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Let Them All Talk: The Music of Elvis Costello
The first full study of the extraordinary career of this enigmatic singer/songwriter--London born Elvis Costello.
- GenresMusicNonfiction
464 pages, Paperback
First published July 25, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 29, 2018
In case the title wasn't a dead giveaway, this is a book clearly aimed at fans of Elvis Costello. If you're not well-versed in his output and a little familiar with his history, then just keep moving along.
Fans of the man will find plenty of interest in these pages. Hinton did well in subtitling the book 'The Music of Elvis Costello,' as it gave him plenty of latitude for what he'd be covering. This is not a concise overview of Costello's recorded output with song meanings and anecdotes in the way XTC's SongStories was. There is discussion aplenty regarding song meanings (according to Hinton, many of them appear to involve Costello's brief 'affair' with Bebe Buell, though neither she nor Costello have given any indication that's true, and quite a few seem inspired by his personal battle with bassist Bruce Thomas) and anecdotes from the notoriously private Costello are drawn from archival interviews and (not often enough) his own liner notes for the repeated reissues of his catalogue. However, Hinton here attempts a sort of musical biography of Costello, focusing less on the man's personal life (apart from the whole Buell thing, which gets old fast) and more trying to weave together a portrait of him as an artist via his music (as Costello would always have it anyway, surely). This means we get coverage not only of his recordings, but also a plenitude of accounts of his live appearances in concert as well as on radio or television.
So, a pretty meaty feast of musical information is on offer here, clearly. But...
Hinton's writing is fluid enough, but he does love his wink-wink asides and his exclamation points (I've seen more of these in here than in any non-fiction book I've ever read); this makes him a little hard to take too seriously (as do his twin obsessions with the Buell and Thomas relationships). He makes frequent enough obvious (to me) errors to make me wonder how much is wrong that I just don't know, and he only occasionally cites references though he frequently quotes; this makes him hard to believe (and I get that a better editor would have noticed things like the same name being spelled two ways in the same paragraph, or a song title being 'adjusted' from one paragraph to the next). Finally, the scope of his musical knowledge doesn't seem broad enough to cover a man whose own tastes clearly run through most musical genres; this makes his opinion and personal input a bit hard to respect. He also goes off on the occasional tangent for a paragraph or so, often bearing only the most tenuous connection to the subject at hand; this makes his flow sometimes hard to follow.
In addition to the text, Hinton adds an admittedly limited (but still quite thorough) discography of Costello's (and The Attractions', for those who care) recordings, productions, side projects, etc. There is also a 'selected bibliography' and a brief but exhaustive index.
For the most part, this was an enjoyable book to read. But at the end of the day, it still feels like the Great Elvis Costello Book remains to be written. Nice try, though.
Fans of the man will find plenty of interest in these pages. Hinton did well in subtitling the book 'The Music of Elvis Costello,' as it gave him plenty of latitude for what he'd be covering. This is not a concise overview of Costello's recorded output with song meanings and anecdotes in the way XTC's SongStories was. There is discussion aplenty regarding song meanings (according to Hinton, many of them appear to involve Costello's brief 'affair' with Bebe Buell, though neither she nor Costello have given any indication that's true, and quite a few seem inspired by his personal battle with bassist Bruce Thomas) and anecdotes from the notoriously private Costello are drawn from archival interviews and (not often enough) his own liner notes for the repeated reissues of his catalogue. However, Hinton here attempts a sort of musical biography of Costello, focusing less on the man's personal life (apart from the whole Buell thing, which gets old fast) and more trying to weave together a portrait of him as an artist via his music (as Costello would always have it anyway, surely). This means we get coverage not only of his recordings, but also a plenitude of accounts of his live appearances in concert as well as on radio or television.
So, a pretty meaty feast of musical information is on offer here, clearly. But...
Hinton's writing is fluid enough, but he does love his wink-wink asides and his exclamation points (I've seen more of these in here than in any non-fiction book I've ever read); this makes him a little hard to take too seriously (as do his twin obsessions with the Buell and Thomas relationships). He makes frequent enough obvious (to me) errors to make me wonder how much is wrong that I just don't know, and he only occasionally cites references though he frequently quotes; this makes him hard to believe (and I get that a better editor would have noticed things like the same name being spelled two ways in the same paragraph, or a song title being 'adjusted' from one paragraph to the next). Finally, the scope of his musical knowledge doesn't seem broad enough to cover a man whose own tastes clearly run through most musical genres; this makes his opinion and personal input a bit hard to respect. He also goes off on the occasional tangent for a paragraph or so, often bearing only the most tenuous connection to the subject at hand; this makes his flow sometimes hard to follow.
In addition to the text, Hinton adds an admittedly limited (but still quite thorough) discography of Costello's (and The Attractions', for those who care) recordings, productions, side projects, etc. There is also a 'selected bibliography' and a brief but exhaustive index.
For the most part, this was an enjoyable book to read. But at the end of the day, it still feels like the Great Elvis Costello Book remains to be written. Nice try, though.
May 14, 2007
For Costello fanatics only. It would bore anyone else to tears.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews