Elvis Costello
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Declan Patrick MacManus (born 25 August, 1954, in London), better known by his stage name, Elvis Costello, is a popular British musician, singer, and songwriter of Irish ancestry.
Some sources list his full given name as Declan Patrick Aloysius MacManus; however, Aloysius was not one of his names at birth, being added years later.
Costello was an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s, and later became associated with the punk rock and new wave musical genres, before establishing himself as a unique and original voice in the 1980s. His output has been wildly diverse: One critic has written that "Costello, the pop encyclopedia, can reinvent the past in his own image" (see [[1]]).
Contents |
Biography
Early life and career
MacManus was born in St Mary's Hospital, Paddington in London, living in the area until he was sixteen.
With an already musical family (his father, Ross MacManus, sang with Joe Loss), MacManus moved with his mother to Liverpool in 1971. It was there that he formed his first band, a folk duo called Rusty. After completing secondary school in Liverpool, he moved back to London where he next formed a band called Flip City ([[2]]), which had a style very much in the pub rock vein. They were active from 1974 through early 1976. Around this time, MacManus adapted the stage name D.P. Costello.
By 1975, MacManus was already married to Mary Burgoyne and had a son, Matthew. To support himself, he worked a number of office jobs, most famously at a cosmetics firm -- immortalized in one of his song lyrics as the "vanity factory" -- where he put in time as a data entry clerk. He continued to write songs, and began aggressively looking for a solo recording contract.
On the basis of a demo tape, he was signed to Stiff Records. His manager at Stiff, Jake Riviera, suggested a name change, using Elvis Presley's first name and his maternal grandmother's maiden name to form Elvis Costello.
1970s
Costello's first album for Stiff, My Aim Is True (1977), was a moderate commercial success (No. 14 in the UK and Top 40 in the US) with Costello appearing on the cover in his trademark oversize glasses, bearing a striking resemblance to a menacing Buddy Holly.
Costello's backing on this first album was provided by American West Coast band Clover, a roots/country outfit who would later become Huey Lewis and The News. Costello was originally marketed as a punk artist. At the time, there was no term to distinguish between punk bands like The Clash and the Sex Pistols from other so-called punk bands like Elvis Costello and Blondie. Later on, as the term new wave was brought into the vernacular, Costello was a decidedly new wave artist. The same year, Costello recruited his own permanent band, The Attractions, consisting of Steve Nieve (born Steve Nason; piano), Bruce Thomas (bass guitar), and Pete Thomas (unrelated to Bruce Thomas; drums). He released his first major hit single, "Watching The Detectives," recorded with Nieve and the pair of Steve Goulding (drums) and Andrew Bodnar (bass), both members of Graham Parker & The Rumour.
Stiff was a new independent UK label, formed to provide an outlet for practioners in the then-burgeoning pub rock scene in London. Its records were initially distributed only in the UK, which meant that Costello's first album and singles were initially available in the US as imports only. In an attempt to change this, Costello was arrested for busking outside of a London convention of CBS (Columbia Records) executives, "protesting" the fact that no US record company had yet seen fit to release Elvis Costello records in the United States. Costello signed to CBS in the US a few months later.
Image:Elvis Costello And The Attractions - Radio Radio single picture cover.jpg
In December 1977, Costello and The Attractions appeared on Saturday Night Live as a last minute fill-in for the Sex Pistols. During the live broadcast, Costello played the first few bars of "Less Than Zero," then--much to the shock of the program's producers--stopped and broke into a spirited rendition of the then-unreleased "Radio, Radio" (despite having been denied permission to play that song because of its anti-corporate message). Costello was not invited to perform on Saturday Night Live again for 12 years (his next appearance finally coming in 1989, when the Spike album was a U.S. hit).
Following a whirlwind tour with other Stiff artists (captured on the Live Stiffs album, notable for Costello's recording of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David standard "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself") the band recorded the frenetic, raucous This Year's Model (1978).
Some of the more popular tracks include the British hit "(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea" and "Lipstick Vogue". A tour of the US and Canada also saw the release of the much bootlegged promo-only "Live At The El Mocambo," which finally saw an official release as part of the "2 1/2 Years" box set in 1993. It was during the ensuing United States tour that Elvis met and developed a relationship with former Playboy model, Bebe Buell (mother of Liv Tyler). Their on-again-off-again courtship would last until 1984 and would allegedly become a deep well of inspiration for some of Costello's most lovelorn songs.
1979 would arguably see the peak of Costello's commercial success with the release of Armed Forces (originally titled Emotional Fascism).
Both the album and the single Oliver's Army went to #2 in the UK. Costello also found time in 1979 to produce the debut album for ska band, The Specials.
His success in the US was severely bruised when, during a drunken argument with Stephen Stills and Bonnie Bramlett in a Columbus, Ohio Holiday Inn hotel bar, Costello referred to James Brown as a "jive-ass nigger", then upped the ante by pronouncing Ray Charles a "blind, ignorant nigger".
Bramlett and friends had evidently been baiting Costello with derisive comments about British rock music in general and "sawed-off Limey"-type comments aimed at him in particular.
A contrite Costello apologised at a New York City press conference a few days later, claiming that he had been drunk and had been attempting to be obnoxious in order to bring the conversation to a swift conclusion, not anticipating that Bramlett would bring his comments to the press.
According to Costello, "it became necessary for me to outrage these people with about the most obnoxious and offensive remarks that I could muster". In his liner notes for the expanded version of Get Happy!!, Costello writes that some time after the incident he had declined an offer to meet Charles out of guilt and embarrassment, though Charles himself had graciously forgiven Costello ("Drunken talk isn't meant to be printed in the paper").
It is notable that Costello worked extensively in Britain's Rock Against Racism campaign both before and after this interlude. This incident specifically inspired his Get Happy! song (see[[3]]) Riot Act.
1980s
Get Happy!! would thus be the first, and - along with King Of America - possibly most successful, of Costello's many experiments with genres beyond those he is normally associated with (the single, "I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down" was an old Sam and Dave song, though Costello increased the tempo considerably). The brevity of the songs (20 tracks in under 50 minutes) suited the band's new style (the Thomas' typically melodic rhythm section and Nieve's reasonable impersonation of Booker T Jones) as well as the frantic and stressful conditions under which it was written and recorded, crammed between live dates and fuelled by excessive drinking.
Lyrically, the songs are full of Costello's signature wordplay, to the point that he later felt he'd become something of a self-parody and toned it down on later releases. He has mockingly described himself in interviews as "rock and roll's Scrabble champion."
1981's Trust had a more pop sound, but the overall result was clearly affected by the growing tensions within the band, particularly between Bruce and Pete Thomas. Despite its eclecticism ("Different Finger" had a distinct country feel) and pop hooks, Trust was not a major success and the first album since his debut to generate no hit singles.
Following the commercial disappointment of Trust, Costello took a break from songwriting and the band decamped to Nashville to record Almost Blue, an album of country music cover songs written by the likes of Hank Williams ("Why Don't You Love Me (Like You Used To Do?)"), Merle Haggard ("Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down") and Gram Parsons ("How Much I Lied").
It was not a country-rock album (a la The Byrds or Eagles), which might have been more palatable to his established audience and to reviewers, but rather an undiluted country album. It received mixed reviews, some of which accused Costello of growing soft. Perhaps in anticipation of the inevitable accusations of apostasy, the first pressings of the record in the UK bore a sticker with the message:
- "WARNING: This album contains country & western music and may cause offence to narrow minded listeners".
Almost Blue did spawn a surprise UK hit single in a version of Jerry Chesnut's "Good Year For The Roses."
Imperial Bedroom (1982) marked a much darker, almost baroque sound for Costello, due in large part to the production of Geoff Emerick, famed for engineering several Beatles records. Featuring a superior set of songs - both musically and lyrically - it remains one of his most critically acclaimed records but again failed to produce any hit singles. Costello has said he disliked the marketing pitch for the album, weak ads consisting only of the phrase "Masterpiece?". Imperial Bedroom also featured Costello's song "Almost Blue"; jazz singer and trumpeter Chet Baker would later perform and record a beautifully morose version of this song.
1983 saw another sidetrack with the pop-soul of Punch the Clock, featuring female backing vocals (Afrodiziak) and a four piece horn section (The TKO Horns), alongside The Attractions. Clive Langer (who co-produced with Alan Winstanley), provided Costello with a melody which eventually became "Shipbuilding," an oblique and articulate look at the political contradictions of the Falklands War: The controversial military build-up provided jobs for Britain's struggling shipyards. The song featured a striking solo by Chet Baker. (Prior to the release of Costello's own version, an affecting, emotive version of the song was a minor UK hit for former Soft Machine drummer and political activist Robert Wyatt).
Equally political was "Pills And Soap" — a UK hit for Costello himself under the pseudonym of "The Imposter" — an attack on the changes in British society brought on by Thatcherism, released to coincide with the run-up to the 1983 UK general election. The electorate were seemingly not swayed.) Punch the Clock also generated an international hit in the single Everyday I Write the Book, aided by a prophetic music video featuring lookalikes of the Prince and Princess of Wales undergoing domestic strife in a suburban home.
Tensions within the band were beginning to tell, and with Costello starting to feel burnt out he announced his retirement and the disbandment of the group shortly before they were to record Goodbye Cruel World (1984). Costello would later say of this record that they had "got it as wrong as you can in terms of the execution". With a number of poor songs (and even the better songs harmed by murky production), the record was poorly received upon its initial release, and even many ardent Costello fans see Goodbye as his weakest album. Despite the record's poor reputation, a few songs were well-regarded, such as "The Comedians" (later recorded, with rewritten lyrics, by Roy Orbison, and also quoted, in its original version, in Alan Moore's seminal comic series Watchmen). On the album's second single, The Only Flame in Town, Daryl Hall of Hall and Oates shared lead vocals.
Costello's retirement, although short-lived, was accompanied by two compilations, Elvis Costello: The Man in the UK, Europe and Australia and The Very Best of Elvis Costello & the Attractions in the US.
In 1985, Costello teamed up with good friend T-Bone Burnett for a single called "The People's Limousine" under the moniker of The Coward Brothers. That year, Costello also produced Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash for the punk/folk band the Pogues. It was then that he met his second wife, Pogues bassist Cait O'Riordan.
By 1986, Costello was preparing to make a comeback. Working in the US with Burnett, a band containing a number of Elvis Presley's sidemen (including James Burton and Jerry Scheff), and minor input from the Attractions, he produced King of America an acoustic-guitar-driven album with a country sound, augmented by some of his best songs for some time. Around this time he legally changed his name back to Declan MacManus, adding Aloysius as an extra middle name.
The Attractions felt understandably insecure about their dispensability upon perceiving that their boss had cut a new album largely without them, and was planning to undertake a major tour showcasing the King of America material with his new musical partners. To allay their fears, Costello retooled his upcoming tour to allow for multiple nights in each city; playing one night with The Confederates (James Burton et al.), one night with The Attractions, and one night solo acoustic. In New York City he played five nights in a row! This arrangement put a strain on fans' stamina and wallets, as many wanted to see as many of the permutations available in their area as possible, not just one.
Later that year, he returned to the studio with the Attractions and recorded Blood and Chocolate, which was lauded for a post-punk fervor not heard since 1978's This Year's Model. It also marked the return of producer Nick Lowe, who had produced Costello's first five albums. While Blood and Chocolate failed to chart a hit single of any significance, it did produce what has since become one of Costello's signature concert songs — "I Want You". It is on this album that Costello adopted the alias "Napoleon Dynamite", the name he later attributed to the character of the obnoxious emcee that he played during the vaudeville-style tour to support Blood and Chocolate.
(The pseudonym had previously been used in 1982, when the B-side single Imperial Bedroom was credited to Napoleon Dynamite & The Royal Guard.)
In 1987, Costello, with a new contract with Warner Bros., began a long-running songwriting collaboration with Paul McCartney. They wrote a number of songs together, including
- Costello's "Veronica" and "Pads, Paws and Claws" from Spike (1989)
- "So Like Candy" and "Playboy to a Man" from Mighty Like a Rose (1991)
- McCartney's "My Brave Face", "Don't Be Careless Love", "That Day Is Done" and "You Want Her Too" from Flowers in the Dirt
- "The Lovers That Never Were" and "Mistress and Maid" from Off the Ground.
In 1989, he appeared on the HBO special Roy Orbison and Friends, A Black and White Night, which featured his long-time idol Roy Orbison, and was invited back to Saturday Night Live for the first time since 1977.
1990s
In 1991, Costello released the aforementioned Mighty Like A Rose, during which time he infamously grew a long beard. The album featured the single "The Other Side of Summer".
He also found time to co-compose and co-produce, with Richard Harvey, the title and incidental music for the acclaimed mini-series G.B.H. by Alan Bleasdale. This entirely instrumental, and largely orchestral soundtrack garnered a BAFTA, for "Best Music for a TV Series" for the pair.
In 1993, Costello tested the waters of classical music with a critically acclaimed collaboration with the Brodsky Quartet on The Juliet Letters. Costello would return to rock and roll the following year with a project that reunited him with The Attractions, Brutal Youth.
An album of cover songs recorded 5 years previously was released in 1995, Kojak Variety, followed in 1996 by an album of songs he had originally written for other artists, All This Useless Beauty. This was the final album of original material that he would create under his Warner Bros. contract.
During spring 1996, Costello played a series of intimate club dates, backed only by Nieve on the piano, in support of All This Useless Beauty. An ensuing summer and fall tour with the Attractions would prove to be the final death knell for the band. With relations between Elvis and bassist Bruce Thomas at a breaking point, Costello announced that the current tour would be the Attractions' last. The quartet performed their final U.S. show in Seattle, Washington on September 1, 1996, before wrapping up their tour in Japan.
To fulfill his contractual obligations to Warner Bros., Costello released a greatest hits album titled Extreme Honey (1997). It would yield one original track titled The Bridge I Burned, featuring Elvis' son, Matt, on bass.
In the intervening period, Costello also served as artistic chair for the 1995 Meltdown Festival, which gave him the opportunity to leverage his increasingly eclectic musical interests. His involvement in the festival yielded a one-off live EP with jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, which featured both cover material and a few of his own songs.
In 1998, Costello signed a unique multi-label contract with Polygram Records, sold by its parent company the same year to become part of the Universal Music Group, whereby he would release new work on what he deemed the suitable imprimatur within the family of labels. His first new release as part of this contract involved a collaboration with famed sixties pop songwriter Burt Bacharach. Their work had commenced earlier, in 1996, on a song called "God Give Me Strength" for the movie Grace of My Heart. This led the pair to write and record Painted From Memory, released under his new contract in 1998, on the Mercury Records label.
In 1999, Costello contributed a cover version of the 1974 song She, originally by Charles Aznavour and Herbert Kretzmer, for the soundtrack of the film Notting Hill, with Trevor Jones producing.
Costello's version gained massive radio play and quickly became a fan favorite, still being constantly played live to this day.
For the 25th anniversary of Saturday Night Live, Costello was invited to the program, where he re-enacted his abrupt song-switch: This time, however, he interrupted the Beastie Boys' Sabotage, and they acted as his backing group for Radio, Radio.
2000 to present
In 2001, Costello was announced as the featured "artist in residence" at UCLA (although he ended up making fewer appearances than expected) and wrote the music for a new ballet. He produced and appeared on an album of songs for opera singer Anne Sofie von Otter, For The Stars. Appropriately enough, this album came out on Deutsche Grammophon.
In 2002 he released a new album, When I Was Cruel, this time on Island Records, and toured with a new band, the Imposters (essentially the Attractions but with a different bass player, Davey Faragher, formerly of Cracker). Costello split with second wife Cait O'Riordan toward the end of the year.
In March 2003, Elvis Costello & The Attractions were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In May, his engagement to Canadian jazz singer and pianist Diana Krall was announced. September saw the release of North, an album of piano-based ballads concerning the breakdown of his former marriage, and his falling in love with Krall. In December, Costello and Krall married at the London estate of Sir Elton John.
In 2004, the song "Scarlet Tide" (co-written by Costello and T-Bone Burnett and used in the film Cold Mountain) was nominated for an Academy Award; he performed it at the awards ceremony with Alison Krauss, who also sang the song on the official soundtrack.
Costello co-wrote many songs on Krall's 2004 CD, The Girl in the Other Room, the first of hers to feature several original compositions. They live mainly in New York City.
In July 2004 Costello's first full-scale orchestral work, Il Sogno, was performed in New York. The work, a ballet after Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, was commissioned by Italian dance troupe Aterballeto, and received critical acclaim from the classical music critics, while being scorned by the popular music press.
While composing it, Costello deliberately avoided listening to the previous interpretations by Mendelssohn and Britten in order to ensure his own originality. A range of musical moods and styles are used to represent the different elements of the cast - satirical pomp for the courtiers, jazz for the faeries, and for Bottom a deliberately intrusive "brass band" motif. Performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, the recording was released on CD in September by Deutsche Grammophon.
Costello released another album that same month: The Delivery Man, recorded in Oxford, Mississippi, and released on Lost Highway Records. Mainly blues, country, and folk, The Delivery Man received early acclaim as one of Costello's best albums, and continues Costello's personal quest to release an album on each of Universal's record labels.
In July 2005, a CD recording of a collaboration with Marian McPartland on her show Piano Jazz was released. It featured Costello singing six jazz standards and two of his own songs, accompanied by Marian McPartland on piano.
In November 2005 Costello started recording a new album with Allen Toussaint and producer Joe Henry due for release in 2006. Also released this year was a live recording of a concert with the Metropole Orkest at the North Sea Jazz Festival, entitled My Flame Burns Blue.
Three of his songs also appeared on the soundtrack to Simon Schama's A History of Britain.
Elvis Costello has a global music publishing deal with BMG Music Publishing for his back catalogue and current/future works.
Significance
While many musicians embrace myriad types of music as influences and preferences, few if any popular music artists have displayed the same level of determination and rigor in successfully pursuing projects encompassing such a wide stylistic range as Costello. From the Motown and Stax influenced Get Happy!! to the straight country and western of Almost Blue, the mid-1960s Beatles and Beach Boys influenced soundscape of Imperial Bedroom to the chamber music recital of The Juliet Letters, the classic pop of his album with Burt Bacharach and My Flame Burns Blue to the classical ballet score of Il Sogno, eclectic only begins to describe Costello's ambition and achievement.
His eclecticism extends to his choice of collaborators; he has worked with Tony Bennett, Lucinda Williams, and Brian Eno, just a few of the artists not mentioned above. Costello has inadvertently made himself capable of challenging Kevin Bacon's role in a musical version of the Six degrees of separation game, as his associations span the gamut in the music industry.
Discography
Albums
- 1977 - My Aim Is True (UK #14, US #32)
- 1978 - This Year's Model (UK #4, US #30)
- 1979 - Armed Forces (UK #2, US #10)
- 1980 - Get Happy!! (UK #2, US #11)
- 1981 - Trust (UK #9, US #28)
- 1981 - Almost Blue (UK #7, US #50)
- 1982 - Imperial Bedroom (UK #6, US #30)
- 1983 - Punch the Clock (UK #3, US #24)
- 1984 - Goodbye Cruel World (UK #10, US #35)
- 1986 - King of America (UK #11, US #39)
- 1986 - Blood and Chocolate (UK #16, US #84)
- 1989 - Spike (UK #5, US #32)
- 1991 - Mighty Like a Rose (UK #5, US #55)
- 1993 - The Juliet Letters (UK #18)
- 1994 - Brutal Youth (UK #2, US #34)
- 1995 - Kojak Variety (UK #21, US #102)
- 1996 - All This Useless Beauty (UK #28, US #53)
- 1996 - Costello & Nieve
- 1998 - Painted From Memory, with Burt Bacharach (UK #32, US #78)
- 2001 - For the Stars, with Anne Sofie von Otter
- 2002 - When I Was Cruel (US #20)
- 2002 - Cruel Smile
- 2003 - North (UK #44, US #57, US Traditional Jazz #1)
- 2004 - The Delivery Man (US #40)
- 2004 - Il Sogno (US Contemporary Classical #1 for 14 weeks)
- 2005 - Piano Jazz, with Marian McPartland
- 2006 - My Flame Burns Blue (live at the North Sea Jazz Festival) (US #188, US Jazz #2)
- 2006 - The River In Reverse, with Allen Touissant
Collections
- 1980 - Taking Liberties
- 1980 - Ten Bloody Marys & Ten How's Your Fathers
- 1987 - Out of Our Idiot
- 1993 - 2½ Years
- 1994 - The Very Best of Elvis Costello & the Attractions
- 1997 - Extreme Honey
- 1999 - The Very Best Of Elvis Costello (2-CD) (UK #4)
- 2003 - Singles, Volume 1
- 2003 - Singles, Volume 2
- 2003 - Singles, Volume 3
This section is incomplete.
Rhino reissues
Starting in 2001, Rhino Records launched an ambitious reissue program of eighteen double-disc sets for Costello's back catalogue prior to his Polygram/Universal contract. This constituted the second such program for Costello, after Rykodisc Records (US) and Demon Records (UK) had done so from 1993 to 1995 for his pre-Warner Brothers catalogue. Except for the compilation, each of the reissues presented the remastered original album on one disc, and a separate bonus disc of B-sides, outtakes, live tracks, alternate versions and/or demos of songs.
The project featured the direct participation and guidance of Elvis Costello himself, who wrote new liner notes for each album consisting of his thoughts on the music as well as anecdotes and reminiscences from the time. They were released in batches of three, with the exception of King of America, The Juliet Letters, and The Very Best of Elvis Costello, an unaltered re-release of the Polygram compilation of 1999 that kicked off the series, which arrived in the stores singularly. The reissue dates are as follows:
- April 17, 2001 - The Very Best of Elvis Costello
- August 11, 2001 - My Aim Is True, Spike, All This Useless Beauty
- February 19, 2002 - This Year's Model, Blood and Chocolate, Brutal Youth
- November 19, 2002 - Armed Forces, Imperial Bedroom, Mighty Like A Rose
- September 9, 2003 - Get Happy!!, Trust, Punch the Clock
- August 3, 2004 - Almost Blue, Goodbye Cruel World, Kojak Variety
- April 26, 2005 - King of America
- March 21, 2006 - The Juliet Letters
The Almost Blue and Kojak Variety bonus discs were particularly notable as each contained, essentially, an entire new album's worth of material also performed but either not issued, or released as B-sides on singles originally. The Kojak bonus disc also included ten songs of the 'George Jones' tape, cover songs Costello intended to induce the famed country singer to perform on a subsequent album. The Get Happy bonus disc was also of note, with 30 additional tracks, bringing the total for the 2-disc set to 50 songs.
Tribute albums
- 1998 - Bespoke Songs, Lost Dogs, Detours & Rendezvous - (various artists)
- 2002 - Almost You: The Songs of Elvis Costello - (various artists)
- 2003 - The Elvis Costello Songbook - Bonnie Brett
- 2004 - A Tribute to Elvis Costello - Patrik Tanner
Singles
Elvis Costello has issued singles under several names, and with several different backing bands. The key for the Artist Credit below is as follows: Elvis Costello (EC); Elvis Costello & The Attactions (EC+ATT); Elvis Costello & The Attactions with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (EC+ATT+RSO); The Imposter (IMP); The Costello Show (TCS); The MacManus Gang (TMG), The Coward Brothers (TCB); Jimmy Cliff & Elvis Costello & The Attactions (JC+EC+ATT); Elvis Costello & The Brodsky Quartet (EC+BQ); Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach (EC+BB); Elvis Costello & The Imposters (EC+IMP)
The Attractions played on almost all of Costello's singles from 1978 to 1984 (and sporadcially thereafter), but note that 1980's "New Amsterdam" was a solo single on which Elvis Costello played all instruments -- The Attractions were not credited. Also, although the Attractions played on "Sulky Girl" and "13 Steps Lead Down", these tracks were credited simply to Elvis Costello.
| Year | Title | Artist Credit | Chart Positions | Album | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UK Charts | US Charts | US Modern Rock (MOD) / US Mainstream Rock (MAIN) | ||||
| 1977 | "Less Than Zero" | EC | - | - | - | My Aim Is True |
| 1977 | "Alison" | EC | - | - | - | My Aim Is True |
| 1977 | "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes" | EC | - | - | - | My Aim Is True |
| 1977 | "Watching The Detectives" | EC | #15 | #108 | - | My Aim Is True (US version) |
| 1978 | "(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea" | EC+ATT | #16 | - | - | This Year's Model (UK version) |
| 1978 | "Pump It Up" | EC+ATT | #24 | - | - | This Year's Model |
| 1978 | "Radio Radio" | EC+ATT | #29 | - | - | This Year's Model (US version) |
| 1979 | "Oliver's Army" | EC+ATT | #2 | - | - | Armed Forces |
| 1979 | "Accidents Will Happen" | EC+ATT | #28 | #101 | - | Armed Forces |
| 1980 | "I Cant Stand Up For Falling Down" | EC+ATT | #4 | - | - | Get Happy!! |
| 1980 | "High Fidelity" | EC+ATT | #30 | - | - | Get Happy!! |
| 1980 | "New Amsterdam" | EC | #36 | - | - | Get Happy!! |
| 1980 | "Clubland" | EC+ATT | #60 | - | - | Trust |
| 1981 | "From A Whisper To A Scream" | EC+ATT | - | - | #46 (MAIN) | Trust |
| 1981 | "Watch Your Step" (US release only) | EC+ATT | - | - | - | Trust |
| 1981 | "A Good Year For The Roses" | EC+ATT | #6 | - | - | Almost Blue |
| 1981 | "Sweet Dreams" | EC+ATT | #42 | - | - | Almost Blue |
| 1982 | "I'm Your Toy" | EC+ATT+RSO | #51 | - | - | Almost Blue reissue |
| 1982 | "You Little Fool" | EC+ATT | #52 | - | - | Imperial Bedroom |
| 1982 | "Man Out Of Time" | EC+ATT | #58 | - | - | Imperial Bedroom |
| 1982 | "From Head To Toe" | EC+ATT | #43 | - | - | Imperial Bedroom reissue |
| 1982 | "Party Party" | EC+ATT | #48 | - | - | Party Party soundtrack |
| 1983 | "Beyond Belief" | EC+ATT | - | - | - | Imperial Bedroom |
| 1983 | "Pills and Soap" | IMP | #16 | - | - | Punch the Clock |
| 1983 | "Everyday I Write the Book" | EC+ATT | #28 | #36 | #33 (MAIN) | Punch the Clock |
| 1983 | "Let Them All Talk" | EC+ATT | #59 | - | - | Punch the Clock |
| 1984 | "Peace In Our Time" | IMP | #48 | - | - | Goodbye Cruel World |
| 1984 | "I Wanna Be Loved" / "Turning The Town Red" | EC+ATT | #25 | - | - | Goodbye Cruel World |
| 1984 | "The Only Flame In Town" | EC+ATT | #71 | #56 | #44 (MAIN) | Goodbye Cruel World |
| 1985 | "Green Shirt" | EC+ATT | #68 | - | - | Armed Forces |
| 1985 | "The People's Limousine" | TCB | - | - | - | King Of America reissue |
| 1986 | "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" | TCS | #33 | - | #38 (MAIN) | King Of America |
| 1986 | "Seven Day Weekend" | JC+EC+ATT | - | - | - | Blood and Chocolate reissue |
| 1986 | "Lovable" (US release only) | TCS | - | - | - | King Of America |
| 1986 | "Tokyo Storm Warning" | EC+ATT | #73 | - | - | Blood and Chocolate |
| 1986 | "I Want You" | EC+ATT | - | - | - | Blood and Chocolate |
| 1987 | "Blue Chair" | EC | - | - | - | Blood and Chocolate reissue |
| 1987 | "A Town Called Big Nothing" | TMG | - | - | - | Blood and Chocolate reissue |
| 1989 | "Veronica" | EC | #31 | #19 | #1 (MOD) / #10 (MAIN) | Spike |
| 1989 | "Baby Plays Around" | EC | #65 | - | - | Spike |
| 1989 | "...This Town..." | EC | - | - | #4 (MOD) / #41 (MAIN) | Spike |
| 1991 | "The Other Side of Summer" | EC | #43 | - | #1 (MOD) / #40 (MAIN) | Mighty Like a Rose |
| 1991 | "So Like Candy" | EC | - | - | - | Mighty Like a Rose |
| 1993 | "Jacksons, Monk & Rowe" | EC+BQ | - | - | - | The Juliet Letters |
| 1994 | "Sulky Girl" | EC | #22 | - | - | Brutal Youth |
| 1994 | "13 Steps Lead Down" | EC | #59 | #115 | #6 (MOD) | Brutal Youth |
| 1994 | "You Tripped At Every Step" | EC+ATT | #83 | - | - | Brutal Youth |
| 1994 | "London's Brilliant Parade" | EC+ATT | #48 | - | - | Brutal Youth |
| 1996 | "It's Time" | EC+ATT | #58 | - | - | All This Useless Beauty |
| 1996 | "Little Atoms" | EC+ATT | #95 | - | - | All This Useless Beauty |
| 1996 | "The Other End Of The Telescope" | EC+ATT | #96 | - | - | All This Useless Beauty |
| 1996 | "Distorted Angel" | EC+ATT | - | - | - | All This Useless Beauty |
| 1996 | "All This Useless Beauty" | EC+ATT | #96 | - | - | All This Useless Beauty |
| 1996 | "You Bowed Down" (US release only) | EC+ATT | - | - | - | All This Useless Beauty |
| 1999 | "Toledo" | EC+BB | #72 | - | - | Painted From Memory |
| 1999 | "She" | EC | #19 | - | - | Notting Hill soundtrack |
| 2002 | "Tear Off Your Own Head (It's A Doll Revolution)" | EC | #58 | - | - | When I Was Cruel |
| 2002 | "45" | EC | #92 | - | - | When I Was Cruel |
| 2003 | "Smile" (Japanese release only) | EC | - | - | - | Cruel Smile |
| 2004 | "Monkey To Man" | EC+IMP | - | - | - | The Delivery Man |
Filmography
- 1979 film debut as 'Earl Manchester' in Americathon
- 1984 as 'Henry Scully' in UK TV series Scully
- 1985 as inept magician 'Rosco de Ville' in Alan Bleasdale film No Surrender
- 1987 as 'Hives the Butler' in Alex Cox film Straight to Hell, starring Joe Strummer and Courtney Love
- 1996 as himself in The Larry Sanders Show
- 1997 as himself in Spice World
- 1999 as himself in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, performing with Burt Bacharach
- 1999 as himself in 200 Cigarettes
- 2001 as a public defender and a teacher in Prison Song,
- 2001 as himself in the final episode of 3rd Rock from the Sun,
- 2002 as himself in How I Spent My Strummer Vacation, an episode of The Simpsons
- 2003 Academy Award nomination for best original song The Scarlet Tide in Cold Mountain.
- 2003 as 'Ben' in the Frasier episode "Farewell, Nervosa"
- 2003 as guest host on The Late Show with David Letterman
- 2004 performing the Cole Porter song "Let's Misbehave" in De-Lovely
- 2006 as himself in Putting the River in Reverse
Select bibliography
- Elvis Costello: A Singing Dictionary (ISBN 0-76-921505-X) - Sheet music, chords, and lyrics for works 1977-1980.
External links
- ElvisCostello.com
- Elvis Costello News Article
- Template:Allmusicguide
- {{{2|{{{name|Elvis Costello}}}}}} at The Internet Movie Database
- MusicMoz entry
- The Elvis Costello Home Page
- The Elvis Costello Home Page Wiki
- Elvis Costello News Blog
- The Trainspotters' Guide To Elvis Costello
- Bright Blue Times: The Music of Elvis Costello
- Elvis Costello Mystery Cover
- MoreThings Elvis Costello Is King!
- Elvis protegede:Elvis Costello
es:Elvis Costello fr:Elvis Costello id:Elvis Costello nl:Elvis Costello ja:エルビス・コステロ no:Elvis Costello pl:Elvis Costello pt:Elvis Costello ru:Костелло, Элвис simple:Elvis Costello sl:Elvis Costello fi:Elvis Costello sv:Elvis Costello
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