Customer Reviews

King of America

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In many ways, KING OF AMERICA could be considered a "solo" album. After pounding out a frenetic string of classics since his debut, doubtful cracks began to appear on the slick surface of PUNCH THE CLOCK. But after the crash & burn of GOODBYE CRUEL WORLD, it seems Costello wisely stepped back from the wreckage, stripping it all down to a room with a view on the precipice. In doing so, he also gave his band a much needed & unexpected vacation.

Though they play on "Suit Of Lights", The Attractions basically sat this one out. Suffice it to say, they were less than thrilled to be blown off in favor of legends like James Burton & Ray Brown. No surprise then, that next to ALMOST BLUE (& now DELIVERY MAN) this is Costello's most Country influenced album. A risky proposition in the mid 80's.

"Indoor Fireworks" & "Poisoned Rose" rank up there with "Almost Blue" as some of his finest torch songs. The bleak majesty of "Little Palaces" is easily the most political song on the album, while all kid gloves come off in the scathing "Suit Of Lights". The role of King OF Fools is wryly embraced on "I'll Wear It Proudly", but all the ego bashing comes to a fore with "Jack Of All Parades". The final curtain falls with "Sleep Of The Just".

Though, I'd say "Glitter Gulch" & "American Without Tears" haven't gone down as two of Cotello's most requested numbers, gems like "Brilliant Mistake" & "Lovable" make up for it. I suppose Costello sums it up best in "Our Little Angel"---"this is the place where I made my best mistakes".

In terms of the two covers on here,"Eisenhower Blues" lets his guests blow off some much needed steam. Call it filler but its good, raucous fun. The same could be said of his take on The Animals classic,"Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood". A haunting arrangement delivered with a death rattle rasp that can't help but bring Tom Waits to mind.

Of course, the real clincher for fans is the bonus disc. "Having It All", "Suffering Face" & "Deportee" capture Costello at his most maudlin. Also notable is the gem "King Of Confidence" which could have only improved the original album. His covers of "Ture Love Ways" & "End Of The Rainbow" seem tailor made. As for the live cuts, "Tears Me Up" has all the passion missing from CRUEL WORLD. If SPIKE'S "Tramp The Dirt Down" were an outtake from PUNCH THE CLOCK, it would sound an awful lot like "Betrayal".

Once again, Rhino & Mr. Costello have given you the royal treatment. Love it or hate it, KING marked a decided sea change in Costello's career. An album that remains unique & among his best.

As all Elvis Costello fans know, this is the last of his works to be reissued by Rhino with an extra disc of demos. outtakes and live tracks. It is also the very best, both because the original album is so good and because the extra disc is brilliant. The Ryko reissue had only a handful of extra tracks. This version, by contrast, has over 77 minutes of additional music. However, it is more the quality, not simply the quantity, of the music that makes this disc special. The solo acoustic demos which open the new disc are some of Elvis' very best work. They almost make up an album in themselves, and make one wish that Elvis would record more solo material. The Coward Brothers material is excellent, but not new. The disc closes with an exceptional live set, which ranks among the best ever live recordings Elvis has released. Buy this record!

"King of America" stands as the crown jewel in Costello's late 80's output. Rhino has finally issued this stellar gem in a deluxe edition that puts the previous version released by Ryko to shame. Although the first edition had a bonus disc with a handful of live tracks and bonus tracks, it lacked the deluxe grandeur of what this reissue deserved. This edition has all those bonus tracks, live cuts plus 14 previously unreleased tracks. The bonus tracks have all been relocated to the second disc (like all the re-releases)presenting the original album on the first disc alone.

Personally, I would have loved to see this released as a 3 CD deluxe set with a disc devoted to most of the concert the live tracks are drawn from. I always felt that the live tracks were little more than a teaser for a much bigger, better album that was never released. Since this is the last in the Rhino remasters that's going to be released (unless they put out the limited edition 5 CD live album that was put out in the 90's), I would have loved to see a limited edition 3 or 4 CD set not unlike the Rhino Handmade releases of this terrific album with additional outtakes and live tracks. Oh well, one can always dream. At least we have this fine album finally in a deluxe edition the way it should have been released in the first place. One of Costello's least appreciated but finest albums finally gets its due.

Loaded with a great set of liner notes discussing the making of the album and the bonus tracks, Rhino and Costello have done a great job at putting this classic album together for re-release. The remastered sound does sound better than the previous versions although some of that could just be the way this remastered version was tweaked. My only complaint is that, unlike some of the other notes for the other releases, it seems like we get less information about the additional bonus tracks here compared to some of the other remasters. Oh, and more importantly for Costello fans, we do get the complete lyrics for all the songs written by Costello.

Just got Elvis Costello's King of America reissue. I've read varying criticisms of it--1) that it's unnecessary if you have the 95 Ryko disc; 2) the colorization of the cover looks stupid; 3) that it should have been issued with Almost Blue. Of course, none of those criticisms address the album's contents or its place in the catalogue. I definitely see it as the gateway to his mid-career renaissance from Spike through North where he experimented with a wider variety of musical forms and collaborators. The Attractions album that followed "King...", "Blood and Chocolate", in context, now sounds like the last gasp of a once-great unit. It's their "Let it Be". Not bad compared with other artists' work, but certainly nowhere near their own best. ("Brutal Youth", while not heralded as an Attractions album despite their presence is weaker still, illustrating just how limited the rock combo format had become for Elvis. "All This Useless Beauty" is a splendid art-pop album that relies more on composition than attitude.)

I tend to prefer the later Elvis records because of their diversity, with Spike being a personal favorite. "King of America" has a uniformity of style and substance that speaks to the ingenuity of his best concept albums ("Get Happy!!", "Almost Blue", "North", and "The Delivery Man"). Those albums revere archetypal American music forms like roots, rhythm and blues, country and jazz, giving "King of America", in title, a subtle irony. Elvis issued his first album the year the King of Rock 'n Roll died, subverting his name with a kind of vicious irony. On "King..." Elvis even employs the King's old band (billed as his "Confederates"). "The Delivery Man" is his Memphis album. Even his earliest recordings had a touch of rockabilly (note the pedal steel on "Alison" and his insistent variations on "Stranger in the House"). Despite reclaiming his family name (MacManus) for this album, his influences better suit his popular moniker. The album cover may proclaim Elvis is King with a wink and a nod, but his love of American music is sincere and "King of America" is a fitting homage.

BRILLIENT!!! THIS IS AN EXCELLENT "AMERICAN ROOTS" ORIENTED DOUBLE DISC CD BY ELVIS COSTELLO AND HIS ENGLISH BAND THE ATTRACTIONS AND HIS AMERICAN BAND THE CONFERERATES. (THE CONFEDERATES INCLUDE THE LEGENDARY JAMES BURTON (OF ELVIS PRESLEY'S "TCB" BAND)

DISC ONE CONSISTS OF 14/15 STUDIO SONGS!

DISC TWO CONSISTS OF 14 STUDIO SONGS AND 8 "LIVE SONGS" FEATURING THE "CONFEDERATES", THESE LIVE PERFORMANCES ARE GREAT!!! YOU GET TO HEAR JAMES BURTON'S UNIQUE GUITAR SOUND!

THIS DOUBLE DISC CD WAS PRODUCED BY THE LEGENDARY "ROOTS MUSIC" PRODUCER T BONE BURNETT, ALONG WITH DECLAN PATRICK MacMANUS (ELVIS COSTELLO) AND LARRY HIRSH.

THIS IS GREAT ONE FOLKS, AND I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT, IF YOU CAN FIND ONE AVAILABLE.

When Elvis Costello decided to finally to roots rock HIS way (as opposed to the mis-fit of "Almost Blue'), he switched his name back to Declan MacManus and forged ahead into brilliance. With the exception of the slippery jam session of "Eisenhower Blues," the 15 songs on "King Of America" are as flawless a whole album as anything from his early years and his most successful collaboration with a producer, in this case, T-Bone Burnett, save Burt Bacharach.

By recruiting some of the best musicians old and new, songs like "Brilliant Mistake" and "American Without Tears" effortlessly blossom with atmosphere and honesty. Even though Elvis describes his state of mind in less than flattering terms in the CD's extra liner notes, it's incredible just how seamlessly the songs here flow through the course of the album. Almost every song here glimmers with the kind of purity that Burnett would eventually trademark with the likes of "Oh Brother Where Art Thou." Even the Attractions, who at this venture, had become estranged and embittered, contribute one of their best performances ever with the single song "Suit Of Lights." Given the song's topic of entertainment as entrapment and the image of a southern mob's tar and feather party as "the closest to a work of art that they will ever be," it's not surprising that they could relate.

In fact, Elvis seemed to be at a more relaxed state of lyricism than since the underrated "Trust." Compare the fire analogies of "The Only Flame In Town" (on "Goodbye Cruel World") to the far superior "Indoor Fireworks" here. Or such leap from the speakers couplets like "She said that she was working for the ABC news, it was as much of the alphabet as she new how to use" from "Brilliant Mistake." There is also one of my all-time favorite Costello-isms, as he describes a relationship with a contrary girlfriend to be akin to "a chainsaw running through a dictionary." Perhaps my favorite moment on "King Of America" would be the two person viewpoint of the disc's closer, "Sleep Of The Just." A tale of an army pin-up girl and her soldier brother, it's a masterful tale of conflicting family and emotions, with a slow sad organ fade.

After the album's perfect maintaining of musical atmosphere and flawless songwriting, the bonus disc couldn't be anything less than a secondhand platter. The interesting moments are Elvis and Burnett's duets as "The Coward Brothers," Hearing "Deportee" without the over-production, and the groundwork for "Spike's" "Tramp the Dirt Down" in the less vitriolic (and therefore less interesting) "Betrayal." The concert pieces are uniformly good. But what you're really here for is the main disc. Now that Elvis has renegotiated his pathway to roots music and blues via "The Delivery Man," "King Of America" shows the vitality of his early exploration of the genre. It remains one of the many five star albums in his Columbia years worthy of rediscovery.

When I go to pick my top-ten list for the best albums of all time, I look for music that went beyond the trends of the day to really stand out as unique and powerful on its own merits. Other examples include Bob Dylan's "Basement Tapes" (my number 1), the Velvet Undergorund's "Loaded," REM's "Murmur," Miles Davis's "In a Silent Way," and Emmylou Harris's "Wrecking Ball." Each of these albums is completely timeless and is unmistakable for anything else.

Nobody was doing country-rock in 1985. The trend was synths, synths and more synths as I seem to recall. Yet here was Elvis firing up the dobro. And you know, this has more lasting power than just about anything else from the era (the Jesus and Mary Chain's "Psychocandy," also close to my top-ten, is about all I know from that time that was equally good- in a different way of course). The songs ring more true for their unadorned simplicity, and carry Elvis's strongest set of lyrics to date. It is rare that anything like this exists in music, let alone the 80s.

An additional point- the bonus disc is amazing. I don't know who the Coward Brothers are really, but their "People's Limousine" is now among my new favorite tunes. Even if you have the orginial, but the new package- well worth every penny.

Along with the 2 x cd reissue of Get Happy this is by far the best of a very good bunch .. reconmended

This album is so different from any he had done previously. At first listen, I wasn't sure I liked it. After many listenings through the years, it has become my all time favorite Elvis Costello album. The style shifts from rock to soul to blues to country and it's all good!

In my opinion, 'King of America' trails only 'Armed Forces' and 'Painted from Memory' in a heirarchy of Costello's standard recordings. EC Top 50 cuts include 'Indoor Fireworks', 'The Big Light' and 'Poisoned Rose'. 'American Without Tears' and 'Brilliant Mistake' are other excellent songs here. Rhino's bonus disc has a number of treats including 'Having it All', 'Suffering Face' and great live versions of 'Shoes Without Heels' and 'Poisoned Rose'.