Customer Reviews

Elvis Costello's Armed Forces (33 1/3)

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3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Franklin Bruno's book on *Armed Forces* gives Elvis's music the serious attention that it deserves. As someone who has had the album in fairly constant rotation since I bought it 20 years ago, I was amazed throughout by discoveries, small and large, about the album. Small discoveries: Who knew that Elvis's band listened constantly to ABBA and Cheap Trick while on tour (and that these bands left their fingerprints on his imagination)? Who knew that Elvis's version of 'Peace, Love and Understanding" cut out the satiric patter and folk-rock harmonies of the Nick Lowe original? Who knew that each of Elvis's first three albums begins with Elvis's voice unaccompanied by his band? Bruno is a wonderful 'close listener' of the music and he has a great ability not just to notice these small details but also to speculate on their meaning for Elvis's project as an artist.

Large discoveries: Bruno captures something that I've always struggled with when thinking about Elvis -- how his 'avenging dork' persona became the vehicle for a new kind of pop music, music that was witheringly critical of so much (neo-colonial adventures, power games involving sex and money, the media that turns everything into black and white) but also could be very self-critical too. Bruno suggests that the avenging dork persona was a kind of doppelganger of the 'authoritarian personality' -- the foot-soldier of reactionary movements -- and that the power of Elvis's argument with 'emotional fascism' (the album's original title) was that it was something of an internal dialogue. To me, that seems right-on, though unsettling too. Here Bruno follows the critic Greil Marcus's lead, but he's able, as a musician himself, to tie these larger questions of pop & politics to the actual sound of the music.

It's probably fair to advertise to the reader that Bruno's book is structured in a novel way -- as an 'A to Z' guide to Armed Forces, with entries that begin with 'abbreviations' and 'Accidents Will Happen' and end with Costello's novel use of the 'you' pronoun and the word 'zero' (as in Songwriting Degree Zero, or as in the song 'Less than Zero'). For me, the form worked perfectly -- it allows Bruno to spend time on fascinating digressions (i.e. the resemblance between the balance of sentimentality and satire in Chaplin's The Great Dictator and in Armed Forces), and it allows a reader who wishes to skip ahead to, say, his gloss of 'Oliver's Army' to flip ahead to the 'O' section. Those who read the book from start to finish, however, will discover that it does develop its argument, surprisingly -- very cunningly in fact -- 'from A to Z''.

i've read a few of the other 33 1/3 books and found them to be consistently good reads, but this one was unbearable. i've tried on three separate occasions to get through it and fail more miserably with each attempt. the writing is impenetrable, the organization arbitrary. perhaps it would be useful as an academic tome on advanced songwriting, but the author tries harder to impress the reader with his knowledge of obscure details than to explain how they serve the songs.

even the fracas between elvis and bonnie bramlett and the damage that did to the potential for the album becomes dull in this authors hands.

i was hoping for a quick, interesting book about a good record by one of my fave musicians. guess i'll keep looking.

I think the information in this book was high quality and enriched my enjoyment of a record that has been one of my favorites for the past thirty years. As a bonus a couple of other related EC albums are discussed as well (Get Happy, This Year's Model).

Being American, I've been listening to these songs for many years without full appreciation of the British social and historic allusions. I mean, I knew that Oswald was Oswald Mosley, not Lee Harvey Oswald, and so on - but there are a lot of subtleties I had missed.

Also, it is interesting how many references there are to fascism in this record. I don't think I missed any of these over the years but I never added them up to see the cumulative effect.

The author made much of the Columbus incident. I can recall when that happened. Back then Rolling Stone was THE rock magazine and they relentlessly flogged EC issue after issue after the bar brawl with Bonnie Bramlett. I was so sick of it that I didn't renew my subscription over it. I wish the author had gone through back issues of Rolling Stone that followed that incident. Every single one had some sort of jab at EC - and when they put him on the cover with the headline Elvis Costello Repents" they made sure they featured that particular cover on the blow in subscription card for a year or so afterward - as if his head was a trophy similar to the cover of *Spike.*

I'm not sure why the material in the book was presented in the way it was - it seems like the manuscript had been set on an outdoor table, a wind blew it all over the front lawn, and it was gathered up and published in a sort of random order - but it works. This book is highly recommended for fans of Elvis Costello.

Overall the word I'd use to describe this book is "choppy," as if there was no outline and the early draft was edited and immediately published. In the preface the author says, "As to the less than ideally elegant organization I have chosen, I will say only that it is meant to to be useful as well as playful." Did he say playful? Useful??? How about half-baked? THERE'S NO CHAPTERS! And what about all the "see below" references as if it were still in word-processor format? If the author would have spent more time filling in the gaps between his periodic historical references, I would have felt like my 11 bucks were better spent, but as it stands, I wasn't all that impressed w/ his sometiems dazzling (occasionally flat) wordplay guessing a song's detailed structure, which constitutes the bulk of the text. And why are some words bold-face? It's inconsistent -- that's all -- and makes me wish the research had yielded a better book about ARMED FORCES. The album deserves it and in itself was the primary drive behind reading the entire book on a Sunday (three stars for that).

Good luck: you'll need it. The other reivewer ("Scott") must have been tipped off regarding his insight to the structure, b/c there's no way someone could just off-hand determine such organization from confusion.