruce Thomas, who has long had a difficult (to say the least) relationship with Costello, came onboard after Nick Lowe had filled the chair for half the songs.

At any rate, Brutal Youth sold better than The Juliet Letters, but not nearly as well as Warner Brothers expected when they signed the consistent upper level cult artist a few years before. With one more record on his contract, and a very successful year of touring under his belt, Costello figured he'd use the Attractions not to revisit the past, but to create a perfectly contemporary original record that wouldn't sound like anything else in his catalog.

First step, he thought he'd cover the songs he'd written for other artists to sing. I can never remember exactly how well that worked out, because there are only two songs on All This Useless Beauty I'd heard before this record came out: "The Other End of the Telescope," co-written by Aimee Mann and released a few years earlier on the final Til Tuesday record, and "You Bowed Down," given to Roger McGuinn for his strong yet sales-challenged return to pop music in the early 90s.

As the project developed, Costello started bringing new material in, as well as songs he'd written with others in mind, but which hadn't been picked up for their use. The Attractions are generally thought of as a rip-roaring rock'n'roll band, which they certainly had proved time and time again that they could be. But Costello had in mind something else entirely for this record - there is so much open space in the arrangements on these songs, so many quiet passages, and it's all ten times more effective for our knowledge of just what could happen at any moment.

We're four songs into the album, and halfway through "Complicated Shadows" at that, before the full throttle power of the Attractions is unleashed. It will come back now and again, especially on the dynamically rich "It's Time" near the end of the album, but for the most part we are meant to consider rock as just one aspect of Costello's music.

Meanwhile, the man himself gave a clinic on how to use a limited vocal prowess in unlimited ways. Costello had always been an expressive singer with a wide range of vocal mannerisms and sophisticated phrasing abilities. But somehow he never sounded better before or after than he does on this album, especially in the lengthy quiet passages. Listen to the way he wraps softly around the words on "All This Useless Beauty" itself, expanding on the sense of loss inherent in the idea that nobody understands the role of beauty in illuminating emotional truths. Of course, he also presents these thoughts inside one of the most luscious melodies in a 32-years-and-counting career of same.

Song after song, Costello snags us with delightfully intimate vocal connections, and he, Nieve, Thomas and Thomas offer(or occasionally comment overwhelmingly) with touchingly light-handed support mixed with delirious rococo effects now and again. "Why Can't a Man Stand Alone" sounds like a masterful Solomon Burke record, and is resoundingly more soulful than anything on the soul pastiche Get Happy album. (Not that I have a single complaint about that record, which is a 45 minute party-on-the-box every time I take it out to listen.) "Poor Fractured Atlas" is a gentle portrait of a frustrated and angry individual who flails hopelessly at ghosts he can't quite touch - at times, I think it's an early attack on Rush Limbaugh types, at others I think it's a snarky comment on rock critics who no longer understood exactly where Costello fit in a culture which no longer valued his melodic mastery or verbal virtuosity.

I love this whole record with all my heart, but the last three songs create a triptych of magnificence that is rarely achieved on any record I know. "You Bowed Down," fueled by the ringing McGuinn-inspired 12-string guitar, is a nuanced tale of two former lovers who have betrayed each other so many times the only thing left to achieve is deciding which one gave in first. Costello and the Attractions deliver this one as if it had already been the gigantic pop hit it deserved to be, except that radio stations that year had decided Costello was too old to be part of the "Alternative Rock" he'd helped to invent.

Then comes "It's Time," a sad but invigorating examination of the end of a relationship that's sometimes a one-night-stand gone awry and sometimes a long-term emotional roller coaster ride. Here, there is no holding back, though dynamics are important, as the band pumps it up and drops down to a scratchy, quiet distance at proper intervals. As the last full band song on the last album ever by this band, it shows just how far they had come since "Watching the Detectives," their first recording, and just how much they'd retained in their ability to mesh with each other.

Finally, there is "I Want to Vanish," an exquisite melding of Steve Nieve, Bruce Thomas and the afore-mentioned Brodsky Quartet. Costello has rarely if ever written a more haunting song, as the narrator quietly insists, with an exquisite tune, that he has nothing left to live for, and nothing at all to understand. It's chilling and as gorgeous as anything you'd care to name, and proof positive that the venture into "high art" could be put to use on a pop record without losing any of the values of either.

It frustrates me to hear people tell me Costello never matched the perfection of his earliest records. Heck, this isn't even the last great thing the man has done in his career, though I don't think he's come close to matching it since. I've been listening to All This Useless Beauty for 13 and one half years, and it does nothing but sound deeper and richer with time. It sounds to me like musical perfection.

Cover Me - Home Made Folk Art 2

by Joe Schwab

While digging through the vast Euclid archives, I was overjoyed to find two more homemade covers. The last ones we put up were LP's from Sarah Vaughan and Teddy Wilson that were received with a very positive response.


Our new finds are the rare Prestige LP from Phil Woods entitled Pairing Off. The other is the Riverside classic by the late George Russell, Ezz-thetics. I particularly love the illustration of Russell as it's reminescent of me. I think I'll make it my new Facebook photo!

Euclid Records to Release Troubadour Dali Debut CD

This is exciting news! We've been working on this for months and now the time has come. Euclid Records will be releasing its first full-length CD on December 15, when the debut album from St. Louis' premier psychedelic band, Troubadour Dali, comes out. There will be a CD release party on Friday, December 11 at Off Broadway - more details will be forthcoming. But circle those dates right now, and remember that Euclid Records isn't just your source for all the great music everybody else has released, but we're now your source for great music we provide ourselves.

A Mac a Day - the Day After

by Steve Pick
photos by Jim Varvaris

You know, in this biz, you get to meet a lot of the people who make the records you enjoy, and you understand that musicians are just regular folks like you and me. But darned if I wasn't just a little bit overwhelmed by the fact that I was standing just a few feet away from Ian McLagan, one of the greatest keyboardists in rock history, and a man who has spent 45 years contributing to records great and small. Goosebumps, I tell you.

On stage, though, he was just an enormously talented guy singing songs which he's written, and which carry forth the legacy of the musicians he grew up loving and the musicians he grew older playing with. Concentrating mostly on songs from his latest (and most critically acclaimed) solo album Never Say Never, McLagan demonstrated his melodic gifts both as a pianist and as a singer. The man just never settles for the obvious or the cliched.

And of course, he ended the show with a delightful nod to history, a version of the Faces classic "Glad and Sorry" written by his late friend and long-time bassist Ronnie Lane. As he said, "if you sing Ronnie's songs, it keeps him alive" and that is as noble a way to carry on the work of a dear friend as you can name. Here's what that one sounded like.

A Mac a Day - Day 9

And now, with just one day left until Ian McLagan is performing right here in our store, we'll give you a sneak preview of what he's doing Nov. 24 at 3 pm (and again that night at Off Broadway).

A Mac a Day - Day 8

Sorry for the late posting. Here's another classic from Ian McLagan's Small Faces days,this time augmented by P.P. Arnold, as we are only 2 days away from seeing him play live in Euclid Records at 3 pm Tuesday, Nov. 24.