Thursday, January 02, 2003

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2002 Year End Lists Extracts from EC appearances on Year-End lists below: ========== USA TODAY Year's best by Elysa Gardner. 1. Elvis Costello (news), When I Was Cruel. This quintessential critics' favorite manages to combine the sharp hooks, cutting lyrics and raw energy that first put him on the map with the ever-growing sense of rhythmic and textural sophistication that has kept him relevant. ========== New York Times.  The 10 Best Pop Albums The 10 Best Pop Albums - December 29, 2002 By JON PARELES #8) ELVIS COSTELLO: `WHEN I WAS CRUEL' (Island) Elvis Costello finally puts his rocker's hat back on, not to pretend he's young - he starts out singing about World War II, vinyl and middle age - but to rekindle the snap, twang and suspense of his 1970's band. The lean, lunging music is matched to gimlet-eyed observations about the countless varieties of betrayal. (Submitted by John Foyle) ========== Pittsburgh Post-Gazette BEST POP CONCERT: ELVIS COSTELLO ED MASLEY, POST-GAZETTE POP MUSIC CRITIC We didn't get the highest-grossing tour of 2002. But who needs Paul McCartney when you've got his greatest writing partner since the ' 60s? If Elvis is King, as the legendary cover of his debut album noted, then the King is very much alive. In fact, he hasn't aged a bit (unless you count the hairline, which we'd rather that you didn't). 1. ELVIS COSTELLO AND THE IMPOSTERS  A.J. Palumbo Theatre, Oct. 19 The more explosive moments of his first appearance here since 1989 could have passed for a concert from ' 79, as Costello and two Attractions blew the dust off an entire shelf of early gems. But this was no nostalgia tour. Before he'd closed the second encore with a menacing version of "I Want You" (still his finest hour), he'd led the band through no fewer than six selections from "When I Was Cruel," his most inspired effort in more than a decade, and treated the fans to his own version of "The Judgment," a new soul classic he recently gave to soul legend Solomon Burke. The set list veered from savage rock 'n' roll abandon to ballads, from country to soul, from anger to remorse and back again. I can't imagine any Hall of Famer turning in a more inspired, energetic set with that much new material after 25 years in the business. (Submitted by Robert Sabat) ========== LA Times Mentions on several critic lists (submitted by Anonymous) ========== Entertainment Weekly ET Picks WIWC as 2nd Best of the Year .  # 2 WHEN I WAS CRUEL Elvis Costello (Island) Revenge of the veterans, part 1: Reuniting with former members of the Attractions and revisiting the jarring sound of his youth, Costello risks turning himself into a nostalgia item. Instead, he gives us his most stinging one-two punch since the first Bush presidency. Packed with bristling spews, noir soundscapes, and cutting autobiographical sketches that reveal a man grappling with the onset of middle age, this is like a greatest-hits album of songs we've never heard before. (submitted by Robert Sabat) ========== Rolling Stone WIWC in the Top 50 but they are listed alphabetically. ========== Blender WIWC 33, one ahead of Springsteen. ========== The Belfast Telegraph (Alphabetical in top 10) "ELVIS COSTELLO - When I Was Cruel (Mercury): As punk 'celebrated' its 25th anniversary, Costello's first 'rock' album in six years often crackled with the spirit of 1977, yet also demonstrated a musical sophistication and lyrical bite that few, if any, of his contemporaries have ever come near." ========== OregonLive.com Best of 2002. EC at #1 (by John Foyle) Under the title NO HAIR EC got the following year end summary from Australia : "The rapidly receding Elvis Costello delivered a deadly double blow this year. His album When I Was Cruel and the July shows at the Enmore Theatre were loud, assertive, exciting rock'n'roll. " ========== The Boston Globe Year's Best - (Part I of a series).  EC gets a few kind words. ========== Orlando Sentinel WIWC on Orlando Sentinel's best albums of 2002 (submitted by John Harrison) 11:09:41 AM

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In Salon (By Griel Marcus): 1) Mendoza Line, "Sleep of the Just," from "Almost You: The Songs of Elvis Costello" (Glurp) Aren't tribute albums terrible? This one is really terrible -- and the Atlanta band's view all the way into one of Costello's greatest recordings ranks with Eminem's "Lose Yourself" and DJ Shadow's "The Private Press" as the most undeniable sound of the year. Maybe it was always obvious that the song is about the gang-rape of a local girl at an army base, with the woman looking back: "The soldier asked my name and did I come here very often/ Well, I thought that he was asking me to dance." Maybe the song was always about the woman cherishing his death when his company's transport vehicle is blown up: He's getting the sleep of the just, all right, the big sleep. In Costello's performance, though, the beauty of the composition makes the story into a fable, and the people in it float like ghosts. Shannon McArdle is all flesh, still trying to wash off the stains after all these years. She makes her voice small and flat for the difficult shifts in timbre, removing any hint of professionalism. She's as off-the-street as the woman in the middle of the Human League's "Don't You Want Me," and the naturalism of the performance -- carried from the beginning by a solemn church organ that is even more damning when it plays pop changes -- is almost unbearable. The woman has her satisfaction over the soldier's death, but that's all she has. He and the rest took everything else. That a woman is singing makes all the difference. Costello himself could go all the way into the song, but McArdle goes out the other side. 11:05:41 AM

© Copyright 2003 Craig Danuloff.