Minimalism Project - The Very Best of Elvis Costello

A couple of years ago I started attempting (on this very blog) to review all the albums that I owned. I got about four or five in and lost momentum. Now I am proposing a different approach. This year I intend to listen to every CD I own - and if I don't love it I will get rid of it. (read more about my minimalism project here) I am going to do mini reviews of the albums as I go.

The Very Best of Elvis Costello  (2004)

It has to be said I don't love greatest hits compilations. You can have much of a good thing and listening to hit after hit can be tiring. That said I do own some greatest hits compilations and this is one of them. I wasn't a huge Elvis Costello fan when I was younger and the records of his I did own were singles so I didn't really know where to begin with is albums. I remember when I bought this double album - it was about 12 years ago. We had been to a garden party out in the wilds of Norfolk and at some point Elvis Costello was played and I found (to my surprise) that I was really enjoying it. Later that week I duly went out and bought The Very Best of... But I have to confess it's not something I play very often. I listened to CD 1 today and did enjoy it to begin with - but there is just too much of it. Each CD (there are two) has twenty plus tracks. If you listened to the whole thing it would be like listening to four albums back to back - only the most die hard fans would want to do that. I can do it with Bowie (heck I can listen to ten Bowie albums back to back) - but each Bowie album is pretty unique and, I have to say, Elvis Costello becomes a little samey after a while. There are some very good tracks on here though, and CD 1 has quite a few of the early new wave hits - Accidents Will Happen (which I still have on vinyl), Radio, Radio, Pump it Up etc. But it also has a smattering of his more corny sentimental tracks that I was never particularly keen on - For the Roses and She for example. At some point I will give CD 2 a listen - but not today.

There are enough good tracks on here to make it a keeper I think.

Recors/CDs revisited - Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros - Global A Go-Go

This is the first album reviewed (so far) that I didn't own on vinyl first. I came to Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros late - only really discovering them after Joe Strummer died - I had had a bit of a hiatus from discovering much new music for a few years for some reason. I was gutted to have discovered them posthumously as it meant that I would never have the opportunity of seeing them live, and I had already missed out on seeing The Clash.

Global A Go-Go is by far and away my favourite Mescaleros album. It kicks off with the brilliant and very catchy Johnny Appleseed, and then morphs into the funky Cool 'n' Out where jaunty dance rhythms jostle along with rock guitar - and somehow the whole thing works. Cool 'n' Out is followed by the title track which has a world feel to the music as well as the lyrics and has a deceptively simple melody running through it which I love and always find myself humming hours later. The next track Bhindi Bhagee is probably my favourite on the album - it is has the kind of African influenced guitar riff that reminds me of bands like King Sunny Ade and his African Beats and Taxi Pata Pata that I listened to a lot in the 1980s. As well as being incredibly catchy and making you want to get up and dance, this song has great lyrics - someone in the street asks Joe where buy that great British delicacy mushy peas, but Joe is stumped - he can tell him where to get all kinds of food from all over the world - but not mushy peas. Then he tells the stranger that he is in a band - and the stranger asks him what kind of band it is:

"It's um, um, well, it's kinda like

You know, it's got a bit of, um, you know."
Ragga, Bhangra, two-step Tanga
Mini-cab radio, music on the go
Um, surfbeat, backbeat, frontbeat, backseat
There's a bunch of players and they're really letting go
We got, Brit pop, hip hop, rockabilly, Lindy hop
Gaelic heavy metal fans fighting in the road
Ah, Sunday boozers for chewing gum users
They got a crazy D.J. and she's really letting go..."

There are some more mellow tracks on the album as well - like Gamma Ray, Mondo Bongo, and Bummed Out City. The album ends on a long and rather haunting version of the Irish patriotic folk song Minstrel Boy. This is an album that really shows Strummer's eclectic and wide ranging world music influences and (especially lyrically) his love affair with America and American culture. Joe Strummer is a talent sorely missed - and if you don't know the Mescaleros please look them up - it's well worth the effort. You can read a 2001 review of the album from Rolling Stone here.