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Things have not gone well for Elvis Costello in the past few years. Although he scored critical kudos and sold a half-million records with 1989's Spike, with a hit single ("Veronica") co-written by Paul McCartney, Costello's last album, 1991's Mighty Like a Rose, was an unimaginative retread of past glories, a cul-de-sac of his own making.
An album of covers recorded last year, Kojak Variety, didn't seem like the answer and was postponed.
Instead, the time had come for bold measures, and Costello's new album, The Juliet Letters, recorded with the modern classical string ensemble the Brodsky Quartet, is a fearless move in a new direction.
It doesn't always work, and it certainly won't restore Costello to the upper reaches of album charts, but he didn't spend much time up there anyway. This new 20-track album merely recognizes his position in popular music: on the fringe and proud of it.
With nothing but strings and his own distinctive voice, the album is far from Costello's halcyon days when, as the poet of punk, he wrote such ballads as "Alison" and such venom-fueled ravers as "Pump It Up."
The new album is further, in fact, than most fans would want him to go.
It is easier to explain what the album isn't than what it is. Some pieces approach the musical theater of the arch, complex Stephen Sondheim variety, while others vaguely echo Costello's past work, especially "Jacksons, Monk and Rowe," which, ironically, Costello co-wrote with the quartet.
Most fall in between, not as sophisticated as Sondheim or good musical theater, but without rock's unique strengths. Kurt Weill's pointed art song may be a useful reference point, especially for "This Offer Is Unrepeatable," on which Costello ranges into comic declaiming that will amuse some and irritate more.
The album does give Costello the greatest vocal challenge of his career, offering him a chance to explore characterizations without any sonic crutches.
He accepts the challenge, enunciating as never before and continuing to reach for notes in Roy Orbison's quasi-operatic style, even hitting them. But while he reaches the notes, he is aiming high, and the strain shows. After a while, the vocal tension wears on the listener.
Because Costello's vocals aren't buried in production as they have often been in the past, the lyrics take on added importance. He becomes freer than ever to stretch into various characters, such as the religious huckster on "This Offer Is Unrepeatable" and the obsessive lover on "Taking My Life in Your Hands."
Described by Costello in the album's liner notes as a "song sequence," the songs are letters written by a variety of characters, most of them angry, sad or just plain nuts. Some are suicide notes ("Dear Sweet Filthy World"), others political graffiti ("Swine"), and, in the case of "I Almost Had a Weakness," an eccentric aunt's curt reply to a begging letter," according to Costello.
Eccentric is the word for it. But while this isn't party music — or driving music, or StairMaster music, or even Costello music — it does make interesting listening, perfectly timed for this dismal, reflective season and afternoons spent looking through a wet window on a cold, rainy, gray day.
If that's not your idea of a good time, you'd do better to dig out a copy of Costello's early albums.
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