Back in 1977, Elvis Costello said he didn't want to be around for his own artistic decline.
Well, it's been nice knowing you, Elvis.
The problem with Costello's latest, Spike, isn't that it's bad; it's just been done before.
Production-wise, Spike's sound is an amalgam of Imperial Bedroom, King of America and especially Goodbye Cruel World, full of decent-yet-derivative rehashings of old Costello tunes.
For example: "Let Him Dangle" sounds identical to Cruel World's "Inch By Inch," and "Victoria," the album's first single (and a collaboration with Paul McCartney) ventures far into the very familiar territory already crossed in Punch the Clock's "Love Went Mad." However, despite the rewritten tunes, some of the songs sound better in their new versions.
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