That Year’s Model
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Elvis Costello cemented his reputation–and for all intents and purposes ended his artistic career–nine years ago by releasing, just months apart, King of America and Blood & Chocolate. The latter was a late blast from the Attractions, the violent trio who backed Costello from This Years Model on. Impressive at the time as a reassertion of his rock prowess, it now seems a bit light. King of America, on the other hand, just reissued in remastered form by Rykodisc, has only grown in the intervening years. The record’s importance lies in the way Costello, the first of the punks to cope with the diminution of the rage that fueled the music for years, unblinkingly addressed the havoc that time was wreaking on the punk ethos. King of America is not a concept album: its deepest, most densely written song, “American Without Tears,” has nothing to do with this theme; it’s a reverberating portrait of a pair of female British expatriates. Nor is the album perfect–limp rockabilly and blues numbers like “The Big Light” and “Eisenhower Blues” are there only to illuminate the backing band, the Confederates, composed of T-Bone Burnett and members of Elvis Presley’s TCB backup ensemble. But it is a self-conscious masterpiece of obsessions on doubt and decline.
