Secret, Profane and Sugarcane Reviews

[nerosneptune]

I haven't seen a thread yet with reviews of the album, so maybe it can be started here. I'll start with the review from my favorite website.

http://spectrumculture.com/2009/06/elvi ... rcane.html

[johnfoyle]

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB3 ... f=2&t=7727

[Ypsilanti]

You know what? I am sick to death of all these bullshit semi-professional "reviewers" who are really just idiot 18 year olds, blogging from their Nana's basement. Likewise for all these bitter, halfwit "music journalists" who never managed to turn their fantasy about shredding their ass off on the stage at Madison Square Garden into reality. And sometimes "fans" on various websites and (hate to say it) occasionally even on this site, who approach the music that they claim to love with what seems to me to be way too much cynicism and an inappropriate sense of being "owed" something by Elvis in exchange for shelling out 10 bucks for a CD.

What's with all the backhanded compliments (or worse!) about his voice, his demeanor, his penchant for collaborating with other artists, his work in various genres, etc, etc, etc? What's with all the hostility? And in a weird twist, I've noticed that many of these reviews and comments are actually positive--and yet the "authors" just can't resist venting all this "righteous" anger. If you read this stuff, you get the idea that Elvis is a talentless douche-bag hack who can't sing and has no right to torture the public with his awful music.

And they're all so much smarter than Elvis--they all see so clearly the giant blunders he makes every time he opens his mouth or picks up a pen or walks into a studio. They all know exactly what ought to be done to save Elvis from his own fatal tendency toward chronic asshole-ism and morbid stupidity!

Does this bother only me? No wonder Elvis wrote "No Hiding Place". I'd say it's a giant understatement, though.

[bambooneedle]

Well stop howling in a vacuum then.

[Neil.]

I'm with you on that one Ypsilanti - but I think a lot of the negatives come from caring about Elvis's career, and wanting his music to be successful. As I've said many times on this forum, I think huge numbers of Elvis's songs should be standards known the world over, and when I see lesser songwriters getting massive success with dreary songs (James Blunt, Coldplay et al), it frustrates me. So I do moan sometimes (e.g. 'ditch the moustache'), but it's only because I'm sensitive to anything that might jeopardise his chance of world musical domination!

Bamboo, that's a fetching cloak of anonymity you're wearing!

[Ypsilanti]

OK. Point well taken--I'll stop howling. But before I do, here are just a few tidbits gleaned from recent reviews of SP&S. Most of this comes from overall positive reviews...

"Costello resorts to bellowing"
"cringe-worthy"
"frequently fussy"
"several tedious, self-pitying romantic country pastiches"
"Costello’s tendency to sound like a man writing for an audience of imagined peers"
"Costello's...strained honk"
"Red Cotton...lyrics...are incomprehensible"
"Secret, Profane, & Sugarcane" isn't a terrible album, just an unnecessary, rather boring one"
"his snotty bitterness"
"For a lot of people on this planet nothing is as grating as Costello's voice where it doesn't belong"
"I could give our bespectacled addict one more chance after 20 years of misfires"
"acidic wailing"

You may love SP&S or not (or be somewhere in the middle), but c'mon...cringe-worthy? self-pitying? strained honk? bespectacled addict? What the Hell? This isn't merely "negative criticism". Remarks like these are just mean-spirited, base & cowardly. And really unnecessary.

I think huge numbers of Elvis's songs should be standards known the world over, and when I see lesser songwriters getting massive success with dreary songs (James Blunt, Coldplay et al), it frustrates me. So I do moan sometimes (e.g. 'ditch the moustache'), but it's only because I'm sensitive to anything that might jeopardise his chance of world musical domination!

Neil,
Agree with you--I would also like to see Elvis get the recognition he deserves. His music should be much more well known and it's a shame that so many hacks get to the top of the pile. If you lived on Long Island you would have to witness the horrifying twin phenomena of Billy Joel Worship & Jim Croce Worship. They're like Gods here. It would make you gag.

[John]

World domination is beginning for Elvis. Two weeks inside the Billboard top 23 is not bad. When did that last happen? (When I Was Cruel was down to 50 in week 2)

All he needs to do now is make a horrendously sentimental video for The Crooked Line with Diana in it, ensure it is played on the hour, every hour on every television channel in the world and the exercise will be complete.

[Lester Burnham]

Don't worry about reviewers, Ypsilanti. Especially anonymous bloggers (though I myself am one of them, as FAVEHOUR discovered in the Wolf Trap thread!), because any schmo can have a blog and mash a few keys to say what he or she thinks. Best not to pay them too much mind, unless you want a good laugh.

And maybe it's just me, but I like Elvis's status as it is. Let the flashes in the pans have their moment; Elvis will still be around for years, making awesome music. I'm sure if he wanted a hit record of some sort this decade, he would have made it by now.

[Ypsilanti]

I'm sure if he wanted a hit record of some sort this decade, he would have made it by now.

Yes--clearly he hated being a rock star, but loves being a musician. He's fashioned an excellent career for himself. And he's survived, even perhaps thrived, in a brutal industry.

[johnfoyle]

http://machinegunfunk.com/2009/06/24/mg ... sugarcane/

Machine Gun Funk

By Michael J. Nicholas

June 24, 2009

If you’re not a fan of old-school bluegrass or country & western music, then Elvis Costello’s newest album, Secret, Profane & Sugarcane, probably won’t be accepted in your CD collection’s neighborhood. Recorded by Mike Piersante at Nashville’s Sound Emporium Studio, the album was produced by T-Bone Burnett during a short, three-day session. Ya hear that Metallica? Three days… not three years.

This new collection of songs is most definitely an acquired taste due to it not really being a “true” Costello record. Stripped-down and mostly acoustic, you’ll find it’s the “southern” sound that takes the most time getting used to. There is a lot of fiddle, double-bass, dobro and mandolin to be heard (or dealt with, so to speak) on these tracks, but also some pretty decent electric-guitar passages played by T-Bone. However, Costello still delivers vocally. And one thing for sure is that lyrically, he keeps the common silliness of country music’s wordplay out of the mix, as you’ll hear vintage Elvis Costello in every chorus and verse.

Other collaborators on Sugarcane include Emmylou Harris (vocals on “The Crooked Line”) and Loretta Lynn (co-writer on “I Felt the Chill Before the Winter Came”), while Lou Reed’s “Femme Fatale” gets a reworking as well. Most of the tunes on the album are pretty mellow as expected, and the arrangements are predictable as well.

But, it’s the little things for which an artist of Costello’s caliber is known, that keeps an album of acoustic country songs somewhat interesting. A highlight that can be found here is “My All Time Doll”, which features some funky mandolin playing and sharp-tongued lyrics. “Sulphur to Sugarcane”, easily the best track in the set, features Costello crooning to an upbeat shuffle, matched by comical verses about loose American women. The two aforementioned collaborations are also very good, though the Lou Reed cover falls flat. “Downbeat”, “melancholy” and “fiddles” are three words that best sum up Secret, Profane & Sugarcane.

The artwork that comes with the eco-friendly cardboard packaging is very cool, with every song having a black-and-white sketch above each individual lyric page. At the bottom of these pages, the musicians’ names and the instruments they play are listed. Gibson must have specially supplied Costello’s guitars, because not only is their name listed with the players’, but so is the model number. It’s a shameless example of 21st century commercialism, but pretty neat to a fellow musician wanting to know how to get a particular sound.

Overall, this is an album that definitely deserves a listen, in order to make up your own selective mind. If you can get past the fact that it’s a country record, then you will have no problem accepting it as an Elvis Costello record.

[johnfoyle]

http://www.telegram.com/article/2009062 ... /906250861

Worcester Telegram

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Elvis adds Worcestershire sauce

Craig S. Semon


“Secret, Profane & Sugarcane” Elvis Costello (Hear Music),

Worcester girls are easy, so says Elvis Costello. But they are not as easy as the women in Poughkeepsie.

On his playfully scandalous, speakeasy romp, “Sulphur to Sugarcane,” Costello delivers a politically incorrect travelogue of hot-to-trot trollop stops across the United States, including our beloved Wormtown. Inspired by cities he played at during his opening slot on Bob Dylan’s fall 2007 tour, Costello whimsically weaves together salacious couplets of the willingness of women in some overnight destinations to drop their knickers. In actuality, Worcester gets off easy, so to speak, as evident in the lines, “Down in Bridgeport/The woman will kill you for sport/But in Worcester, Massachusetts/They just love my sauce/The woman in Poughkeepsie/Take their clothes off when they’re tipsy/But I hear in Ypsilanti /They don’t wear any panties.” Anyone for a road trip?

The caddish Costello is an irresistible rascal on “Sulphur to Sugarcane,” but it is not all fun and games on his latest “Secret, Profane & Sugarcane.” Whether it’s a lousy decision we have made, a lover that we have lost who haunts us or a would-be lover who we wish would find us, Costello masterfully examines those things that have a stranglehold on one’s heart, one’s soul and even one’s existence.

Recorded during a whirlwind three-day session in Nashville with ace session players well-versed in traditional country music and bluegrass, “Secret, Profane & Sugarcane” is Costello’s first disc predominantly rooted in acoustic music since 1986’s “King of America,” both of which were produced by Americana roots music virtuoso T. Bone Burnett.

Falling somewhere between Bruce Springsteen’s “The Hitter” and “The Wrestler,” Costello weaves his impeccable storytelling skills to tell the tale of a punch-drunk palooka called back into the ring on the leadoff track, “Down Among the Wine and Spirits.” In a song that could be renamed “O, Mickey Rourke Where Art Thou?,” Costello’s rootsy, hands-on treatment gives a stinging authenticity to this bruised knuckles, battered ego and broken dream saga.

Originally written for but never recorded by Johnny Cash, the stripped-down, chug-a-lug, reworking of “Complicated Shadows” still resonates as a compelling, cautionary tale of vigilante justice. With plenty of angry-young-man vigor and authoritative vocals, Costello is at his trigger-finger best as the jittery, out-of-time and in-your-face narrative unfolds.

The Man in Black did get to record Costello’s American gothic tale “Hidden Shame.” In the guise of a small-time career criminal, Costello takes us to the height of anxiety and to the heart of the action in this long-overdue, low-life confession. Accompanied by a lively, barn burning melody, Costello cathartically purges his deepest, darkest and most troubling secret, one which the listener is not prepared for.Represented in four stellar tracks, Costello’s unfinished commission for the Royal Danish Opera about the life of Hans Christian Andersen focuses on the beloved fairy tales writer’s feelings for 19th century, world-renowned singer sensation Jenny Lind (who was apparently the Beyonce of her day), as well as Lind’s 1850 U.S. tour, put on by promoter P.T. Barnum (who was the Live Nation of his day).

“She Handed Me A Mirror” is a poetic and poignant tale of unattainable beauty and unrequited love, in which Costello has his heart crushed after hearing the object of his affection utter that dreaded word, “friend.” The tension on “How Deep Is the Red” reaches perfection with its deafening silence that is so quiet and unnerving that you can hear what’s left of Costello’s shattered heart drop.

Inspired by an out-of-print book about Lind’s 1850 All-American Tour, “She Was No Good” is a larger-than-life story that unfolds on a Mississippi riverboat with a colorful array of ruffians. Unfortunately, the song sounds too somber (and sober) for its own good, coming off as a dirge rather than the rowdy drunken tale it cries out to be. Proving once again to be a master of juxtaposition, Costello imagines Barnum reading an abolitionist pamphlet while manufacturing cheap souvenirs on “Red Cotton.”

Costello joins forces with Emmylou Harris on “The Crooked Line,” which, according to the artist, is the only song he has ever written about fidelity that is without any irony. Bringing the disc to an appropriate close, Costello resurrects the timeless, lovelorn waltz, “Changing Partners,” which was a hit for both Patti Page and Bing Crosby in the ’50s, and makes it his own.