New Musical Express, February 1, 1986: Difference between revisions
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Still not convinced? Check the B sides. "Baby's Got A Brand New Hairdo" is Costello-by-numbers but is credited, schizophrenia fans, to one Declan Aloysious McManus, and is made interesting only by flashes of bitter, corrugated, guitar by Costello himself. | Still not convinced? Check the B sides. "Baby's Got A Brand New Hairdo" is Costello-by-numbers but is credited, schizophrenia fans, to one Declan Aloysious McManus, and is made interesting only by flashes of bitter, corrugated, guitar by Costello himself. | ||
The third song is also a cover, this time an agonisingly slow self-flaggelation through "Find Yourself Another Fool." Over a stuttering organ, Elvis sings ''"at last I've awakened to see what you've done / all I can do is pack up and run / now I know the rules / find yourself another fool."'' If those aren't the words of someone hacking desperately away at the past | The third song is also a cover, this time an agonisingly slow self-flaggelation through "Find Yourself Another Fool." Over a stuttering organ, Elvis sings ''"at last I've awakened to see what you've done / all I can do is pack up and run / now I know the rules / find yourself another fool."'' If those aren't the words of someone hacking desperately away at the past — his own ''and'' yours — then what are? It's unbearably crushed and truly moving. | ||
In the face of all this, then, the fact that this is Costello's "worst" record obviously matters not at all. I hope I've completely misread him, that he's playing to the gallery and will emerge widely grinning and artistically restored; I hope that he somehow needed, and is using, this record-as-public-disembowelment to bring order to apparent chaos; and I hope that "Misunderstood" isn't a landmark in the nosedive of one of the great pop talents of the past decade. | In the face of all this, then, the fact that this is Costello's "worst" record obviously matters not at all. I hope I've completely misread him, that he's playing to the gallery and will emerge widely grinning and artistically restored; I hope that he somehow needed, and is using, this record-as-public-disembowelment to bring order to apparent chaos; and I hope that "Misunderstood" isn't a landmark in the nosedive of one of the great pop talents of the past decade. |