The new wave on which Elvis Costello rode in to stardom has long since hit the beach and receded back into the depths of musical history.\u00a0 Yet Costello is one of the few artists from that era whose music endures.\u00a0 The Return Of The Spectacular Spinning Songbook<\/i> began its life as a box set that cost $200-$300.\u00a0 The cost was so egregious, in fact, that Costello himself urged his fans to not purchase it.\u00a0 The deluxe edition is not too much different from the box set, which was limited edition, autographed, contained a sixteen track live CD and a DVD of the show from the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles in May 2011, a vinyl EP a 40 page book and various other odds and ends.\u00a0 For less than a tenth of the price, the Deluxe Edition offers the same CD and DVD and has a mini booklet as well.<\/p>\n
The Spinning Songbook idea is a stroke of genius.\u00a0 The concept is that a giant multicolored wheel with the names of Costello\u2019s songs is placed on stage like a vertical Wheel Of Fortune.\u00a0 Fans are chosen from the crowd to come on the stage, spin the wheel, and then remain on stage to either drink a cocktail or dance in a go-go cage while Costello sings the song.\u00a0 The whole thing has a vaudevillian air about it, as a lady in a corset chooses fans and leads them to the stage to spin the wheel, and Costello transforms into one of his many stage personas, Napoleon Dynamite (a name he first used on his 1986 album Blood & Chocolate<\/i>, long before the Jared Hess movie) to emcee the song selection.\u00a0 \u201cAround and around and around it goes, where it stops nobody knows!\u201d The idea first appeared in 1986 at the Wiltern, and this show commemorates the 25th<\/sup> anniversary of its inception.<\/p>\n The sixteen song audio portion of the album does not convey the audience participation or the engagement of the live show very well.\u00a0 The album starts out in spectacular fashion with four fast paced two to three minute songs; \u201cI Hope You’re Happy Now,\u201d \u201cHeart Of The City,\u201d \u201cMystery Dance,\u201d and \u201cRadio Radio,\u201d followed by the catchy \u201cEveryday I Write The Book.\u201d From there the material slides off, either with one sounding very much like another, or as in the case of \u201cGod Give Me Strength,\u201d \u201cWatching The Detectives,\u201d \u201cI Want You,\u201d and \u201cStella Hurt\u201d go on too long in a self indulgent fashion.\u00a0 Such self-indulgence is out of place in an audience-centered show.\u00a0 The Bangles are even taken off of mothballs to perform \u201cTear Off Your Own Head (It’s A Doll Revolution)\u201d as they did for the original show in 1986.\u00a0 <\/p>\n What the audio disc lacks in presentation, the DVD portion provides in spades.\u00a0 In fact, if it were not for the DVD portion, this album would rate much lower.\u00a0 The concert video shows the interaction this scheme involves, and shows Costello\u2019s ability to relate to his audience, even through his different personas.\u00a0 The video portion also offers a somewhat different track listing, including hits like \u201cAlison\u201d in which he invites a young lady named Alison onto the stage, and acoustic numbers \u201cA Slow Drag With Josephine,\u201d and \u201cJimmie Standing In The Rain.\u201d\u00a0 Bonus material on the DVD also shows more of Costello\u2019s Napoleon Dynamite persona and interviews with the band on the inception of the Spinning Songbook idea.<\/p>\n The Spinning Songbook<\/i> is a risky move on Costello\u2019s part, leaving the bulk of his set\u2019s song selection to chance.\u00a0 But with a dense back catalog and the willingness to work his audience into the plot, he pulls off a compelling performance and one that is clearly fun for those who paid to see it.\u00a0 For the true Costello fan that does not need an autographed box set, this should provide the fix.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":30917,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[8309],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-42596","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-elvis-costello-the-imposters","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42596"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42596"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}