The 1981 Listening Post - Elvis Costello and the Attractions - Imperial Bedroom

 Reviewed by Thom Gridley

Released: July 2 1982 Elvis Costello and The Attractions Imperial Bedroom Genre: New Wave, Post-Punk, Baroque Indie 80s Alt-Pop Allen’s Rating: 5 out of 5 Thom’s Rating: 5 out of 5 Thom’s Highlights: Beyond Belief .....And In Every Home Human Hands Pidgin English Allen’s Additional Highlights: Beyond Belief Tears Before Bedtime Shabby Doll The Long Honeymoon Man Out Of Time Almost Blue The Loved Ones Notable Tracks – All of Them!!! Imperial Bedroom is #6 of 11 Studio Albums by Elvis Costello & The Attractions with Producer Geoff Emerick at the helm. Emerick is the well-known sound and recording engineer of famed Beatles recordings, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band & Abbey Road. Where does one begin with an Elvis Costello Album? One distinction is to highlight, that 11 of his total 32 Studio albums were with the Attractions. leaving the balance of 21 albums as either independent, Imposters or in collaboration with Bacharach, Toussaint, Von Otter, T-Bone Burnett and many others (Too many to list). Fast Facts: The album reached #30 on Billboard, #6 on the UK Charts and #2 of Best Albums of the Year-1982, according to NME. Moreover, the songwriting and arrangements were recorded over a 12-week window, with remnants of scribe coming from 1981’s album Trust. Spotify Index: Interestingly, EC & The Attractions has about 1.5m monthly followers, while his solo profile has 1.8m followers. Not sure that means anything. Let’s unpack this. Regardless of which is your favorite Costello/Attractions album, Imperial Bedroom is a recording for the ages. His/their multi-dimensional musical and lyrical brush strokes are vast and brilliantly hued, whilst dabs of tiny strokes swirl with texture and refinement. Yes, I like art-painting references. Elvis Costello’s voice is in A++ form, on this album, from ballads to tangos, waltz’s, soul, Baroque-Alt Pop, and a whole host of “Cirque du Soleil” style musical explorations. Through and through, Elvis maintains that hall mark vocal style which I equate to blowing velvet through a straw and are especially revealed during the ballads of “Almost Blue” and “Kid About It”, akin to a Chet Baker recording (someone he admired-vocally). There’s no getting around that the “Sgt. Peppers -Emerick Effect”, is taking place throughout this recording. Lots of delightful experimentation and stretching of musical limits on this, and even if slightly a little disjointed at times, it all seems to coalesce, through piano, strings and/or horns, with orchestral overtures. I can’t imagine furnishing a song-by song breakdown of this album. It feels both obsessively orchestrated yet highly impulsive and the intentional indifference to a scripted album construct is what I enjoy about this album I think busting away from Nick Lowe, and partnering with Emerick, gave Elvis/Attractions, the ability to flex more creatively. It was a time to become multi-lingual, start new conversations that would again cascade into future albums for both the Attractions as well as with solo efforts. I was wondering when my first 5/5 review would come, and this would be it.