Spanish Model, Sept 10, 2021 - New release based on one of Elvis Costello and the Attractions most celebrated albums!!

Pretty self-explanatory
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Arbogast
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Re: Spanish Model, Sept 10, 2021 - New release based on one of Elvis Costello and the Attractions most celebrated albums

Post by Arbogast »

What I'd REALLY like to hear is TYM (remastered or not) without any vocals. I wonder if that's around somewhere....
Hawksmoor
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Re: Spanish Model, Sept 10, 2021 - New release based on one of Elvis Costello and the Attractions most celebrated albums

Post by Hawksmoor »

Arbogast wrote:What I'd REALLY like to hear is TYM (remastered or not) without any vocals. I wonder if that's around somewhere....
Absolutely it's 'around', as for Spanish Model they worked from the original masters which presumably have the vocals on a separate track. So it would be perfectly possible, I guess, to produce an instrumental/vocal-free version of the LP.

I really like the way Pete's improvisation at the end of 'No Action' segues into the intro of 'Chelsea', and I'd love to hear a version of those, segued the same way but with EC's original vocals. I could probably stitch it together myself using editing software but I'm not sure I can be arsed really.

The closing theme of yesterday's documentary feature was effectively a one-and-a-half minute instrumental version of 'No Action' (and thoroughly enjoyable it is too). It would be fun if they continued to do that (I believe there will be half-a-dozen of these mini-documentaries over the next couple of weeks)?
sweetest punch
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Re: Spanish Model, Sept 10, 2021 - New release based on one of Elvis Costello and the Attractions most celebrated albums

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https://www.popmatters.com/elvis-costel ... del-review

Elvis Costello re-imagines his second album This Year’s Model by having Latinx rockers sing his classic songs on Spanish Model.
By Marty Lipp / 14 September 2021

In 1978, the always-clever Elvis Costello showed his head-turning debut album was no fluke, coming back just a year later with his explosive second album, This Year’s Model. Not only did it announce Costello as an artist with staying power, but it was also his first album with his steady band, the Attractions, who helped propel him on album after rocking album for years.

Now, 43 years later, Costello has surprised fans again by re-mixing the master tapes from This Year’s Model but stripping away his vocals and substituting in Spanish lyrics sung by Latin American rockers. The unlikely project is a series of revelations for long-time listeners, starting with how powerful and talented the Attractions were as a band.

The project began after Costello redid the title song of “This Year’s Model” at the request of writer-producer David Chase for the second season on HBO of The Deuce. Vocals by Natalie Bergman of Wild Belle were added, and it got Costello thinking about redoing the album’s masters, and he has said the idea of doing it in a new language came to him in a dream. Soon, he was working with Argentine producer Sebastian Krys to rework the album, recruiting singers and songwriters to adapt Costello’s inimitable wordplay where they could, keeping to the feeling and themes of the original songs.

The 16 tracks run through the UK version of the original album and add a few songs that Costello recorded around the same time. That includes “Radio, Radio”, which was added to the US version and became infamous when he launched into it unannounced on Saturday Night Live and was banned (albeit temporarily) from the show.

Here, “Radio, Radio” is cleverly rewritten for the occasion by veteran Argentine singer-songwriter Fito Paez, who pokes fun at the younger generation. “I don’t know what music turns you on,” he sings. “I’ll go back to Elvis Costello on my radio.” The new lyrics playfully pay homage to “This Year’s Model” and end with Paez screaming: “Hey, I want to hear this song on the fucking radio, man!”

Fans accustomed to the US version may not know the anthemic “Night Rally” about the dangers of nationalism, with haunting references to Nazi Germany. Here the song is handled by Uruguayan singer-songwriter Jorge Drexler, whose softer voice contrasts with some of the rockers elsewhere on the album, but he sings of “La Turba” or a mob.

One striking reversal is that several of the songs are sung by women, mainly since so many of Costello’s early songs were of the “she done me wrong” variety. Here, “The Year’s Model”, about a vacuous beauty, is sung by the Chilean pop singer Camila Gallardo, or Cami. In the video for the song, the model-thin Cami sits in a photo studio on a stool next to an old Victrola, without singing, just flipping cards with some of the words on them like Bob Dylan did in “Subterranean Homesick Blues”. Against the big galumphing drum beat, with her raspy vocals, she changes the song title to “La Chica de Hoy”, or “Today’s Girl”. She also makes the object of the song more sympathetic, someone who is in the spotlight but who is ultimately and sadly bored with her life. “There are no surprises for today’s girl.”

Throughout the album, Costello’s voice slips into the mix like a ghost, sometimes accompanying, sometimes dueling, with the new lead vocalists, always returning the song to its punk-pop snarling roots.

What does get lost is Costello’s brilliantly cynical wordplay. On “Pump It Up”, he spits out: “She’s been a bad girl / She’s like a chemical / Though you try to stop it / She’s like a narcotic / You want to talk to her / You want to torture her / All the things you bought for her / Could not give her temperature.” In the Spanish version, sung by Colombia superstar Juanes, the equivalent verse is close but not as cutting. “Tobacco aroma, chemical seasoning / You try to say ‘stop’/ Are you a narcotic? / Makes you hallucinate, laugh and fly / You can lose it all when this starts to burn.”

With Costello’s snarling vocals and razor-sharp wit dispatched, fans can refocus on what an incredibly tight and powerful band the Attractions were in 1978, particularly the pounding drums of Pete Thomas. Who is this album for? Costello fans who don’t know Spanish may still enjoy hearing these old favorites with new singers and lyrics, and Latinx newbies might find this a great entry point for Costello’s catalog. You have to give all involved credit—the album is still as exciting and fun as ever and yet another middle finger to anyone who expected Elvis Costello to do what he’s supposed to do.

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Hawksmoor
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Re: Spanish Model, Sept 10, 2021 - New release based on one of Elvis Costello and the Attractions most celebrated albums

Post by Hawksmoor »

sweetest punch wrote:What does get lost is Costello’s brilliantly cynical wordplay.
Fair point but that's an occupational hazard of translating lyrics into another language. Obviously, wordplay, rhyming and puns are among Elvis' most important skills as a songwriter, but none of those things survive translation.
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Re: Spanish Model, Sept 10, 2021 - New release based on one of Elvis Costello and the Attractions most celebrated albums

Post by sweetest punch »

Part 2 of the documentary: “Time”: https://youtu.be/aJAc0KYDibs
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Re: Spanish Model, Sept 10, 2021 - New release based on one of Elvis Costello and the Attractions most celebrated albums

Post by johnfoyle »

https://variety.com/2021/music/news/elv ... dXCyVWRy0Q

Sep 16, 2021

Elvis Costello on the Endurance of ‘This Year’s Model,’ and What’s Gained in Translation With New ‘Spanish Model’

Looking back to 1978, Costello says, "When we made 'Pump It Up,' I said, 'Well, this is as good as ‘Satisfaction.’

Let’s see whether other people think that.'” In 2021, Latin stars like Juanes and Luis Fonsi are singing his second album's praises.


By Chris Willman

In 1978, Elvis Costello looked at a society’s collective eagerness to move on to the next thing and snipped, “This is your punishment: You’re last year’s model.” Stick around for another 43 years, though, and you may find out that this is your reward: There’s a sort of brand new version of his classic sophomore album. “This Year’s Model” has been retooled as “Spanish Model,” with stars from the various worlds of Latin music being brought in to replace Costello’s original lead vocals and replace them with their own, in one of the most unexpected and delightful musical wrinkles of a 2021 that would seem to have seen it all.

Costello’s partner on the project was Sebastian Krys, who had been known primarily for working with Latin musicians — and was in fact named producer of the year at the Latin Grammys — before he picked up his latest non-Latin Grammy for producing Costello’s “Look Now.” With Krys’ contact list, it wasn’t an insurmountable feat to sign up a guest list that includes Juanes, Luis Fonsi, Draco Rosa, Cami, La Santa Cecilia’s La Marisoul, Jesse & Joy, Morat, Jorge Drexler, Fito Páez, Gian Marco, Vega and others, representing Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Spain, Uruguay, Argentina, Peru, Puerto Rico and, yes, even the mainland U.S. Underneath all these star turns remains the thrilling work accomplished in the late ‘70s by as great a backing band as ever lived, the Attractions, original producer Nick Lowe, original engineer Roger Bechirian and, of course – not completely scrubbed from the tracks — Declan McManus.



Variety sat down with Costello and Krys to discuss the international boundary-crossing “Spanish Model” and the enduring power of the 1978 record it’s modeled after. Costello can wax humble, but only so humble when he’s discussing a song like “Pump It Up,” which he considers “the next best rock ‘n’ roll record made in England after ‘Satisfaction.’ I’ll say that right out loud.” He’ll just leave it to somebody else to say en espanol.

Variety: It would probably be wrong to call “Spanish Model” a tribute album, right? Because this is a strange project that’s well out of the realm of anything anyone’s ever done, really.

Costello:
It’s well out of the range of tribute album. I mean, when I think of tribute albums, I think of something like [the 2019 Tom Waits salute] “Come On Up to the House: Women Sing Waits,” and Phoebe Bridgers’ great version of “Georgia Lee” on that record. Here was this young woman who I hadn’t heard before, and it was so affecting. That’s a proper tribute to that song; it’s a real re-interpretation. This isn’t the same. These singers are actually in the band with us— or with our older selves. All these people are in the Attractions. And that’s got to scare the hell out of some of those guys!

In announcing something like this, part of the fun of it is the shock value. I would think people in my audience who have been paying attention are used to surprises by now. But they’re going to want to know, how is it done? I don’t know of another record that takes this approach of taking original recordings and replacing the lead vocalist with other singers, and then more than that, in another language. But of course it’s going to be interesting to see the reaction from listeners of the guest artists who are providing the vocals, many of whom have no idea who I am. They’re going, “Why is my favorite singer singing on this record?” When they read the description of exactly what it is — 40-year-old backing tracks with my voice taken off and a new singer — it does sound crazy.


What was your initial reaction to the idea, Sebastian?

Krys:
When he told me on the phone, I did pause for like 15 seconds, because I was just trying to process it, and then I thought to myself, “I better say something!” I guess my first thought was, “What are people gonna think?” My second thought was, “Okay, this is a classic record — danger.” [Laughs] And my third one was, “Well, this makes sense.” And why it made sense to me was because I met Elvis when he was working on a ballet, and one of my favorite records is “The Juliet Letters” [Costello’s collaboration with the Brodsky Quartet]. So it’s consistent with how I perceive him to be as an artist, which is believing that there’s no danger in creating art. There’s only danger in trying to please people and taking measured steps and being fearful. Music should not be treated as a museum piece; it’s not the same as a painting. It’s something that’s alive and that evolves.

The other part that was really important to me was the idea that I could get people to discover his work through these singers, because I discovered a lot of music that way. Paul Simon’s “Graceland” came out when I was 14 or 15, and that record was a gateway to me becoming a fan of African and West African music. So conversely, this has both functions, too, where maybe somebody who is an Elvis fan who has no interest in Latin music will hear somebody’s voice and say, “Let me hear what Draco or Juanes does outside of this,” and maybe that becomes a gateway to opening up a world of music for somebody.



What’s gained or lost in translating these songs?

Krys
: I grew up in Argentina, listening to the Beatles, and I had no idea what they were saying. You just mimic the words and you feel the energy of the record. And later on when I learned how to speak English and found out what some of the messages were, it was a real revelation. One of the things that I love is that there are ideas on this record that I can’t point to any other songs that have the same ideas, that are set in the same way. It’s just like any literature — there are versions of that literature that are translated into every language so that people from other cultures can enjoy it. In music that happens once in a while — you know, “Yesterday” will be covered in every language. But I don’t think it’s happened with an actual album, and definitely not in this way. I think with such an iconic album, and an album that reached the U.S. and Europe but maybe didn’t reach Latin America, it’s an important journey to take.

I had been in so many situations where I was trying to turn Latin artists onto Elvis’s music. And a lot of what they would respond to me with is, “I love it. I wish I knew what he was saying.” … Lyrically, “This Year’s Model” is still very relevant today, what the songs have to say and how they say it. And this is a real opportunity to maybe turn an entire side of the world onto this great, great record, through these voices, and get these ideas out.



Costello: “This Year’s Model” doesn’t really have a lot of topics or themes. The songs are mostly about desire and how that relates to love; fashion and how that relates to particularly the male gaze toward women; and control, especially political control over us all. That’s pretty much the whole record, so I don’t think there’s anything there that somebody in another language would not have encountered. Now, it’s true to say that some of the way I said it might be a little obscure, because I’m using peculiar English idioms.

But I constantly fall in love with records in other languages — languages in which I don’t even know one or two curse words — because what you respond to is the humanity, the pride, the sorrow, the celebration. And in the voice, you can tell certain things, and the music gives you a clue to what that is. With this, I became really curious to see what would happen when these people, in another language and of another generation and sometimes another gender, explored what they would hear, and how Sebastian would then mix the instrumental performances around very different timbres, and the way the phonetics and the articulation of another language lands on the music. There were all these unknown factors that could only be thrilling to hear.

Did working on this make you reevaluate the original album?

Costello:
With “Spanish Model,” sometimes I think the band actually sounds tougher, because in some cases, the vocalist sounds a little sweeter than me, and therefore, the band, by omission, sounds even more ferocious than before. And that’s really saying something. When you just have the high tone of the vocal from somebody like Nina Diaz on “No Action,” and then you can really hear that roaring low end from the bass and all that drumming, it’s scary.

I mean, I hope that people realize how good that group is. Not my part in the writing of the song so much; I know the songs are good. But that is some serious playing. As good as anything. When we made “Pump It Up,” I said, “Well, this is as good as ‘Satisfaction.’ Let’s see whether other people think that.” Well, no, it wasn’t as big a hit as that, but this is the next best rock ‘n’ roll record made in England after “Satisfaction.” I’ll say that right out loud. I thought that at the time when we did it. I thought, “What’s the other one [to compare it with] — you know, a riff-based song?” There isn’t one. What, something by T. Rex? Don’t make me laugh. Though “Jeepster” ain’t bad. No, I honest-to-God thought that when we made “Pump It Up.” I said, “This is the next one. And let’s see what happens.” And, well, I think Mick (Jagger) gets played at the rallies of dubious politicians. I get played at hockey games. I think we won. [Laughs.]

What was happening in the transition from working with another group of musicians on your first album, “My Aim Is True,” to first getting the Attractions’ sound down on “This Year’s Model”?

Costello
: We made [his 1977 solo debut] “My Aim Is True” in six days. They released two singles from it. They both bombed, and they still put the album out. And then there was a bit of activity, and I became a professional musician and needed a band. And by the time we were ready to go to America for our debut, we also sensed that we should record another record. The band sounded so different to “My Aim Is True” that that just pushed us forward. But it didn’t leave very much time for a second thought about all the other ways that we might have done it — like, where would there be room for my suite based on Jules Verne or something? You know, we weren’t suddenly going to turn into Yes or ELP. We were into short pop songs. That’s what I thought we were doing.


And then by the time we came back from America, I was starting to get a bit self-conscious about this sneery character that I was being perceived to be. And thankfully, that kind of went away on the next record, and I sang relatively melodiously throughout “Armed Forces.” Some people that liked “This Year’s Model” didn’t like “Armed Forces” because it wasn’t rock ‘n’ roll enough. Well, we were not playing that now; we’re playing this.

But just to isolate the tracks and hear how incredible the band is and how vivid it all is — take me out of it; just the other three guys playing — it doesn’t sound old-fashioned, unless I’m really kidding myself. Some records made in the ‘80s sound terribly old-fashioned, because they’re so imprinted with all the drum echoes, and there’s less actual sense of the people’s playing and it’s more about the effects that they’re being heard through — gated drum reverb and things like particular types of synth that have not dated very well. But (on “This Year’s Model”) we’re using fairly universal sounds: a good bass sound; a slightly unusual drum sound, in that the snare is kind of high-tuned, not flat and dead like most L.A. records were at the time; the guitar isn’t very big; and we’re using a Vox Continental instead of a Hammond or some other warmer instrument, and occasionally piano. It’s very austere, in some ways, even though it’s ferocious rhythmically.

I think the band sounds more aggressive in Sebastian’s mix than on the original mix, because my voice isn’t in the picture, which was always leading and drawing the ear with all of my attitude and sibilance in my voice. [He makes a grrr sound.] Now you hear somebody like Jesse & Joy sing “Living in Paradise” with a beautiful voice and you can hear how great the band are playing. You hear the bass. The bass is terrific on that track.



A few of the songs are allowed to go on longer than they did on “This Year’s Model” in these new mixes, which a certain kind of fan will relish.

Krys: Well, part of that was me knowing that record from front to back really well. When you’re a fan of records and you’re a kid, and that fade-out is going, you’re cranking it and trying to hear the very last piece of information, and you’re always wondering, “Well, what happened after the fade-out?” And then when I got to open up the tracks, as a fan, I figured, well, other people will appreciate knowing what happened, too.

Costello: There’s really only like two or three moments where that is applied. Bear in mind, after my first record, I had a clause in my contract that said I couldn’t have any more songs that were under a certain length, because there were two songs under a minute and a half on “My Aim Is True,” so [the record company dictated] all the songs had to be longer — they had to be three minutes. But we still tended to err on the side of brevity and being really concise, and Nick was making pop records. He wanted them on the radio, and he went for pretty logical fades. I think sometimes he snipped out repeats and things like that to get to the end. I wouldn’t mind betting that he snipped out one or two rounds of “Radio Radio”; if you compare it to the version (on the new album), Nick just took out one of the rounds where it’s saying the same thing, so he could get to the ending.



There’s a previously unheard outro to “Pump It Up” that has Mick Jones of the Clash playing an extra guitar part that had never been heard before, which is interesting.

With “Pump It Up,” I told Sebastian going into it that there had always been this dilemma about Mick — this struggle with the band not really understanding why I wanted Mick on the session. He didn’t play on the basic session. He came in and overdubbed. So the idea that I was asking Mick Jones from what everybody saw as a rival band to come and play on our record (didn’t go over well). … On songs like “Mystery Dance,” I made a point of playing only downstrokes on the guitar, like the Ramones, so it didn’t swing. Now, Mick’s playing a swinging part, like a Chuck Berry rhythm, and it’s only heard in the back end of it when the vocals are outgoing. For me it’s great, because you hear that he was alive to what I was playing, which was much more insistent. He’s push-pull with me, and it’s just another little thrill to the end of the record that nobody’s heard.

It’s practically a whole drum solo you hear Pete Thomas doing at the end of “No Action” now.

It’s the same with letting Pete play out at the end of that song rather than fading out on his fills.He’s burnt himself out on playing the song, and it’s what you call the cool-down. You can’t stop him. He wants to keep going. Well, I think that’s a good glimpse of what he was, which was this unbelievable machine of a drummer. To my mind, Pete should be way more acclaimed than he is. He’s such a modest fellow. He’s every bit as good as any of the great drummers of the last 60 years — every bit as good as Charlie Watts or John Bonham or any of those people. They’re all great as well, but he’s not a lesser drummer. There’s many drummers where I’ve heard people say, “Oh, he’s a great drummer,” and Pete could kill him at a hundred paces. But he’s so modest and isn’t trying to dominate; he’s always serving the music. Once or twice, he gets to kind of really step out like he did on this record.

With Pete, the person that he sort of pulled from, initially, was Mitch Mitchell (of Jimi Hendrix fame). In some ways I think he’s closer to Mitch than Charlie Watts. He’s like a mixture of those two drummers. He’s got the funk that Mitch Mitchell had… All these other much more technically dazzling drummers can’t hold a candle to him, because they’re too egotistical. And the good thing was that we had like a tremendously show-off bass player (in Bruce Thomas). And although we don’t get along, I would give him this: This is the best he probably ever played. I mean, he plays great on lots of our other records, until it sort of got too strained, but this is really as good as you can play in this kind of music. I mean, it’s startling, some of his stuff. It’s not like John Entwistle, but it takes the same amount of space that Entwistle did. You can’t tell whether there’s another guitar there some of the time. And I never played many solos in those days, so it freed Pete and I to really be the rhythm section a lot of the time. The rhythm lock is between the drums and the guitar, and then the bass is free to do all these accenting things. And Steve (Nieve) at this stage isn’t doing as much as he did later on, but he’s also in his own particular pocket, which is slightly ahead or right on top of the beat; he doesn’t lay back.

So it’s all those tensions. You can sit down and analyze every group and put them on an oscilloscope and work out how it is that they work. But this is a really great group. I mean, my contribution instrumentally aside, just as a three-piece group, there isn’t a better one. There’s many as good as this, but there’s not too many better.


You still play a number of songs from “This Year’s Model” on most of your tours, so it’s seemed like the album has continued to sit well with you over the years.

Costello:
The songs are fun to play now because we play ‘em slightly differently. Davey (Faragher, bassist for the Imposters, the successor to the Attractions) has got very great respect for Bruce’s original parts, but he puts ‘em in a pocket where Pete is. Pete’s changed a lot from playing with Davey, and he’s much more American in his conception of rhythm now, in the sense that he does sort of sit back a bit more than he did then. Not because he’s tired. [Laughs.] He just feels it that way.

Do you have a solid feeling about where “This Year’s Model” sits in your canon?

Costello: I don’t really think like that. I like it always because it’s the first one with the Attractions, with whom I did all the early work, so at different times I sort of favor this one. Recently, I’d been listening to “Armed Forces” because we’ve got that boxed set that we put together, so I’ve been listening to that music and appreciating it. It’s hard for me to separate out, if you’re talking about the records. Yeah, there’s a certain approach to “Get Happy!!” which is undeniable. There’s a certain approach to “Blood and Chocolate” that’s undeniable. [More recently] there’s the way I have talked about “Look Now” being a combination of the feeling of “Painted From Memory” with the scope of “Imperial Bedroom,” though it really doesn’t sound like either of those records. It’s its own record, and so it should be. And then you’ve got things like “King of America,” and then we’re talking about “North”…

Krys: The funny thing about that question is, I was talking with Fito Paez, who sings “Radio Radio,” and mine and his entre into Elvis was “Mighty like a Rose” [from 1991]. So I think with Elvis’ body of work, it just depends on where you got in — when you got on the train and if you worked forward or backward from there. A lot of people couldn’t handle the left turns. But when “Mighty Like a Rose” came out, I was 19, and that record at that time made sense to me. I didn’t care about the early work. I worked my way to it eventually. But it’s interesting, because I think it’s all contextual. If you started with “My Aim Is True,” that’s that context. But Fito said the same thing: “I love ‘Mighty Like a Rose’!”


How much did the singers on “Spanish Model” stick with a strict lyrical translation of the songs, and was that important?

Costello: [To Krys] You’re pretty happy with the veracity to the spirit of the lyric, right? I mean, Jorge Drexler and I talked on the phone for an hour and a half about the lyrics of “Night Rally” [a song about fascism], because he wanted to know about every image in the song — like, all the bizarrest psychedelic images in the bridge. He wanted to know about the chicken (“Get that chicken out of here”); he said, “Why did you choose it?” I said, “Because it’s a frightening image.” It’s like a Room 101 type of thing [i.e., the final torture chamber in George Orwell’s “1984”]. I explained all the background thinking — far more than was ever in the song — as best I could remember it, so that when he came to do the Spanish rendition, which was not anything like a literal translation, it had the same sense of dread.

I love hearing these people sing their adaptations of these songs with intelligence and humanity and sometimes a bit of wit. With “Radio Radio,” it would be ridiculous for Fito Páez to translate my lyrics literally. Bear in mind, my song was an exaggeration. Of course it would be kind of ridiculous to be railing against radio as our main enemy with so many things assailing us in media. My first draft of that song, “Radio Soul,” was a celebration of radio. I got out in the world and thought, “I don’t think that’s going to fly. Let’s say what we see now.” But I always sort of had my tongue in my cheek with that song, even though everybody took it very seriously. And Fito got the note of humor in it.


“Radio Radio” is like my “Peace, Love and Understanding,” if that makes any sense to you. Nick Lowe’s version of “Peace, Love and Understanding” [as its original songwriter, before Costello covered it] was very satirical. And as far as I was concerned, “Radio Radio” was like “Who Needs the Peace Corps?” by Frank Zappa. That’s why we did it on “SNL”: because it was a joke. Nobody ever saw it that way, because it was so furious-sounding, but it’s obviously a joke. You know, do I really think that we are being totally controlled by radio? Of course not! Some of the humor in these songs just went by people because of the way my face looks. Certainly it did then.
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Re: Spanish Model, Sept 10, 2021 - New release based on one of Elvis Costello and the Attractions most celebrated albums

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This is a terrific read.

And it’s really pleasing to see Elvis acknowledging Bruce.
Who’s this kid with his mumbo jumbo?
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Re: Spanish Model, Sept 10, 2021 - New release based on one of Elvis Costello and the Attractions most celebrated albums

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Another thing I was thinking about was the record company’s reaction when this project was pitched.
Who’s this kid with his mumbo jumbo?
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Re: Spanish Model, Sept 10, 2021 - New release based on one of Elvis Costello and the Attractions most celebrated albums

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Part 3 of the documentary: https://youtu.be/xe5u_HC6swU
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Re: Spanish Model, Sept 10, 2021 - New release based on one of Elvis Costello and the Attractions most celebrated albums

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https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/en ... i-and-more

Elvis Costello reimagines 1978’s ‘This Year’s Model,’ in Spanish, with help from Juanes, Luis Fonzi and more

The concept of “Spanish Model” is as intriguing as its billing by Elvis Costello & The Attractions is at least somewhat misleading. That seems par for the course for an album as playful — and playfully subversive — as “Spanish Model,” whose release date was pushed back from last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 16-song album repurposes Costello and the long-defunct Attractions’ 1978 debut release, the new wave-era rock classic “This Year’s Model,” along with several other numbers recorded during the same period.

All the original instrumental tracks have been remixed and all of Costello’s lead vocals have been removed. His singing is replaced with new vocals — all performed in Spanish — by Juanes, Luis Fonsi, Oscar-winner Jorge Drexler, Menudo alum Draco Rosa, Jesse & Joy and other artists from across the Latin-music world.

They hail from Argentina, Spain, the United States and seven other countries in between. Nearly all of them were born years, or even decades, after “This Year’s Model” was released. But no matter.

Because all of the guest artists profess to be big fans of Costello, 66. His status as a true musical renaissance man with an unusually broad creative range has placed him in a category all his own, as befits an artist whose previous recording partners range from Burt Bacharach, Loretta Lynn and Paul McCartney to The Roots, Tony Bennett and Allen Toussaint.

All of “Spanish Model’s” guests artists jumped at the invitation from Costello and producer Sebastián Krys — a 16-time Grammy and Latin Grammy Award-winner — to be on the album. Some of the guests were not remotely familiar with the original 43-year-old album.

Each worked directly with Krys and Costello, who gave them carte blanche to interpret these songs any way they wanted, with just one caveat. They had to sing over guitarist Costello and The Attractions’ ferocious original instrumental backing tracks.

Whether the resulting album earns him and his former band a new coterie of fans in Latin America, or here, remains to be determined. If not, it won’t be for a lack of effort, including a six-part film documentary on the making of “Spanish Model” that debuted last week on YouTube.

Nearly all of the album’s guest artists have solid track records. The lesser-known performers, such as former Texas band Girl in a Coma singer Nina Diaz, 33, and Chilean solo artist Cami, 25, are accomplished vocalists.

Having Cami do “This Year’s Girl” — whose acidic lyrics skewer vapid young women — provides an unexpected and compelling twist. So does her decision to retitle the song “La Chica De Hoy” (“Today’s Girl”) and to make its subject more simpatico and multidimensional than in the Costello original.

The similarly unkind to women “Little Triggers” is performed here as “Detonantes” by La Santa Cecilia band vocal powerhouse Marisol “La Marisoul” Hernandez.

Her impassioned delivery and pinpoint dynamic control elevate the song in a way its creator surely could not have previously imagined. And by seizing control of the song and inverting its sexual politics through the sheer power of her performance, Hernandez sets off a whole new batch of triggers.

Equally potent, if far different in tone, “Night Rally” is recast here by Jorge Drexler as “La Turba.” One of Costello’s most powerful early political commentaries, it takes direct aim at fascism and the fomentation of hate.

Having the song performed by Drexler, who grew up in Uruguay when that country was ruled by a military dictatorship in the 1970s and ‘80s, is a canny move. He infuses the lyrics with a palpable depth of feeling — born from first-hand experience — that adds welcome new poignancy.

Costello does not speak any Spanish, although he surely could learn to if he wanted. This, after all, is an artist who taught himself to read and write music specifically so that he could make an ambitious neo-chamber-music album with a string quartet, 1993’s “The Juliet Letters.”

To ensure the lyrics from “This Year’s Model” were adapted into Spanish as accurately as possible, producer Krys brought in such veteran songwriters as Ximena Muñoz, Elsten Torres, Luis Mitre, Andie Sandoval and Mercedes Mígel “Vega” Carpio to hone Costello’s famously crafty wordplay. Conspicuously missing is famed Puerto Rican tunesmith and singer Elvis Crespo, whose absence robs “Spanish Model” of the opportunity to have one artist with the initials E.C. salute another E.C.

For some listeners simply reading the translated titles on “Spanish Model,” whether literal or idiomatic, will inspire smiles. "(I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea” appears here as "(Yo No Quiero Ir A) Chelsea.” “Running Out of Angels” is now “Se Esta Perdiendo La Inocencia” (which translates as “We Are Losing Innocence”), while “Lip Service” is recast as “Mentira” (literally, “Lies,” which is close enough).

As for “Pump It Up,” which is given an energetic reading by Juanes (with Costello singing on the chorus), its title remains unchanged on “Spanish Model.” That may be, perhaps, because neither “Bombalero” nor “Para Activario” quite fits the bill or the cadence.

On the snarling, turbo-charged “Radio, Radio,” Argentine rock hero Fito Páez, 58, pokes fun at his and Costello’s senior musical statesman status in an age of streaming and bedroom TikTok sensations.

“I don’t know what music turns you on / I’ll go back to Elvis Costello on my radio,” Páez sings, before concluding: “I want to hear this song on the (expletive) radio, man!”

What longtime Costello fans will hear for the first time is then-Clash guitarist Mick Jones guitar part at the conclusion of “Spanish Model’s” revamped version of “Pump It Up.” Jones’ contribution was cut from the 1978 original by Costello and The Attractions.

Ultimately, “Spanish Model” will sound foreign and familiar to non-Spanish and Spanish speakers alike. It could also prove strangely appealing to anyone who was put off by Costello’s sneering, sometimes proudly abrasive vocals when “This Year’s Model” came out in 1978.

Then again, part of the charm of Costello’s early work was how gleefully he embraced the “angry young man” persona that was used to market him and such kindred spirits as Graham Parker and The Clash’s Joe Strummer.

That bile-filled persona reflected the anger, frustration and alienation of the young Costello, who — early in his career — told an interviewer “the only motivation points for me writing all these songs are revenge and guilt. Those are the only emotions I know about, that I know I can feel ...”

Some of those feelings sound pretty much the same in Spanish. Others sound markedly different, especially when sung by women artists who reject and subvert the sometimes bitter sexual jealousy of lyrics Costello wrote when he was 23.

The pivotal difference here is the singers much more than the songs, which — musically speaking — remain instantly recognizable. That’s a tribute to the impressive durability of Costello’s writing and the formidable instrumental skills of The Attractions, whose drummer, Pete Thomas, is also featured on Juanes’ latest album, “Origen.”

Thomas and keyboardist Steve Nieve are members of Costello’s current band, The Imposters, which performs with him Nov. 8 at The Magnolia in El Cajon. Unless Costello has just learned how to sing phonetically in Spanish, that concert will be performed entirely in English.

What is lost, or gained, in translation on “Spanish Model” ultimately comes down to the talents of the guest artist on each song and their ability to make it their own.

Beyond the change in language, “Despacito” singer Luis Fonsi doesn’t bring anything notably different to “Tu Eres Para Mi” (“You Belong To Me”). That is, very likely, because he is overly deferential to Costello’s original, while adapting a more polite tone that doesn’t really suit the hard-biting lyrics. Ditto Colombian pop band Morat’s by-the-numbers version of “Lipstick Vogue.”

An intriguing misfire comes from Peruvian vocal star Gian Marco and his daughter, Nicole Zignago. Their unison singing on “Crawling to the U.S.A.” is so upbeat and peppy it sounds like a TV jingle for a minty breath freshener on a song that unabashedly addresses issues of immigration and cultural assimilation.

This may be precisely the kind of musical subversion that Costello — and, perhaps, a new generation of Spanish-speaking or bilingual hipsters — will welcome.

If so, multilingualism could breathe additional new life into some of this 2003 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee’s recent and vintage work alike. (“Spanish Model” follows the March release of “La Face de Pendule à Coucou,” a six-track EP of songs from Costello’s 2020 album, “Hey Clockface,” newly performed in French.)

Next up (well, maybe): A Latin version of his 1982 masterpiece with The Attractions, “Imperial Bedroom,” snappily retitled “Imperiālis Cubiculum.”
Last edited by sweetest punch on Mon Sep 20, 2021 2:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Spanish Model, Sept 10, 2021 - New release based on one of Elvis Costello and the Attractions most celebrated albums

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Re: Spanish Model, Sept 10, 2021 - New release based on one of Elvis Costello and the Attractions most celebrated albums

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https://www.google.be/amp/s/www.13thflo ... w/%3famp=1

Elvis Costello – Spanish Model (UMe): Album Review

Elvis Costello reworks 1978’s This Year’s Model as Spanish Model.

Released at the time of the punk and new wave explosion in the UK the original version was his second album and the first to feature The Attractions as his band. The combination of Pete Thomas’ powerful drums, Bruce Thomas’ melodic bass lines and Steve Nieve’s inventive keyboard playing enhanced Costello’s jagged guitar work, snarling vocals and cynical wordplay. This combination continued across a defining run of great albums that followed in the next three years, Armed Forces, Get Happy and Imperial Bedroom.

This Year’s Model set out Costello’s classic themes of desire, in particular of men for women, power and control. The Attractions provided music that drew from the classic UK bands of the 60s such as Rolling Stones, The Who and Small Faces. Costello has subsequently diversified in style, including recording country and western, classical and rap works and collaborators including The Kronos Quartet, Burt Bacharach and Paul McCartney.

The key collaborator on Spanish Model is the producer Sebastian Krys who has won multiple Grammys. One of his awards was for his work on Costello’s 2019 Look Now album but most are for work with Latin artists. He draws on his contacts in Latin music to bring together an eclectic mix of artists and the result is sixteen new vocal performances in Spanish by nineteen artists from ten different countries.

For the music Krys has retained the original recordings of the instruments but makes subtle changes to the mix. The track list he uses is based on the 1993 Ryko Disks reissue, which is the original UK version plus four outtakes from the same sessions.

Spanish Model opens with No Action, which has the vocals delivered with punky energy by Nina Diaz, formally of San Antonio’s Girl in a Coma. Her singing is complemented by Pete Thomas attack on the drum kit. Thomas’ playing does not fade out at the end of the song, as it did in the original, but is kept loud to provide a segue into Raquel Sofia and Fuego singing (Yo No Quiero Ir A) Chelsea ((I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea) as if this was a live set by the Attractions. The breathy Spanish vocals draw attention to the distorted crazy fairground organ sounds created by Nieve to complete a strong opening for the album.

Across the album the words are not the literal translations of Costello’s lyrics into Spanish. For example the translation of Mentira (Lip Service) means Lies, Detonantes (Little Triggers) means Explosions and La Turba (Night Rally) means Mob. These titles lose the allusions or word play of Costello’s original titles whilst retaining their intention and meaning.

Mentira (Lip Service) is sung smoothly by Pablo López and Detonates (Little Triggers), rolls along on the bass with the dramatic vocals of La Marisoul which intensify the tone of passion and regret. There is some lovely piano work at the start and end of the song which help make it a powerful torch song. La Turba (Night Rally) is slowly sung by Jorge Drexler which deepens the ominous feelings created by the drums.

The female vocals of Jesse and Joy on Viviendo En El Paraiso (Living In Paradise) make this song sound much more seductive than when delivered with Costello’s original sneer, and the track highlights Bruce Thomas’s rhythmic bass playing.

The most radical reworking of the lyrics is the version of Radio Radio by Fito Páez. Páez’s version sounds exactly like the well known single until you realise you have just heard the line “Eschundo A Elvis Costello Sonar.” Fortunately, you can resolve this confusion by watching the song video. This video has subtitles that translate the new lyrics back to English. The video rushes through a story of Páez listening to the original This Year’s Model album and deciding to travel across the world to London to visit a record store in Chelsea. The video captures the energy and humour of the song and ends with Páez screaming “I want to hear this song on the fucking radio man.”

One of the album’s singles Pump It Up was advertised as featuring Mick Jones of The Clash but it was hard to hear his influence. The remixed version on this album enable us hear Jones’ rhythm guitar. For example, Krys has kept the sound loud on the outro to Pump It Up as Jones’ guitar duels with Costello’s frantic downstrokes and urgent repetition of the title.

Jones also features on Llorar (Big Tears) which was the B side of the Pump it Up single. Llorar (Big Tears) is sung by Miami based, Columbian born Sebastián Yatra who typically sings romantic ballads. It is a significant change to hear him sing a pop-rock song about a sniper turning “wives into widows.” There is a video to accompany this track in which Yatra and band appear initially as mannequins in a shop window and later seem to be hugely enjoying themselves playing the song. It is great that this much underrated Costello track is given such prominence on this release.

There is also a video for the track La Chica Hoy (This Year’s Girl) sung by Chilean artist Cami. On this track the use of a female voice cleverly flips the point of view of Costello’s lyrics about male lust. Whereas Costello’s vocals sounded like he was furious Cami sings as if bored. In the video she looks less and less interested as she flips over the lyrics written on signs before finally walking off the set.

Crawling to the USA and Se Esta Perdiendo La Inocencia (Running Out Of Angels) are the final two tracks on the album. Crawling To the USA is given upbeat vocals by Mexican father and daughter Gian Marco and Nicole Zignago. The lyrics take on additional layer of meaning in light of immigration to the US from Mexico. Se Esta Perdiendo La Inocencia (Running Out Of Angels) is sung by the Spanish singer songwriter Vega over a percussive, strummed acoustic guitar, which has been re-recorded for this album. The version faithfully includes the false start and restart from Costello’s original outtake.

This is an inventive way of reissuing a 40 year old album, especially one which has had several different re-issues already. Spanish Model is a reminder that Costello takes a creative and collaborative approach to music.

There are lots of good reasons to listen to this album. There is the use of the Spanish language and female vocals which give the songs a different energy, the renewed focus on the music of the Attractions and the introduction to Latin artists. But ultimately as Costello says, “It’s fun – why not.”
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Re: Spanish Model, Sept 10, 2021 - New release based on one of Elvis Costello and the Attractions most celebrated albums

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Part 4 of the documentary: https://youtu.be/FpxJQ0qMPGQ
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Re: Spanish Model, Sept 10, 2021 - New release based on one of Elvis Costello and the Attractions most celebrated albums

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https://www.clarin.com/espectaculos/mus ... BD2.html[b]

El elegido[/b]
Sebastián Krys, de Ricky Martin y Shakira a Elvis Costello: el argentino que colecciona premios Grammy

Ganador en 18 ocasiones, habla de como elige sus proyectos, de los prejuicios y del desafío de enfrentar el Parkinson.

Las ideas que en principio pueden parecer locas muchas veces finalmente no lo son. Elvis Costello imaginó This Year’s Model, su disco clásico de 1978 junto a The Attractions, cantado en español. A priori casi un delirio teniendo en cuenta el origen, la estética sonora y la pertenencia temporal de semejante referencia.

Pero está claro que las neuronas de este londinense de 67 años, compositor rocker de los grandes a nivel histórico, aún siguen en saludable conexión. Costello se dio el lujo de pensar en este viaje en gran parte porque contaría con el apoyo de su productor de los dos últimos discos, el multipremiado argentino Sebastián Krys.

Parte activa de la explosión de la música latina en los Estados Unidos, Krys fue ingeniero en Livin’ La Vida Loca, de Ricky Martin, básicamente el himno de este fenómeno cultural popular y trabajó con Shakira, de quien produjo el rompedor ¿Dónde están los ladrones?.

Además de haber trabajado con Marc Anthony, Alejandro Sanz, Gloria Stefan y un impactante etcétera, Krys produjo los recientes Hey Clockface y Look Now, de Costello con resultados que les reportaron un Grammy, estatuilla que se consigue al por mayor en la casa de Miami de Krys: el hombre ostenta la impactante suma de seis Grammy globales y 12 Grammy latinos.

Habrá estado seguro Costello de la viabilidad de su idea al tener a Krys de su lado y tal es así que Spanish Model se acaba de publicar y sorprende por su impecable producción y por interpretaciones de todo tipo, algunas simplemente curiosas, pero la gran mayoría festejables.

¿Quién hubiese imaginado a Luis Fonsi, el mega expuesto dueño de Despacito, salir aireado del pop psicodélico de You Belong To Me. Así mismo no era fácil esperar esa muy buena interpretación -sobre todo por una cuestión generacional- de la joven cantante chilena Cami, haciéndose cargo de This Year’s Girl.

Fito Páez hace propia Radio, Radio, Draco Rosa destaca en ese himno llamado The Beat, y Raquel Sofía y Fuego llevan a I Don't Want to go to (Chelsea) a otra dimensión. Todos, aciertos artísticos impensables que son responsabilidad de Costello y Krys, una sociedad que demuestra moverse sólidamente.

Con el intenso sol del verano caribeño colándose por el techo de cristal de su auto, un afable y relajado Krys se dispone a charlar con Clarín mientras surca las calles de la megalópolis del sur floridano.

-Clasificaste a este proyecto de surrealista. ¿Qué pensaste cuando Costello te contó la idea?

-Lo primero que pensé fue: “Es una locura”. Lo segundo que pensé fue: “Es una locura; entonces, lo debemos hacer”. Yo sigo su carrera desde que estaba en la universidad y esto es consistente: sus fans de los comienzos quieren que él siga haciendo versiones de This Year’s Model o de Armed Forces o de My Aim Is True.

Sin embargo él hizo discos con Burt Bacharach, con el Brodsky Quartet, el de Allen Toussaint... No siguió una carrera esperada, no siguió haciendo el mismo disco siempre. Creo que esta idea está en línea con su historia plagada de cosas inesperadas, por eso pensé que teníamos que explorarlo a ver si funcionaba.

Y líbrame de caer en la tentación de las figuras
-Al disco original se le agregan voces en español. ¿Qué tipo de desafío te representó como productor?

-Varias cosas. Una fue decidir desde un principio que íbamos a elegir voces que van bien con las canciones. No hacer un casting de figuras o delimitar el casting a, por ejemplo, figuras del rock o la música alternativa.

Sino, realmente, ver qué voces van con los temas y analizar si alguna canción cambia de sentido siendo cantada por una mujer o por un dueto. Tratar de ver realmente qué es lo mejor para reinterpretar el tema.

-¿Hubo algo que haya sido especialmente difícil?

-Lo más difícil fue decidir hacer adaptaciones y no traducciones. Que las canciones tengan esencialmente el sentido de lo que quiso decir Elvis pero sin quedar aferrados a las palabras textuales por completo. Porque, por ejemplo, lo que decís en inglés en tres sílabas en español pueden ser ocho.

En un tema como Night Rally teníamos que encontrar frases que cayeran dentro de la cadencia de la canción original. Ese fue un desafío bastante grande.

-¿Qué otras canciones presentan ese tipo de adaptación?

-Por ejemplo, This Year’s Girl, la llamamos La chica de hoy, lo cual es esencialmente lo mismo: estás hablando de la chica del momento. No importa si es el año, hoy o el momento, el sentido de la canción es el mismo.

Y después, cuando lo canta alguien como Cami, que está viviendo de algún modo ese momento de ser el personaje del cual la canción original habla, cambia de sentido porque está siendo cantada por una chica que vive ese momento en donde todo el mundo proyecta lo que piensa que ella debe ser.

Creo que ese tipo de pensamiento dentro del proyecto le dio otra profundidad, como que no es nada más un disco tributo, termina siendo una pieza nueva con otro sentido.

-Siendo el original un disco tan clásico, casi perfecto, ¿hubo algún tipo de lineamiento para los cantantes invitados en cuanto a respetar a full las versiones originales o quizá, al contrario, romper todo lo que se pueda con lo hecho por Costello y su banda en 1978?

-Esas ideas fueron evolucionando. Al principio, debo confesar que pensaba mucho en qué iba a pensar Nick Lowe, el productor original. O qué iba a pesar la banda. A medida que fuimos trabajando, esas cosas empezaron a desaparecer.

Lo más difícil a nivel técnico fueron dos cosas. Una fue que usando los tracks originales, teníamos que acomodarlos a la tonalidad de los cantantes. Porque con la tecnología podés subir o bajar la tonalidad hasta cierto punto, antes de que comience a sonar raro. Entonces, era encontrar ese balance.

Teníamos las manos atadas en ese sentido. Lo que decidimos es que no íbamos a re grabar nada; entonces, al no re grabar, es encontrar ese punto que le queda bien al cantante.

Otro punto era que la mezcla original siempre me fascinó. Al principio traté de hacerlo sonar más como el original, y luego me di cuenta que debíamos hacerlo sonar en favor de las voces que habíamos grabado. No tratar de encajar en la estética original del disco. Cuando empezamos a hacer eso empezó a funcionar. Fue un descubrimiento, incluso dentro de cada canción.

Vamos a conocernos mejor

-Trabajaste en este disco y en muchos más con gente muy renombrada, muy famosa. ¿Haces algún tipo de estudio previo del personaje antes de entrar en algún proyecto, tenés alguna forma de encararlo desde lo humano en particular?

-Sí, siempre. Trato de conocer a la persona antes de empezar a trabajar en música y así ver qué es lo importante para la persona dentro de lo que hace como artista. Eso cambia mucho de persona a persona y también de momento a momento. De pronto trabajo con un artista que en un momento tiene aspiraciones a algo muy comercial y en otro a algo muy artístico; y a veces a ambas cosas.

Es importante saber de dónde viene la persona y qué es lo que la mueve y ahí ver si hay una conexión en la que haya valores profesionales en común en los cuales te podés conectar. El tema de hacer música es un proceso bastante íntimo y si no entendés a la persona y no estás en la misma onda es muy difícil colaborar.

-¿Te suele pasar de no tomar proyectos por estas razones?

Sí, pasa. Y es lo mejor para todo el mundo, para el artista y para mí. He cometido esos errores en mi carrera, y aprendí.

-¿Qué tipo de errores?

-Viste que te ofrecen algo, es un artista que te gusta y es un proyecto que te van a pagar bien y parece que todo cierra. Pero al final no hay una conexión y es un desastre. Entonces, aprendí a no guiarme por el nombre del artista o por el número que te puedan llegar a pagar, porque al final no le funciona a nadie. Ni al artista y a vos ni a la compañía.

-Como amante de la obra de Costello y habiendo hecho participar a todos estos cantantes de distintas generaciones, ¿cuál creés que es el elemento de la música de Elvis Costello y en particular de este disco que atraviesa a esas distintas generaciones?

-Creo que son dos cosas. Una es que este disco de algún modo es atemporal. Suena a un disco que las bandas quisieran poder grabar hoy. Porque la personalidad de cada músico está tan bien representada acá que no hay ningún músico intercambiable.

Sería un disco muy diferente con otro bajista, otro tecladista, otro baterista y obviamente sin él como compositor y músico. Y lo es, es un disco muy distinto sin su voz.

La otra parte son las letras. Veo que el hecho de poder adaptar las letras a otro idioma, las ideas que tuvo hace cuarenta y pico de años -que todavía son vigentes-, y el hecho de que gente que no entiende inglés pueda captar esas ideas en canciones de manera tan directa, no solo en este disco sino en todo su trabajo.

Tiene una perspectiva muy particular como todos los grandes compositores y yo me pregunto: si se hacen adaptaciones de películas, de libros ¿por qué no de música? Obras importantes como la de él merecen ser escuchadas en todo el mundo.

El poder latino avanza

-Viviste desde los nueve años en los Estados Unidos, donde la cultura latina se ve cada vez más afianzada, al menos desde afuera ¿cuál es la verdadera influencia cultural de la música latina? ¿Logró su propia identidad o es un exotismo para la comunidad latina?

-Hace años que eso está cambiando. Creo que la cultura latina en general está siendo cada vez más parte de la cultura americana, por decir. Lo ves en la comida, en la televisión, en el cine y en los últimos años en la música. Ves a artistas como Drake comenzando a usar ritmos latinos en su música.

Estados Unidos es un lugar raro. Al final termina no teniendo una identidad propia, sino una que está cambiando constantemente según quien llega al país, quien aterriza y pone raíces en el país.

Hay más gente de habla hispana en los Estados Unidos que en España. Somos 60 millones de personas; algunas como yo lo hablamos mal porque lo vamos perdiendo con el tiempo, pero la cultura y la raíz la llevamos con orgullo.

Y dentro de las comunidades, defendemos nuestras propias culturas: el argentino en los Estados Unidos es más argentino, el colombiano es más colombiano, el mexicano es más mexicano. Creo que eso enriquece; y también el estar en un país que genera tanto contenido consumible a nivel global.

-Es interesante, porque en nuestros países tratamos de agarrarnos de lo anglosajón, y cuando la gente empieza a viajar, a emigrar, necesita tener identidad. Entonces empieza a defender más su cultura.

-Yo trabajo con un grupo que se llama La Santa Cecilia, y fuimos al Vive Latino en México. Se trata de una banda de Los Ángeles con una raíz mexicana muy presente, que me decían que los grupos mexicanos de México parecen de Gran Bretaña y nosotros, que somos de los Estados Unidos, parecemos más mexicanos que ellos.

Se trata de mantener una identidad y ser más individual dentro de todo este quilombo que es este país.

Argentino y estadounidense, pero sin prejuicios

-Y desde tu ética y tu forma de trabajar, ¿te sentís argentino o estadounidense? Porque toda tu carrera laboral la desarrollaste allá…

-Mirá, a nivel de negocio, del business, lo manejo más como alguien de los Estados Unidos, pero si hago un negocio en México tengo que adaptarme a su forma de hacerlo. Lo mismo en la Argentina. Yo no puedo llegar a un lugar y cambiar las cosas, te tenés que adaptar.

Respecto a lo musical, el hecho de estar expuesto a otras culturas te da herramientas que otra gente simplemente no tiene. Te da una riqueza, y no lo digo solamente por la música con la que crecí, porque mi viejo ponía muchísima música brasileña porque vivió allá un tiempo, o Mercedes Sosa, Fito, Charly y todas las cosas que marcaron mi infancia además de Beatles y The Who y Elvis.

Sino que también viviendo en un lugar como Miami te exponés a música cubana, caribeña, de Colombia, siempre vi eso como una ventaja porque te da un abanico mucho más grande que el alguien que creció en, no sé, Ohio.

-Solés hablar de lo importante que es detectar las oportunidades. ¿Hay alguna oportunidad en concreto que te haya ayudado a llegar adonde estás ahora?

-Creo que fueron muchas. Lo más importante que hice, mirando mi carrera, es que no tuve prejuicios a lo hora de elegir proyectos. Mi único prejuicio era que quería que la gente con la que trabajaba pudiera hacer lo que decía que haría.

Yo tocaba en una banda punk y mi mentalidad punk era que “vale todo”: voy a trabajar en música dance, alternativa, rock, ska, pop. No quiero ser encasillado en un género. Pero sí quiero trabajar con gente con talento y pasión por lo que hace. Creo que eso me ayudó mucho a abrir puertas.

Por ejemplo, uno de mis mentores fue Pablo Flores, un DJ puertorriqueño que tuvo mucho éxito haciendo remixes. O sea, yo no escucho música dance, pero el poder aprender de alguien como él, poder llevar sus técnicas hacia otras músicas me ayudó muchísimo.

Si hubiese estado con la actitud de “no voy a trabajar en música dance”, perdía esa oportunidad. Esa fue la mejor decisión que tomé, el no aferrarme a un género musical, sino a gente talentosa.

-De algún modo esa es la definición de punk, no los tres acordes y la música estridente ¿no?

-¡Claro!

————————————
Google translation:

The chosen one
Sebastián Krys, from Ricky Martin and Shakira to Elvis Costello: the Argentine who collects Grammy awards

Winner 18 times, he talks about how he chooses his projects, prejudices and the challenge of facing Parkinson's.

Ideas that at first may seem crazy many times ultimately are not. Elvis Costello imagined This Years Model, his 1978 classic album with The Attractions, sung in Spanish. A priori almost a delusion considering the origin, the sound aesthetics and the temporal belonging of such a reference.

But it is clear that the neurons of this 67-year-old Londoner, historically great rocker composer, are still in healthy connection. Costello had the luxury of thinking about this trip in large part because he would have the support of his producer of the last two albums, the multi-award winning Argentine Sebastián Krys.

An active part of the explosion of Latin music in the United States, Krys was an engineer on Ricky Martin's Livin 'La Vida Loca, basically the anthem of this popular cultural phenomenon, and worked with Shakira, for whom he produced the groundbreaking Where are the thieves?.

In addition to having worked with Marc Anthony, Alejandro Sanz, Gloria Stefan and a shocking etcetera, Krys produced the recent Hey Clockface and Look Now, by Costello with results that brought them a Grammy, a statuette that is obtained wholesale in the house in Miami de Krys: The man boasts a staggering sum of six Global Grammys and 12 Latin Grammys.

Costello would have been sure of the viability of his idea by having Krys on his side and so much so that Spanish Model has just been published and surprises by its impeccable production and by interpretations of all kinds, some simply curious, but the vast majority celebratory .

Who would have imagined Luis Fonsi, the mega exposed owner of Despacito, coming out airy from the psychedelic pop of You Belong To Me. Likewise, it was not easy to expect that very good performance -especially due to a generational issue- from the young Chilean singer Cami, taking over This Year’s Girl.

Fito Páez makes his own Radio, Radio, Draco Rosa stands out in that anthem called The Beat, and Raquel Sofía and Fuego take I Don't Want to go to (Chelsea) to another dimension. All, unthinkable artistic successes that are the responsibility of Costello and Krys, a company that shows to move solidly.

With the intense Caribbean summer sun streaming through the glass roof of his car, an affable and relaxed Krys gets ready to chat with Clarín as he plows through the streets of the megalopolis of South Florida.

-You classified this project as surreal. What did you think when Costello told you the idea?

-The first thing I thought was: "It's crazy." The second thing I thought was: “It's crazy; then, we must do it ”. I've followed his career since he was in college and this is consistent: fans of his early days want him to keep doing covers of This Year's Model or Armed Forces or My Aim Is True.

However he made records with Burt Bacharach, with the Brodsky Quartet, Allen Toussaint's ... He did not pursue an expected career, he did not keep making the same record all the time. I think this idea is in line with his story full of unexpected things, so I thought we had to explore it to see if it worked.

And save me from falling into the temptation of figures
-Spanish voices are added to the original album. What kind of challenge did it represent for you as a producer?

-Several things. One was deciding early on that we were going to choose voices that go well with the songs. Do not do a casting of figures or limit the casting to, for example, figures of rock or alternative music.

But, really, see what voices go with the songs and analyze if any song changes meaning being sung by a woman or by a duet. Trying to really see what is best to reinterpret the subject.

- Was there anything that was especially difficult?

-The most difficult thing was deciding to make adaptations and not translations. Let the songs essentially have the meaning of what Elvis meant but without being completely attached to the verbatim words. Because, for example, what you say in English in three syllables in Spanish can be eight.

On a song like Night Rally we had to find phrases that fell within the cadence of the original song. That was quite a challenge.

-What other songs have that kind of adaptation?

-For example, This Years Girl, we call her Today's Girl, which is essentially the same thing: you are talking about the girl of the moment. It does not matter if it is the year, today or the moment, the meaning of the song is the same.

And later, when someone like Cami sings it, who is living in some way that moment of being the character that the original song talks about, it changes meaning because it is being sung by a girl who lives that moment where everyone projects what who thinks she must be.

The kind of thinking within the project gave it another depth, like that it is not just a tribute album, it ends up being a new piece with another meaning.

-The original being such a classic album, almost perfect, was there any kind of guideline for the guest singers in terms of fully respecting the original versions or perhaps, on the contrary, breaking everything possible with what was done by Costello and his band in 1978?

-Those ideas were evolving. At first, I must confess I was thinking a lot about what Nick Lowe, the original producer, was going to think about. Or what the band was going to weigh. As we worked, those things began to disappear.

The most difficult on a technical level were two things. One was that using the original tracks, we had to accommodate the tonality of the singers. Because with technology you can raise or lower the tonality to a certain point, before it starts to sound weird. So, it was finding that balance.

We had our hands tied in that regard. What we decided is that we were not going to re-record anything; then, by not re-recording, it is to find that point that suits the singer.

Another point was that the original mix always fascinated me. At first I tried to make it sound more like the original, and then I realized that we had to make it sound in favor of the vocals that we had recorded. Not trying to fit in with the original aesthetics of the album. When we started doing that it started to work. It was a discovery, even within each song.

Let's get to know each other better

-You worked on this album and on many more with very famous people, very famous. Do you do some kind of preliminary study of the character before entering a project, do you have any way of approaching it from the human point of view in particular?

-Yes always. I try to get to know the person before starting to work in music and thus see what is important to the person within what he does as an artist. That changes a lot from person to person and also from moment to moment. Suddenly I work with an artist who at one point has aspirations for something very commercial and at another for something very artistic; and sometimes both.

It is important to know where the person comes from and what moves them and then see if there is a connection in which there are common professional values ​​in which you can connect. The subject of making music is a very intimate process and if you don't understand the person and you are not on the same wavelength, it is very difficult to collaborate.

-Does it usually happen to you from not taking projects for these reasons?

Yes, it happens. And it is the best for everyone, for the artist and for me. I've made those mistakes in my career, and I learned.

-What kind of mistakes?

-You saw that they offer you something, he is an artist that you like and it is a project that will pay you well and it seems that everything closes. But in the end there is no connection and it is a disaster. So, I learned not to be guided by the name of the artist or by the number that they might pay you, because in the end it doesn't work for anyone. Not the artist and you or the company.

-As a lover of Costello's work and having involved all these singers from different generations, what do you think is the element of Elvis Costello's music and in particular of this album that crosses those different generations?

-I think there are two things. One is that this album is somehow timeless. It sounds like a record that bands wish they could record today. Because the personality of each musician is so well represented here that there is no interchangeable musician.

It would be a very different record with another bass player, another keyboard player, another drummer and obviously without him as a composer and musician. And it is, it's a very different album without his voice.

The other part is the lyrics. I see that the fact of being able to adapt the lyrics to another language, the ideas that he had forty-odd years ago -which are still valid-, and the fact that people who do not understand English can capture those ideas in songs in such a direct way , not only on this album but in all his work.

He has a very particular perspective like all the great composers and I wonder: if film adaptations, books, why not music? Important works like his deserve to be heard around the world.

Latin power advances

-You lived since you were nine years old in the United States, where Latin culture is becoming more and more entrenched, at least from the outside, what is the true cultural influence of Latin music? Did it achieve its own identity or is it an exoticism for the Latino community?

-That's been changing for years. I think Latino culture in general is becoming more and more part of American culture, so to speak. You see it in food, on television, in movies, and in recent years in music. You see artists like Drake starting to use Latin rhythms in his music.

America is a weird place. In the end, he ends up not having an identity of his own, but one that is constantly changing depending on who arrives in the country, who lands and puts roots in the country.

There are more Spanish-speaking people in the United States than in Spain. We are 60 million people; Some of us like me speak it badly because we lose it over time, but we carry our culture and roots with pride.

And within the communities, we defend our own cultures: the Argentine in the United States is more Argentine, the Colombian is more Colombian, the Mexican is more Mexican. I think that enriches; and also being in a country that generates so much consumable content globally.

-It's interesting, because in our countries we try to cling to the Anglo-Saxon, and when people start to travel, to emigrate, they need to have an identity. Then he begins to defend his culture more.

-I work with a group called La Santa Cecilia, and we went to Vive Latino in Mexico. It is a band from Los Angeles with a very present Mexican roots, who told me that Mexican groups from Mexico seem from Great Britain and we, who are from the United States, seem more Mexican than they.

It is about maintaining an identity and being more individual within all this quilombo that is this country.

Argentine and American, but without prejudice

-And from your ethics and your way of working, do you feel Argentine or American? Because you developed your entire career there ...

-Look, at the business level, the business, I handle it more like someone from the United States, but if I do a business in Mexico I have to adapt to their way of doing it. The same in Argentina. I can't get to a place and change things, you have to adapt.

When it comes to music, being exposed to other cultures gives you tools that other people just don't have. It gives you a richness, and I'm not just saying it because of the music I grew up with, because my old man played a lot of Brazilian music because he lived there for a while, or Mercedes Sosa, Fito, Charly and all the things that marked my childhood in addition to the Beatles and The Who and Elvis.

But also living in a place like Miami you expose yourself to Cuban, Caribbean, Colombian music, I always saw that as an advantage because it gives you a much bigger range than someone who grew up in, I don't know, Ohio.

-You use to talk about how important it is to detect opportunities. Is there a specific opportunity that has helped you get to where you are now?

-I think there were many. The most important thing that I did, looking at my career, is that I had no prejudices when choosing projects. My only bias was that I wanted the people I worked with to be able to do what I said they would do.

I played in a punk band and my punk mentality was that “anything goes”: I'm going to work in dance music, alternative, rock, ska, pop. I don't want to be pigeonholed into one genre. But I do want to work with people who are talented and passionate about what they do. I think that helped me a lot to open doors.

For example, one of my mentors was Pablo Flores, a Puerto Rican DJ who was very successful remixing. I mean, I don't listen to dance music, but being able to learn from someone like him, being able to take his techniques to other types of music, helped me a lot.

If I had been with the "I'm not going to work in dance music" attitude, I was missing that opportunity. That was the best decision I made, not to stick with a musical genre, but with talented people.

-Somehow that's the definition of punk, not the three chords and the strident music, right?

-Of course!
Last edited by sweetest punch on Wed Sep 22, 2021 12:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Spanish Model, Sept 10, 2021 - New release based on one of Elvis Costello and the Attractions most celebrated albums

Post by sweetest punch »

https://www.palabranahj.org/archive/elv ... o8J75vIRLA

Elvis’ Spanish Model

Editor’s Note: Almost 43 years after the release of his iconic album, “This Year’s Model,” Elvis Costello is back with an updated version, in Spanish and stacked with collaborations with standout Latin American artists. palabra and NPR’s Felix Contreras spoke with Costello, the producer Sebastian Krys, and singers Nina Diaz, Jorge Drexler and La Santa Cecilia’s La Marisoul. The full podcast featuring Costello and Krys is now on NPR’s Alt.Latino.

When lightning strikes, thunder follows — and for rocker Elvis Costello that thunder comes with a Spanish accent from the starry Latinx universe.

Adding a bold, new dimension to his music, Costello has reimagined his 1978 landmark album “This Year’s Model,” en español with an impressive lineup of 19 pop and rock artists including Juanes, La Marisoul, Draco Rosa, Cami, Luis Fonsi, Nina Diaz, Jorge Drexler and more. Their stunning interpretations give “Spanish Model” an exciting life of its own, just as dynamic and passionate as the original.

“It came like a bolt of lightning for me,” says a beaming Costello in a Zoom call with palabra., NPR and his producer, the argentino Sebastian Krys.

With Krys, Costello had been remixing a song from “This Year’s Model” for the HBO series “The Deuce.” A female voice was requested for the second verse to give it a different perspective. While digging through the master tapes, he was struck with a wild idea. “I had this, I want to say, dream … and I said, ‘Why not every track? And then, by the way, how about in Spanish?’ And I waited for Sebastian to tell me that it was a crazy idea.”

Krys, an 18-time Grammy and Latin Grammy award-winning music producer born in Argentina and raised in Miami, was initially taken aback.

“And then I thought, ‘Well, this is crazy- let's do it!’” Krys muses.

What followed became a brilliantly reimagined celebration of Latinx vocal artistry recorded over the 1978 album’s original tracks.

The challenge for the two industry vets was just how to pull it off.

“This Year’s Model” was an edgy hit record for its time. It offered the kind of punk/new wave zing that offset such 1970’s commercial pop rock sounds as Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumors” and “Hotel California” by The Eagles that were blowing up the airwaves.

Costello’s record was stripped down, high energy - and at times angry and direct. His songwriting on the album eventually set the bar that was to be met by other bands in that scene. It was one of the few albums of its genre that eventually made it out of that era with some amount of respectability, ranking at #11 on Rolling Stone’s list of best albums of 20 years in 1987, and at 98 in Rolling Stone’s 2003 list of 500 greatest albums of all time. Very few artists had the literacy heft that Costello did. And he went on to become a major musical innovator with big ears for other styles.

SPARK MEETS FIRE

Where Costello was the spark for “Spanish Model,” Krys was the fire. It was his selection process — meticulously matching the right artists to the right songs — that paved the way to brilliance.

Approaching the Spanish version had to be bold. Krys says that for every song they had several artists under consideration, taking gender and circumstance into account for “a different twist and perspective” to each. “To make it really a new record and not just a version of the old record,” Krys says, “came down to the voices and the profile of the singers.” Rather than selecting on star power, he looked for an artist’s relatability, based on their life experience to sing from a personalized perspective.

The songs were not so much translated word for word as much as they were adapted. Costello and Krys worked with the artists to maintain the essence of the songs' meanings, yet allowing them to add bits of their own musical personalities.

Uruguayan singer-songwriter Jorge Drexler spoke at length with Costello to understand the idioms in “Night Rally (La Turba).” “You've got this very beautiful writer like Drexler giving great thought and heart to this song about the fear of tyranny and fascism,” says Costello.

On the other hand there was Puerto Rican vocalist Draco Rosa who covers the iconic track “The Beat (Yo Te Vi).”
Songs were not translated word for word. Costello and Krys worked with artists to maintain the songs' meanings, but allowing them to add their own musical personalities.
“We’ve got on the phone,” Costello says. “And Draco said, ‘Can I do anything I want?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘OK.’ And that was the end of the conversation... You hear him taking a very determined, very willful line with my melody, totally his own delivery. And that's what we wanted.”

“Some of the tracks are more powerful in this rendition than in our original,” Costello adds. “I really do stress the wit, the heart, the integrity of these people…(Also) the fact that some of these artists have massive success and audiences, they stand shoulder to shoulder with people who have … smaller but very passionate audiences, people who are newly on the scene and breaking through. That's exactly where I was standing in 1978.”

THE MAKING OF “NIGHT RALLY (LA TURBA)” WITH JORGE DREXLER

Jorge Drexler initially wasn’t sure why he was chosen by Costello and Krys to sing La Turba.

“It was more than surreal,” Drexler tells palabra. on a Zoom call from his home in Spain. “I thought it was crazy at the beginning, and I was terrified because it’s very hard to do something like that.”

He took a deep dive into the song lyrics and history as he contemplated the translation.

Drexler says that growing up in a dictatorship prevented him from hearing “This Year’s Model,” when the album was first released. It would be years later, during his musical exploration, that he came across the album and Costello became one his greatest musical influences.

He says he finds the song particularly prophetic. “Costello seems to be clairvoyant in his writing. Writing about facism and Nazi Germany, (yet) with an eye into the future as symbolized by the 3D glasses and mob mentality.” Forming a rotating triangle in his hands, Drexler says, “I see it as an ongoing prism where the light reflects into the prism in different ways and places over time. We have to be careful.”

“That’s why I called it ‘La Turba’; for the angry mob,” he says. Perhaps not so coincidentally he was working on the song around the January 6th insurrection on the U.S. Capitol. He considers it a timely message for humanity. “The world is being divided into groups of either harmony and empathy — the ‘I am you and you are me,’ or the group of ‘I am I and you are you.’”

“It’s about how easy you can get seduced by a group,” he adds, by “that cult mentality and the violence.”

Drexler’s father’s experience as a Jew from Nazi Germany had an impact on him from a young age. He shared an anecdote from childhood about a group of kids that came to his house wanting him to join them in making noise to disturb the sleep of a visiting soccer team before their game. “My father said ‘no’ and talked to me about mobs and being swept away by the power of angry groups. Something may start out innocent and before you know it, it becomes monstrous. His family never imagined that people would pay so much attention to Hitler. It stayed with me from that moment…”

“Having to sing was really hard and an amazing challenge,” Drexler says. "I’m very proud of what they did with that song.”

NINA DIAZ PUTS THE ACTION IN “NO ACTION”

Nina Diaz, the former frontwoman of punk rock group Girl In A Coma was on a journey of sobriety, spirituality and reinvention as a solo act when destiny knocked on the door.

“Sebastian Krys actually saw me open up for another artist in Los Angeles,” Diaz tells palabra. in a Zoom call from Texas. “He got in contact with me afterwards… And he said, ‘Would you like to give it a shot?’ And I said, ‘OK’. You know, I've done a couple songs in Spanish. I'm not fluent in Spanish yet, but I'd sing in any language for Elvis Costello!”

It was a transformational moment for Diaz, who was working at the House of Intuition metaphysical shop in LA, and doing inner work for personal growth to overcome vulnerabilities and fears. She accepted Krys’ invitation. Though worried about the language and the song’s key, Krys coached and encouraged her. “He said, ‘I know you could do this. I know you can hit, with your voice, that note.’ So when I went in to record it, I just let it all out.”
“I'm not fluent in Spanish yet, but I'd sing in any language for Elvis Costello!”
What she belts out carries a demon-slaying attitude. She related it to breaking the patterns of her past toxic relationships. “Just like a drug, you know, a relationship has the same effect in your mind chemically where you feel like you need it… I guess organically, I took to singing it so aggressively because of knowing I don't want to be in (that) situation anymore. I just got to get out of this already and for there to be no action.”

“Elvis Costello actually messaged me and he said, ‘I'm going to have to change the title to Action because you gave it so much action,’” Diaz says. “So it was a perfect match, especially for the temperament that I have.”

To be the least known among critically acclaimed artists, and “to kick off the album, feels great,” she adds. “I feel like I'm really representing the underdogs and, you know, the indie side… And it's awesome to be the one that breaks through the wall… Yeah, it's cool. It's really cool.”

“We all have the power inside of us, right? It's like the Wizard of Oz, we've always had the power.”

LA MARISOUL POURS BIG PASSION INTO “LITTLE TRIGGERS(DETONANTES)”

Chicana singer and La Santa Cecilia frontwoman, La Marisoul, probably never imagined that the connection she felt to Costello’s image on a stolen CD would one day materialize into recording with him.

The self-described MTV kid was on Olvera Street. “It was in the evening,” she says during a Zoom call from Los Angeles. “We were closing up the shop and this guy was walking around with, like, a duffle bag full of CDs that were obviously stolen, probably from a car… And he was selling these CDs, like, ‘Hey, you know, like, give me five dollars and you can take whatever CDs you want.’”

She peeked into the bag. “I was drawn to this one cover of this really cool guy with a guitar. And it was like, checkered, and he had his glasses on and this really cute, cool pose and I thought, Wow, what's this?... And so I took that CD. And it was slick. I think it was like a double CD of ‘My Aim Is True’ or something… And I just, I fell in love. I fell in love with, you know, (The Angels Wanna Wear My) ‘Red Shoes’ and ‘Alison’ and all these beautiful songs that I felt, like, at the time were, like, speaking to me, you know, even though they weren't from my time. But I just, I felt a connection.”

As La Marisoul became a celebrated artist in her own right, from busking on Olvera Street to Grammy-winning status - she eventually found herself working with Krys, which led to collaborating with Costello and then being invited to sing “Little Triggers (Detonantes).”

“I mean, it was a little intimidating,” she admits. “You think, like, how could I even make this better?... It's a beautiful ballad about love, you know, desire — like confusion. All those things that love or lust make you feel, no? That uncertainty of like, what is it that, what is this person provoking in me?” After questioning whether she could “do it justice,” hearing the music inspired her.

She was struck by its timelessness. “Knowing that these were the actual tracks from the original recording was super special and, and I felt like I was right there with them… like it was new again.”


She kept the recording takes to a minimum. “We don't really do like 100 takes and kill the song. Al contrario, it's like, you know, there's a special moment in the freshness of not doing that many takes and just kind of like trying to do your best in whatever time you know you have”

Ultimately, she said, the goal is “to make people feel something; to take them on an emotional journey right where the lyric and the melody want to take you in. And I feel like Elvis Costello is a singer like that. I feel like we're similar in the way that we are the kind of singers that convey feelings. You know, that maybe it's not so much about, you know, the perfect pitch or the perfect sound. It's about a feeling.”

“He (Costello) is such a great songwriter, you know, such an amazing artist and then does the impossible,” La Marisoul adds. “And just to see what a versatile singer he is, you know, inspires me to be the same ... I can sing rancheras and traditional music. I can sing rock and roll. I can sing in English and Spanish. We can. And it's because of artists like Elvis Costello.”
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Re: Spanish Model, Sept 10, 2021 - New release based on one of Elvis Costello and the Attractions most celebrated albums

Post by johnfoyle »

The fourth promo clip for Spanish Model, including another photo of Elvis at the St Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin in March 1978.


https://youtu.be/FpxJQ0qMPGQ



Image

Image

The photo previously appeared in a booklet with a re-issue of This Year's Model.

Image
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Re: Spanish Model, Sept 10, 2021 - New release based on one of Elvis Costello and the Attractions most celebrated albums

Post by sweetest punch »

Part 5 of the documantary: https://youtu.be/sWR6HsMD2D0
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Re: Spanish Model, Sept 10, 2021 - New release based on one of Elvis Costello and the Attractions most celebrated albums

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https://floodmagazine.com/94011/elvis-c ... ish-model/

Elvis Costello, “Spanish Model”

September 22nd 2021
7/10

In his most recent quest to tackle his massive back catalog, the inimitable and inventive Elvis Costello crossed borders and boundaries when it came to reliving his second album, 1978’s This Year’s Model. Rather than a simple set of past rarities, demos, and live tracks, Costello and co-producer Sebastian Krys have stripped the old Model down to its instrumental tracks from The Attractions and gone en-Español with a fresh cast of characters singing and speaking Elvis’ words in Spanish and other languages within the Latin continuum. With that fresh, inclusive prospect—even when the mix of romantic voice and ’70s punk/new wave jitters doesn’t exactly work—it’s still a bold experiment and a project that fits neither new or reissue album categories comfortably. Challenge made and met.

One thing I found interesting about Spanish Model is that my previous comment about the romanticism of the voices—say, Sebastián Yatra, who tackles “Llorar” (“Big Tears”)—is that it toughens like a callous across what was Costello’s snotty melody. Yet there’s still a sultriness to be voiced in the way Yatra sways and soars, something more hopeful than Costello’s ire-filled plea. Juanes, and the whole of Colombia, takes “Pump It Up,” rejiggers Bruce and Pete Thomas’ bass and drum kicks, and serpentines through its pulse rather than its catty melody. Costello’s old backing vocals remain on the chorus, along with fashioning a new finale—a fired-up guitar tangle with Costello and Mick Jones of The Clash.

The usually menacing Draco Rosa—a Puerto Rican-American rock legend—chews up “Yo Te Vi” and spits back out something not as loopy as Costello’s version, but something with its own weird pacing. Classic Draco. And while some artists, such as Argentine songwriter Fito Páez, chose to re-write Costello’s lyrics—blasphemy, right?—on a sacred EC text such as the castigating “Radio Radio” to include some new and richly humorous, others such as Chilean sensation Cami turn Costello classics on their head just by changing their gender perspective. “This Year’s Girl,” known here as “La Chica de Hoy,” takes the old-school masculine gaze and re-inspects and reinvents it through a woman’s eyes. Good on Costello and all concerned for taking something that could have been formulaic and plain—another reissue from another time—and spicing it up with relevance, guts, innovation, and heart.
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Re: Spanish Model, Sept 10, 2021 - New release based on one of Elvis Costello and the Attractions most celebrated albums

Post by Man out of Time »

Spanish Model is a new entry at No. 6 on the Billboard Latin Pop Chart this week one place above Luis Fonsi (who sings Tu Eres Para Mí on the album).

Is there no genre of music Elvis cannot have hits in?

Billboard Latin Pop Chart 25 September, 2021
Billboard Latin Pop Chart 25 September, 2021
BillBoard Latin Pop chart 25 September 2021.jpeg (212.47 KiB) Viewed 27308 times
MOOT
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Re: Spanish Model, Sept 10, 2021 - New release based on one of Elvis Costello and the Attractions most celebrated albums

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https://www.billboard.com/articles/busi ... 8VgKBq5vkI

Elvis Costello & The Attractions Score First Entry on a Billboard Latin Albums Chart With ‘Spanish Model’
The 19-track set starts at No. 6 on Latin Pop Albums chart.

Elvis Costello & The Attractions score their first top 10 success in their first visit to any of Billboard’s Latin albums chart as Spanish Model arrives at No. 6 on the Latin Pop Albums chart dated Sept. 25. The album also starts at No. 38 on the overall Top Latin Albums tally, No. 50 on Top Album Sales and No. 32 on Top Current Album Sales.

“I think it is important to keep in ‘constant radio contact,’ Costello tells Billboard. “I have all of the Billboard charts beamed to a little screen in the left lens of my spectacles like ‘The Terminator'."

The album is a rework of Costello’s 1978 This Year’s Model and first with The Attractions which reached a No. 30 high on the overall Billboard 200 chart in 1978. Spanish Model was recorded completely in Spanish and produced by Argentinean producer Sebastian Krys. The 19-track set features a roster of Spanish-speaking artists from all corners of the world: Fito Páez, Draco Rosa, Juanes, Jorge Drexler, Francisca Valenzuela, La Marisoul, Jesse & Joy, to name a few, each deliver their vocal performances set to the band’s original instrumentation.

“We remixed ‘This Year's Girl’ for David Simon's HBO series, The Deuce and I heard all sorts of untapped power and possibilities in the Attractions original playing,” Costello adds. “I went into a kind of reverie and imagined replacing my voice with people singing in Spanish. I asked Sebastian if he thought that was a crazy idea. He thought for a moment and said, ‘Yes, it is crazy, let's do it'.’ I know he knew the singers with the spirit, the spit, the wit and integrity to do right and it has been a great pleasure to get to know those artists with whom I was not already familiar or regarded as friends.”

Spanish Model launches with 2,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Sept. 16, according to MRC Data. Album sales makes up nearly all of the album’s debut total, with one unit equal to one album sale.

“I have a very strong image of a Saturday matinee performance in the Hammersmith Palais,” Costello remembers. “I was about eight-years-old and up in the balcony with a bottle of pop, watching my father singing ‘Cuando Calienta El Sol,' which was a big Spanish hit in the early '60s. A friend of mine once asked my Dad where he learned his Spanish and he answered truthfully, "in bed". I did not inherit his gift for other tongues.”

Spanish Model earns Costello his first entry on any Billboard Latin chart. Beyond his top 10 debut on Latin Pop Albums, the set undertakes other charts as it bows at No. 38 on the all-Latin genre Top Latin Album Sales chart and at No. 50 on the Top Album Sales tally. The latter ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now MRC Data.

About the recording process and production, Costello adds: “My favourite moment during the process of hearing all these wonderful new renditions was when Fito Paez delivered his re-write of ‘Radio Radio’ on New Year's Eve 2019,” he adds. “I was in a shopping plaza at Disneyland with my family when I saw an e-mail come in from Sebastian containing the rough mix. There was music playing in the shop, a group on a bandstand about fifty yards away and all the noise of revelers on their way to the ride and I held the phone to my ear and heard Fito sing my name. I thought, ‘That's not in the lyrics.’ Then I heard him sing the word ‘whiskey’ and I knew he'd torn up the original argument and was telling a brand new tale, which is exactly what I wanted.’
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Re: Spanish Model, Sept 10, 2021 - New release based on one of Elvis Costello and the Attractions most celebrated albums

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Part 6 of the documentary: https://youtu.be/0HjEqL93Rjo
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Re: Spanish Model, Sept 10, 2021 - New release based on one of Elvis Costello and the Attractions most celebrated albums

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https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/202 ... s-version/

'Spanish Model' re-contextualizes Costello's version

It would be easy to look at "Spanish Model," the recently released Spanish-language version of the 1978 Elvis Costello and the Attractions album "This Year's Model," as a business decision.

After all, Spanish has begun to challenge English as the lingua franca of the pop world, as the single "Despacito" by Puerto Rican singer Luis Fonsi (abetted by rapper Daddy Yankee) was the best-selling and most-streamed song of 2017 in the United States. And Latin America was the fastest-growing sector of the global music industry in 2020, with revenues increasing by 16%.

So what's a 67-year-old heritage artist have to lose by repurposing the original instrumental tracks of a 43-year-old album, wiping off his own lead vocals and enlisting some of the hottest artists — Fonsi, Chilean talent-show winner Cami, Juanes, Oscar-winner Jorge Drexler, Menudo alumnus Draco Rosa, Jesse & Joy and others — from across the Latin popscapes to sing over them?
As it turns out, "Spanish Model" is a playful and generous project, even if one can't quite imagine that the original record meant much to any of the 19 artists who've re-interpreted the material in their native tongue.

"This Year's Model" was the first album with Costello and the Attractions, following his 1977 debut "My Aim Is True," on which he was backed primarily by members of American country rock band Clover, though future Attraction Steve Nieve played organ and piano on "Watching the Detectives."

It might be the most commercial punk album ever released, cracking and blistering and lyrically setting the standard for intelligent punk rock (which might be oxymoronic but is entirely in keeping with the swindleous spirit of rock 'n' roll). I occasionally listen to the record all the way through and invariably want to sing along with "Pump It Up," "This Year's Girl" and "Radio, Radio." (I don't though. I really don't. Unless I'm in the car. Alone.)

For me and a lot of members of my generation (the notorious baby boomers), "This Year's Model" is a touchstone, a nostalgic reminder of those days when we hated nostalgia and meant to claim the world for ourselves. (We wanted the world and we got it. All apologies to succeeding generations.)

So hearing the "Spanish Model" tracks is at once reassuring and strange; we know the timing, the snap and doom of Pete Thomas' kit, the bounce of Bruce (no relation) Thomas' bass, but instead of Elvis' snarl we get this frankly foreign sound. Given the ubiquity of remixes and sampling, it's not exactly a shocking revelation, but it is a jolt.

And if, like me and Elvis Costello, your knowledge of Spanish is rudimentary, it can go one of two ways. You might find it disconcerting, or you might relax into the emotive melodic flow of vowels and consonants.

One of the problems some of us have with music is becoming overly focused on lyrics. Pop songs are not English literature, no matter how talented the lyricist, and we ought to understand there's no profit in forcing sense into silly love songs.

SOUND AND FURY

Sometimes an aural experience is improved when we divorce ourselves from interpretation, Chet Baker's singing is best received as a sequencing of tones — what he's doing might sound simplistic until we hear how he centers on the note and delivers it without vibrato or any other embellishment, with a kind of purity more akin to a horn than a human voice.
When Ella Fitzgerald scats, she's not singing nonsense — she's investigating emotional territories and mystery beyond the ken of language.

Obviously Spanish is a language, just not the language for me and a lot of people who are familiar with "This Year's Model." The song lyrics have been rewritten, and there's a radical shift in "This Year's Girl," a track that can be read as misogynistic — "You want her broken with her mouth wide open 'cause she's this year's girl," runs the English language lyric — even if you're inclined to make allowances for its '70s context. ("This Year's Model" was released a couple of months before the Stones' "Some Girls" and two years after their "Black and Blue.")

As an aside, a couple of years ago in a perceptive essay about "outgrowing" Costello, published on tonemadison.com, writer Holly Marley-Henschen excepted "This Year's Girl" from the Elvis songs she now finds objectionable on the grounds that it "disparages a vapid, trendy attraction to an 'It Girl'' and not the "It Girl" herself.

And that's true; Costello's lyric is more about the singer's loathing of and disgust with the obsessive fan — who in Elvis World could possibly be the singer himself — than the unapproachable object. By replacing Costello's voice with Chilean solo artist Cami's, one interesting tension is inserted for another. Cami rose to fame as the winner of a "Chile's Got Talent!"-style game show, becoming an instant celebrity in her country.

SIGNALING SOLIDARITY

Cami's version of "This Year's Girl," re-titled "La Chica De Hoy" ("Today's Girl"), smooths over some of the more acidic lines while signaling solidarity with the subject. The above-quoted line becomes La boca abierta y desnutrida porque es la chica de hoy — or, as Google tells me, "Mouth open and malnourished because she's today's girl," which elides the explicitly violent image of physical violence (and possibly even improves Costello's lyric by alluding to an eating disorder).

Yet, while fluency in Spanish almost certainly unlocks another level of the song, you don't have to know what's she's singing about to appreciate Cami's heady, exuberant reading. Her vocal doesn't arrive until 38 seconds into the 3-minute, 40-second track and, if your brain has been dog-trotted by 43 years of listening to the Elvis-sung version, it arrives with shock and smile-inducing uplift.

Switching genders of the narrator is a canny move, code-switching the perspective away from the male gaze. While part of what makes Costello so compelling as a lyricist is his willingness to grapple with the potential ugliness within, many if not most of his songs are sung from the point of view of creepy men.

Naturally some people will conflate the singer with the song, and Costello is honest enough to admit to empathy with, to use Thomas Wolfe's phrase, "God's Lonely Man." But Cami's sympathies quite clearly lie with the woman on the magazine cover, even if we can't catch more than a word or two as they buzz by.

The album's production notes insist that the original lyrics were adapted into Spanish as accurately as possible, with Sebastian Krys, the Argentine-born producer on the project, enlisting the help of established Spanish-language songwriters like Andie Sandoval, Ximena Munoz, Elsten Torres, Luis Mitre and Mercedes Migel "Vega" Carpio to rewrite words. But even if we assume a certain fidelity to original intent, changing the actor necessarily changes the role.

Costello has never denied his past, although he can sometimes be sheepish about the angry young man persona he aggressively presented in those days. In 1977, after "My Aim Is True" was released, he told journalist Nick Kent of the U.K. publication NME that "the only motivation points for me, writing all these songs, are revenge and guilt. Those are the only emotions I know about, the only ones that I know I can feel. Love? I dunno what that means really, and it doesn't exist in my songs."

FEEL THE LOVE

Yet you can sometimes feel it here, if only in the reverence with which some of these artists approach the material. Maybe half the tracks on "Spanish Model" are fine, just fine, but more or less faithful to Costello's version.
Fonsi — the "Despacito" guy — covers "You Belong to Me" (re-titled "Tu Eres Para Mi") almost politely. Colombian pop band Morat's version of "Lipstick Vogue" fails to catch. I like the attitude displayed by Gian Marco and daughter Nicole Zignago on their version of "Crawling to the U.S.A.," but the darker overtones of this immigrant song are completely lost, at least on a non-Spanish speaker. It might have a different effect on someone who actually understands the words.

Another song on the album that's sometimes decried as misogynistic, "Little Triggers," is also performed by a female vocalist, La Santa Cecilia singer Marisol "La Marisoul" Hernandez. Re-titled "Detonantes," it's the same soul ballad (the original album's only ballad), only performed by a singer whose instrument is far more supple and dynamic than Costello's idiosyncratic voice.
Whether you prefer Costello's artfully strained vocal or Hernandez's powerhouse one, the inversion of the sexual politics is interesting and suggests that a level of care went into fitting the artists to the material.

That's probably why Jorge Drexler was assigned "Night Rally," an explicitly anti-fascist song. Drexler grew up in Uruguay, a country ruled by military dictatorship in the '70s and '80s; it's a canny move. Re-titled "La Turba," the new track has an eerie poignancy reminiscent of some of Warren Zevon's collaborations with Jorge Calderon.

On the retooled "Radio, Radio" (the title of several tracks remain in English), Argentine rock hero Fito Paez, who at 58 is old enough to remember the original, has a good time with the lyrics, singing (in Spanish), "I'm getting very British/Night falls and 'This Year's Model' sounds" and winds up the performance sputtering in English: "I want to hear this song on the ... radio, man!"
Chances of that happening aren't good, though you can hear the original Phil Spector-ish track occasionally on oldies radio — an irony that can't be lost on Costello, who has traveled the path from abrasive sneering punk to ecumenical music elder, a species of cultural treasure even if you can't take the way he sings.

"Spanish Model" will solve that problem for some portion of the population, while Elvis fans might take in the playful spirit in which it is offered. One of the catchier albums of all time — not that far behind Marshall Crenshaw's 1982 debut album — rejiggered to focus on the remarkable vocal melodies. It's a new way of hearing old familiars.

And maybe a good business plan too.
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Re: Spanish Model, Sept 10, 2021 - New release based on one of Elvis Costello and the Attractions most celebrated albums

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'This Year's Model' Reimagined v Apple Podcasts
British musician Elvis Costello revisits his classic album This Year's Model in Spanish with a host of Latin artists.

https://podcasts.apple.com/sk/podcast/e ... 08242&l=sk
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Re: Spanish Model, Sept 10, 2021 - New release based on one of Elvis Costello and the Attractions most celebrated albums

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https://audiophilereview.com/audiophile ... k-so-well/

Why Does Elvis Costello’s Spanish Model Project Work So Well?
Mark Smotroff revels in a reinvention that defies odds…

When I first heard about the surprising new project from Elvis Costello called Spanish Model, I worried for a brief moment. But then, I had to take a step back and remember this was Elvis Costello helming this reinvention of one of his all time classic albums — 1978’s powerhouse sophomore release This Years Model. So, as I’ve done time and time before since that year I just relaxed and welcomed this bold new experiment with open arms and open ears.

I’ve been a dedicated fan of Elvis’ since 1978 when I bought his first two albums and was absolutely gobsmacked by the music. Over the years I’ve been pleasantly surprised, wow’d, jaw-dropped, tear-dropped, re-educated and ultimately overjoyed by Elvis’ many category defying albums which broke him out of the “angry young man” mode of his initial PR firestorm. He rather rapidly was rightly elevated to renown as one of the finest songwriters of his generation.

It has been a wonderful journey from the country western brilliance of Almost Blue to the haunting introspection of North to his spectacular collaborations with no less than Burt Bacharach (Painted From Memory) and Paul McCartney (Spike, Mighty Like A Rose). Like Dylan before him, in his own way Elvis continues to challenge us.

The goal of Spanish Model is noble. From the official press release we learn that Elvis “… brought together a stunning international cast of some of the biggest Latin rock and pop artists from around the globe to interpret Elvis Costello and The Attractions’ classic 1978 debut album, This Year’s Model, entirely in Spanish.”

So, yes, Spanish Model features newly-recorded vocal performances with Costello and The Attractions’ original instrumental performances from the pristine master tapes.

For this initial phase of my listening report — based on the CD version mostly — I’m just going to talk about the music and how it works as an end to end listen. I haven’t had a chance to really hunker down with the lyrics yet to explore the new meanings built upon and into these songs.

If you are intimate with the original version of This Year’s Model, one of the things you’ll probably appreciate is the new sequencing. There is some special magic revealed here in Spanish Model. For example, Nina Diaz’ searing version of “No Action” segues into Raquel Sofía y Fuego’s take on “(I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea)” (aka “(Yo No Quiero Ir A) Chelsea”) instead of the quick fade out followed by the powerhouse drum intro to “This Year’s Girl.

I don’t know for sure but it sounds like this was an original transition the band recorded in a live take. So while we are hearing new vocals sung in Spanish, we are also hearing — effectively — alternate mixes and studio outtake recordings which were not in the original incarnation of This Year’s Model. That alone makes Spanish Model a must own for Costello fans.

I love how effectively Elvis duets with Luis Fonsi toward the end of “You Belong To Me. ” The new singers not only do the songs justice but they elevate and own them as their own for a new generation to discover. More than just a remix album, Spanish Model is a fun album in its own right.

If anything, this project is closer in concept to Paul McCartney’s very successful recent collaborations created out of his wonderful Mccartney III album (recorded in “rockdown” of the pandemic). Retitled as McCartney III Imagined, the new version works almost better than the original in some ways (click here to read my review) and it is at minimum an important companion release.

Indeed, with Spanish Model, Elvis’ songs are imagined anew, given fresh interpretations which blend brilliantly with the original backing, making this a fine compeer (if you will).

There are also new versions of songs which only came out as 45 RPM singles back in the day. Some of the most successful of those tracks on Spanish Model include Sebastián Yatra’s “Llorar“ (aka “Big Tears”) and Gian Marco y Nicole Zignago’s duet on “Crawling To The U.S.A.” (which originally appeared in the US on the soundtrack to the film Americathon).

The CD version of Spanish Model I received for review sounds great all things considered – it is a bright punchy recording but there are no ugly harsh edges. Everything feels like it fits together nicely, not an easy trick when blending 21st century vocals with backing tracks which are more than 40 years old.

If you have access to Tidal you can hear Spanish Model in 96 kHz, 24-bit MQA fidelity (click here) and on Qobuz in Hi Res format (click here). I haven’t listened to either version closely enough to make a preference for one or the other but hopefully by the time I review the vinyl version I can offer some insights.

Spanish Model is a winner for Elvis Costello and these fine new artists.

Now I only have one dream request: I’d love to hear a remixed alternate version of This Years Model presented in this expanded running order with these edits and re-arrangements. That could be a great special edition for Record Store Day… just sayin…

Please check out some of the videos which have been issued already including three episodes of a fascinating mini documentary series on the making of the album which follow…
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Re: Spanish Model, Sept 10, 2021 - New release based on one of Elvis Costello and the Attractions most celebrated albums

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https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/ ... interview/

Elvis Costello On Reimagining His Landmark 1978 Album Into The New ‘Spanish Model’
We caught up with Elvis Costello and producer Sebastian Krys about the original, groundbreaking 1978 album and how ‘Spanish Model’ came together.

Reworking a long-beloved album is one of those things that artists just aren’t supposed to do. So of course, Elvis Costello went ahead and did it. In its original form, 1978’s This Year’s Model was The Attractions’ debut as a band, the source of many Costello classics, a well of lyrical venom, and a New-Wave landmark. So why not mess with it over 40 years later?

What Costello’s done with the new Spanish Model is pretty much unprecedented – the first time an artist has overseen a rework of their own album, using the original backing tracks, in a different language. He and producer Sebastian Krys, a recent Costello collaborator and multiple Latin Grammy winner, have enlisted a dream team of Spanish-singing artists – among them, Chilean pop star Cami, Argentina’s Fito Páez, and Colombia’s Juanes – to sing over the original tracks. Each was given free rein to rework melodies and rewrite lyrics, but the attitude of the original proves universal.

We caught up with both Costello and Krys about the original, groundbreaking 1978 album and how Spanish Model came together.

How was the idea of Spanish Model originally presented to you?

Krys: He [Elvis] just called up and said “I have this idea I want to do. I want to redo ‘This Year’s Model,’ take my voice out and put new singers in, and I want to do it all in Spanish.” I just looked at my phone for about 15 seconds and tried to process that. But I thought it was a crazy enough idea that it just might work. If you know any of Elvis’ work, you know that he doesn’t always do what you want him to do as an audience member. If you accept that and go along for the ride, you find some wonderful music – things like ‘Painted From Memory’ and ‘The Juliet Letters.’

You managed to make it sound like Elvis and the Attractions are playing with the new singers in real-time. What sort of magic did that require?

Krys: I’m a big fan of the original record, and the engineering and production that Roger Bechirian and Nick Lowe did. So when I started, I tried to mimic the original mix and found out two things: One, it didn’t work and two, I couldn’t do it. So when I let that idea drop and decided I needed to mix the songs around the new vocals and make them work for the singer and their interpretations, it all came together.

When you do a project like this, you’re bound to get some backlash from people thinking you can’t rework an iconic album. I’m wondering if that might have even been part of the appeal?

Costello: I don’t keep any holy relics around in my house, so I’m not so precious about that. I love what people have brought to this, and that little bit of daring. If you know what I’ve done, you know that the minute someone puts the word ‘iconic’ in the same sentence with my name, I’m going to break out in a rash.

This may be a hard thing for Americans to appreciate but when we made that record [This Year’s Model], the sole extent of our master plan was to make a record that could compete with ABBA and Fleetwood Mac on BBC Radio. For a brief moment in late ‘77 and early ‘78, there was just the Boomtown Rats, The Jam, and us in the charts – the other contemporary bands would follow in short order. We wanted to get on the radio and guess what, there were single hits, though they never were in America. So we’re not disturbing anything sacred when it took American radio until 1983 to know this even existed.

Was there anything in particular about the Spanish language or about ‘This Year’s Model’ that made you feel they were compatible?

Costello: I wish I could claim that there was. But it was really a chain reaction that began with David Simon asking for “This Year’s Girl” for season two of ‘The Deuce.’ Somebody at HBO wanted a female voice for the second verse and I said, “Don’t you think they should be approximately the same generation as I was when I originally sang it, so it sounds like a dialogue?” Natalie Bergman did that job, and that’s when we discovered the tapes were in good order, and Sebastian could mix it and find other power in the tracks. Somewhere in that process, I made this leap into Spanish, having sensed when it felt like to hear a female voice change the perspective, and I thought maybe it could be another language. And logically I wasn’t going to say, “Hey, maybe we should do it in Serbo-Croat.”

Krys: From my perspective, I know a lot of these peoples’ careers and aesthetics, and maybe I’ll put somebody forward that I think aesthetically might fit. But Elvis was listening to more purely from the vocal standpoint, so it was a good back and forth.

Costello: As I understand it, there’s a huge tradition in the Spanish-speaking world of ballad singing, therefore stories and lyrical perspective are very key. I didn’t want anybody because they were in the charts, or they saw a novelty to this. I wanted them to take the job seriously, and then have as much fun doing this as they possibly could. That’s certainly the principle of the early work I did with the Attractions, to care with your last breath and not give a damn at the same time.

I assume that the lyrics aren’t necessarily literal translations. Were there occasions where the meaning of a song would get changed or updated?

Costello: Only in the sense of getting the essence of a lyric. The very first one delivered was Cami’s “La Chica de Hoy,” which literally means “the girl of today.” It still contains the same idea, it means “it girl,” or “girl you’re all looking at.” What then becomes very different is that Cami is the person that people are looking at, in that particular moment of her career where she has emerged.

All those assumptions about what part of your appeal is the way you look, against what might be in your head and your heart – all that is in play in her own life and career, and I think that’s why she sang it so well. The most radical change is “Radio Radio,” because I wouldn’t have wanted Vito to be fighting a battle we were fighting 40 years ago, it would have made no sense. Mass communication has changed and he reflects that in his lyric – not as a manifesto, in a more good-natured kind of way.

What about ‘Chelsea’ and ‘Night Rally,’ which refer to specific aspects of London in 1977?

Costello: I’ll point out that those were the songs Columbia removed from the original American pressing, because they thought them too specific. “Night Rally” is an interesting one, it was written about the dread of the rise of the far-right in London, and I projected that onto a fantasy of what was happening. But for most of the Latin American artists, anyone who is approaching my age remembers Spain under a fascist dictatorship. So you don’t have to be a history student to have a sense of what that song implies.

Krys: “Chelsea” is very similar, you could apply the sentiment to today’s Miami.

Costello: If the song had been written in the 30s, it would have been about Hollywood. It’s about being from the nowhere place, and the dream and the compromise that comes with it. Originally “Chelsea” was written about a 1960s movie about an English girl who comes to London and gets involved in the fashion scene. That inspired it as much as anything happening in the contemporary world.

But at the same time, I was living in the London suburbs where nothing much was happening. I was traveling on the train to London every day to do my day job, which was funnily enough in a lipstick factory, at a cosmetic firm’s office. I wrote that song sitting at my little computer, thinking what it might be like to be that girl from the north of England coming into the groovy scene in London, which could be Miami or Hollywood, or any place where it’s happening and you’re not. You’re sort of saying “I don’t want to go there,” even though you don’t really mean it. You want to go there to find out what it feels like.

Spanish Model is out now.
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
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