Customer Reviews

Spike

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

First, some context: Although I was familiar with a few (but not many) of Elvis's previous singles, "Spike" is the first of his records that I bought, and has consequently become my comparison benchmark for the rest of his catalog. Prior to this record, I had a vague assumption that I didn't care for Elvis Costello, so winning me over was job one. But after hearing "Veronica" on the radio, seeing a televised acoustic performance of "Let Him Dangle" and going to a play that employed "God's Comic" as an opening mood-setter, I took the chance. And what a payoff!

It has always mystified me that the same sonic disparity that critics had decided marked "Imperial Bedroom" as a great record was largely considered a liability on this record. The arrangements here always seem to support the songs well; giving an understated, folk-protest feel to the acerbic anti-Thatcher diatribe "Tramp The Dirt Down"; bluesy piano for the superb "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror"; spare, nervous bursts of noise on "Pads, Paws & Claws" (one of two songs co-written with Paul McCartney on the record); or the all-out studio gloss of "Satellite" and the aforementioned "Veronica." It never feels as if a horn section was added superfluously, or an orchestra was thrown in simply because he had the budget for it. The songwriting is top-notch, and the arrangements are judiciously eclectic.

My only real criticism of the proper album is rather nit-picky: it's so long that the last three songs have always felt like some sort of extended post-script. The songs are fine when I listen to them, but they've never sunk into my subconscious the way the rest of the album has.

As for this bonus disc with this new Rhino reissue, it gives an interesting insight into the album that could've been. Only five of the seventeen songs on the disc are not represented on the first disc. Consisting almost entirely of guitar-and-voice demos, these tracks highlight how strong the songs are, and that Elvis did not have to resort to studio indulgences to prop up weak material. In fact, if you were one of those who thought of "Spike" as too scattered, you may prefer these stripped versions to some of the final takes. Elvis's liner notes in the expanded booklet make for interesting reading, too. Rhino once again earns my vote as the vanguard label for high-quality reissues.

In short, "Spike" is an excellent album that, in my opinion, stands toe-to-toe with his most critically acclaimed work.

I am a huge EC fan and I own every album he has put out. This one has always been in the top five for me. Spike was an album I listened to not only for the great lyrics and music but it felt like I was getting an education as well. This album took experimental leaps and bounds that are still very fresh and daring today. "God's Comic", ".....This town...." and "Deep dark truthful mirror" are standouts among a truly great set. It was surprising to me that in the liner notes Elvis said that he thought the album might have been one of his most obscure if not for the "Veronica" single. I listen to this one so much more than a lot of his better known records it is impossible for me to not think of this as a classic. This also provided me with a blueprint to follow in finding other music. I "discovered" Marc Ribot, Mitchell Froom, and that whole entourage that made some great albums in the 1990's. The bonus disc contains some nice no-frills versions of the songs plus a donwright creepy version of "You're no good".

I remember being completely bowled over when this album came out, to the point that I wedged "Veronica" onto the radio station playlist I worked for at the time and giving copies of the CD to a whole mess of people on my Holiday Gift list that year. In the dozen years since its original release, my appreciation of "Spike" has not diminished in the least.

Stylistically (and from the liner notes, geographically) all over the map, it holds together almost on the sheer force of the songwriting. Freed from Sony/CBS, he embarked on a record that was easily as ambitious as "Imperial Bedroom," but this time with a greater cast of players. "This Town," the disc's opener, featured Paul McCartney playing a trademark propulsive bass line and Roger McGuinn on his 12 String Rickenbacker. It kicks the album off with a bitter rant worthy of the trinity of Elvis' first three albums and a classic put down line "You're nobody till everybody in this town thinks you're a ba...rd."

But that kind of bitterness is nothing compared to "Tramp The Dirt Down," quite simply the angriest, harshest anti-Thatcher rant ever laid to tape. It is also, oddly enough, set to a gorgeous arrangement that includes Irish fiddles, pipes and a bouzouki. It may also be the saddest song EC has ever recorded. "God's Comic," in comparison, is almost cinematic in its scope and nearly as marvelously arranged. "God's Comic" is as wickedly sly in its humor as "Tramp The Dirt Down" is critically indicting.

Oh yes, and The Dirty Dozen Brass Band made "Spike" field such marvelous curves in "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror," "Stalin Malone," and the aforementioned referenced Sousaphone on "Chewing Gum." New Orleans piano legend Allen Toussaint's playing on "Mirror" is one of the many of "Spike's" instrumental highlights.

Of the six CD's Elvis recorded for the WB, "Spike" was the best. Rhino's addition of a cleaned up mix makes it indispensable. As for the bonus disc, it is basically a blueprint of the album, plus B-sides of singles, the most noteworthy of which was the well known "You're No Good." This belongs in your library.

'Spike' was my first Elvis album, and it totally blew me away. 'Veronica' was the only Costello song I'd (consciously) heard before, and even though I loved that one, I wasn't at all prepared for this versatile masterpiece. I couldn't believe how one artist could master so many styles, lyrically as well as musically. Still don't.

'Get Happy' is my favourite Elvis album, but I can't listen to it for days at a time, like I do to 'Spike'. The brilliant Angry Young Man of 'My Aim Is True' is still in there somewhere, but here, most of the songs seem to have different narrators in them (or they're not obsessively centered around him), and different musical backings to support them, all perfect. I especially like Marc Ribot's guitar work and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band.

12 out of the 15 tracks on 'Spike' has been my favourite Elvis song at some point (yes, even the funkier 'Chewing Gum' & 'Pads, Paws & Claws'!); right now, it's 'Deep Dark Truthful Mirror'. It's really hard to say that one song is better than another, though - it's like comparing Guthrie, Mingus, Lennon, Dylan and Bacharach or something.

This record made me a die-hard Costello fan. I even doubt that I'd like MUSIC as much as I do if I hadn't heard it. So if you don't know most of Costello's stuff already, and you're obviously not looking for simple, radio-friendly party music (even though half of this should have been hits) that all sounds the same, I would recommend this or the 'Extreme Honey' compilation as appetizers.

It's not only rock'n'roll, but you'll like it.

I enjoyed Spike when it first came out in the late eighties, but then lost interest in it. It shuffled to the backwaters of my collection and was on deck a couple of times for re-sale. I'm glad it never made it to the used CD shop. I've recently given this a couple spins and have rediscovered a fine album. Spike features some of Elvis' best arrangements and most pungent lyrics (no small feat). Stylistically all over the map, this is not an easy disk to digest, but several tracks such as Let Him Dangle, Tramp Down the Earth and God's Comic are true classics of Costellian proportions. The Dirty Dozen Brass Band adds spice to the affair, while Marc Ribot(guitar) and Micheal Blair(percussion) add a Tom Waits-like flavor. While I do not have the version with the bonus disk, I'm sure that it contains some items of mild interest. Get it.

I agree with the music fan from NYC, calling a work "too ambitious" is curious as it tells the reader nothing. In my mind, Spike proved that EC minus the Attractions was still a mighty musical force. It is undoubtedly an odd album in that it's musical approach was so vastly removed from what EC fans were used to hearing, King of America notwithstanding. When it first came out, I ignored several songs that I now hold dear. Fans who loved the crazy carnival ride the Attractions provided to blast EC's early didn't-get-the-girl vitriol into the stratosphere may not have initially had the patience to discover a gem like Last Boat Leaving, a ballad that I now regard as one of his best ever. These songs grow on you over a period of years and in that regard the album is a worthy investment. God's Comic is another track that I initially found irksome, but as the years roll on I now "get" it. Yes, scream the lyrics to (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea on the way to work monday morning, but have Last Boat or Baby Play's Around ready for those lonely Sunday night meandering drives through the country. This album is worth the effort it takes to love it.

This is Costello at his most varied: you get melancholy Celtic tinged balladry on "Tramp the Dirt Down" and "Any King's Schilling", funky instrumental horn number "Stalin Malone", loose cacophonous rock and roll on "Pads, Paws, and Claws", the circus-music-from-Hell of "Miss MacBeth" and avant-pop meter-shifting "Chewing Gum". This also proved to have one of Costello's few pop charters with his Paul McCartney collaboration on "Veronica", a bristling snappy pop number.

Though this doesn't seem to get the respect of other Elvis outings, I find myself wondering why. Track for track, there's little here I find subpar and it's extremely listenable. What's here musically NEEDS to be here...removing instruments wouldn't improve the songs that are multi-layered and the sparer songs don't really need to be "beefed up" either.

HIGHLIGHTS:
"This Town" is a snide materialism anthem that insists nice guys finish last: "You're nobody 'til everybody in this town/Thinks you're a bastard". Roger McGuinn and Paul McCartney guest on guitar and bass. "Let Him Dangle" offers a tale of a man wrongly convicted as proof of the inequity of capital punishment and casts a jaundiced eye toward the participants. ("Outside Wandsworth Prison there was horror and hate/As the hangman shook bentley's hand to calculate his weight..") This also possesses the most interesting "instrumental contribution": Michael Blair plays Oldsmobile hubcap(!). "God's Comic" imagines a Deity who lounges in bed drinking soda as he observes Earth and wonders if the monkeys shouldn't have been offered dominion instead. The "Now I'm dead..." chorus is infectious. Anti-Margaret Thatcher ode "Tramp the Dirt Down" is pure vitriol as Costello gleefully imagines ensuring she's good and buried upon her demise. (He'd get his wish a year after this was released.) It features great lines like "And then (they) expect you to say "thank you" straighten up, look proud and pleased/Because you've only got the symptoms, you haven't got the whole disease". "Pads, Paws, and Claws" details a dysfunctional couple: he betrayed by alcoholism, she by the thrill she gets eviscerating him with her tongue in his stupors.

LOWS:
Costello's indictment of the work-a-day soldier in "Any King's Schilling" is weak: He never really sharpens his claws on the lyrics. There's no hook to speak of in "Coal Train Robberies".

BOTTOM LINE:
The sneering Amazon review aside, this just plain SOUNDS GOOD: a great and varied disc that still sounds cohesive despite the multitude of textures here. I would NOT recommend this edition, however (unless you are very short of cash) as Rhino has reissued this with a bonus disc of interesting demos (a version of "Stalin Malone" with vocals intact, for instance and the Disney-esque "Dip Your Big Toe in the Milk of Human Kindness") for a modest cost.

My liking for the music of Elvis Costello goes back a long way, way back to the beginning of his appearance on the international scene. I don't have all his recordings and because he is so prolific, I haven't been able to keep up with everything he's done. But I do have a dozen or so of his albums and with that sample in mind, consider Spike to be one of his best.
I bought Spike on cassette back when it first came out and liked it enormously, but hadn't listened to it for several years until I recently spotted it while shopping for CDs. As memories of it were fond, I bought it and when I put it on, all the old memories came flooding back. Spike is a tremendous recording, with virtually nothing I'd consider filler. Song after song, it continues to delight fifteen years after it was first issued.
Though I am often politically at odds with Costello, I like his intelligent, straightforward, biting and caustic musical attacks on what he considers to be the sources of the world's ills. I also like his lyrically blunt and candid approach to interpersonal relations.
Here are my favorites: a sneering This Town, the anti death penalty anthem Let Him Dangle (I disagree, but at least he has an argument), the call to introspection in Deep Dark Truthful Mirror, the playful Veronica, the melancholy God's Comic, the wonderful horn-driven Chewing Gum, the clever but hate-filled anti Margaret Thatcher screed Tramp the Dirt Down, the horn-based instrumental Stalin Malone, the dreamy Satellite, Miss MacBeth, Coal Train Robberies, and the plaintive Last Boat Leaving. Hey, that's almost the whole album, and yes, that's how good it is!
If you are already an Elvis Costello fan, and don't have this, what's holding you back? If you are new to his music, you certainly can't go wrong starting with Spike. It is one of the best albums of its time and it represents the high-water mark of Costello's huge reservoir of creativity.

Here is why musicians and fans want to take rock critics out back and put them out of our misery. MakeMy Aim Is True or This Year's Model and you are a new wave hero. Nothing wrong with that. But make an album of Beatle Inspired pop--and one with a Beatle ON it--and this is somehow an indulgence.

There is nothing worse than a rock writer who sits on a mountian of punk and new wave albums---which were freebies in the first place--and looks at musicians, nose upturned. "You should not be using that horn, that Sgt. Pepper cadnance. Don't you know how great your albums can be if you just do what I want?"

That is what happened with Spike, and twenty years later, this album gets panned for no other reason thenm critical snobism. Fact is, this is a wonderful album, full of--oh my my--Beatlesqe pop, jazz, dance hall--all kinds of wonderful music generally drawn from British sources.

"This Town," and "Veronica" were co-written by Costello and Paul McCartney--as the idiot critics might call him, that overrated fogie with the Rickenbacker--and they are as esquite as any pop. Sir Paul plays bass on both, and frankly, this may be the most inspired Paul sounded durring the 1980s. At least until Flowers in the Dirt.

(Actually, Elvis and Paul were working together a lot at this time and Elvis wrote for Flowers. Listen to this and Spike togeher. They are, in a loose way, companion peices.)

"Baby Plays Around," and "Stalan Malone" are jazz, the second an instrumental with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. They are also on "Chewing Gum," an inspired piece of jazz funk.

This may all sound like an undirected mess but it is quite the oppisite. The warm pop sounds and general upbeat tone of the album run throughout, and the bigger arrangements hold the album together like an iron rod. This is some of the best pop I have ever heard

Basically, it is Elvis' Revolver. A tight album packed end to end with woderful experiments.

This is definately worth buying. Just make sure you call Rolling Stone or Spin and get permission first. Invite them out; maybe they wanna go to Chelsea.

Though I've been an Elvis Costello fan almost since the beginning, some of his albums have been a little harder to get into than others. However, I liked Spike from the start and had it on CD already but decided to get the Rhino reissue when I saw how much the listener gets for just a little money.
Well, not only do you get better sound quality than previously, you get a load of mostly very worthwhile demos and outtakes as your bonus. My favorites on Disc 1 are: the sneering This Town; the anti-gallows anthem Let Him Dangle; the call to introspection of Deep Dark Truthful Mirror; the playful Veronica; the melancholy God's Comic, the horn-driven Chewing Gum; the clever, hate-filled anti-Thatcher screed Tramp The Dirt Down; the horn-based instrumental Stalin Malone; the dreamy Satellite; Miss MacBeth; Coal Train Robberies; and the plaintive Last Boat Leaving. That's almost the whole disc, you say. Well, that's how good it is!
The bonus disc offers even more songs. Many of them are acoustic, demo versions of the fully fleshed-out songs on Spike. My favorites here mirror those on disc one, but I think the addition of the vocal version of Stalin Malone and the jaunty Point Of No Return do much to make the Rhino set a must-have. About the only one that sounds out of place is You're No Good. I had enough of that when Linda Ronstadt's rendition was played on the radio ad nauseum.
Spike finds Elvis Costello at his creative best. Though I disagree philosophically with him on many points, I respect the way he approaches issues he cares about because he seems to have real viewpoints based on rational thought rather than just parroting someone else's nonsense about whatever is the cause du jour like some musicians I can think of. The quality of his songwriting keeps me coming back again and again.
If you have not already done so, you should add this edition of Spike to your CD collection. Its one that will never gather dust in mine!