"Although some critics have defined Blood & Chocolate as an intentionally murky and disturbing album, I can only find beauty and precision in this relentless pop masterpiece."
Shit. So I go out of my way to sit at my typewriter between baseball games, trying to bash out some lunkhead's critical invective so that all of Toronto will drop when they're holding to rush out and buy this damned album. No luck, huh? A fellow scribe is pointing at me, laughing fiendishly, and throwing UB40 records at me. I could have reviewed this?
"Costello has recorded two of the best albums of the decade: King of America and Blood & Chocolate, both of which have been released in 1986. Is this man human?"
I ain't got no illusions of being a pop-scene man of letters but sometimes – usually when I'm riding in my car alone – I fancy myself to be a pretty decent hack. So how can I live up to my self-confessed criteria by writing a review of an album that I have nothing to say about? Hell, I can't. So there.
"While other iconoclastic New Wavers suffer from dry-rot and guest appearances on Solid Gold, Costello has flowered into a forever Hall of Famer, a musician so gifted that even his ugliest records glimmer with grace and compassion."
Sorry to let you all down. I just can't get this slab of black vinyl out of my head.
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