The O-town Scene - Oneonta, NY
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Vinyl Vault Elvis Costello & the Attractions ‘Get Happy!!,’ 1980 Journalists like to equate an artist’s first few albums with school years, probably because they feel clever using the term “sophomore slump.” Elvis Costello never experienced second-album blues, but using the school analogy would make the album “Get Happy!!” his senior year, and it fits. “Get Happy!!” is an ambitious senior thesis, a huge album at 20 tracks. There’s a small disclaimer on the liner notes alerting listeners that great lengths had been taken to ensure that sound quality was not compromised to fit the 48 minutes of music, 10 tracks to a side. Costello seemed to be preparing for a graduation from the New-Wave scene, and drew heavily from Motown and R&B influences for this record. Critics of “Get Happy!!” complain that this album breaks away from the “classic” Elvis Costello sound. This breaking away is a noticeable leap in maturity The first track, ‘Love for Tender,’ starts the album off like an alarm clock. It’s a fast-paced wake up and is over in under two minutes. of lyrics and songwriting from Costello. Had this album not been a departure from his ear- lier work, critics would likely complain that Costello was a one-trick-pony, and pigeonhole him as a New-Wave remnant. The songs are still decidedly Elvis Costello. Without the upbeat soul treatment, slinky basslines and organ, this would still stand as a brilliantly writ- ten record. Besides, Costello clearly had deeper influences to mine, after all, his first hit was the Clash-inspired reggae song “Watching the Detectives.” The first track, “Love for Tender,” starts the album off like an alarm clock. It’s a fast-paced wake up and is over in under two minutes. The first few bars are remi- niscent of the intro to “Can’t Hurry Love” by the Supremes, and the backup vocals and James Jamerson-esque bassline carry the soul sound through a blistering tongue twister of metaphor and wordplay. After the bombardment of Track 1, the next song, “Op- portunity,” feels relaxed and almost mellow. Although it is laid back in comparison, it’s an equally exciting song with constant bass movement and an infectious, danceable beat. The whole album walks that line brilliantly. It is nearly able to be everything, all of the time. It’s hard to think of a time that this album wouldn’t be appropriate. In my personal experi- ence, it’s been the soundtrack to dance parties, consolation in the midst of winter depression, 4 a.m. roadtrip sing-alongs to stay awake, background music while I wash dishes and my first choice to swing out of open windows into the lawn on summer afternoons. The album moves along quickly. With so many songs at around the pop-radio three-minute time limit, I find myself frequently listening to certain tracks two or three times in a row. One of these songs is “High Fidelity,” likely a favorite for those Elvis Costello purists who are out there now saying, “I like his older stuff … ” and “his first album was better …” This album is everything that people already loved about Elvis Costello, but he’s moved a step ahead and trusted his listeners to follow. His songwriting is brilliant, his lyrics are as good as, if not better than, any other release and he is one of few artists who manage to put the energy of live music into a record (see Side B for the retro “Beaten to the Punch”). This is Costello stepping outside the niche that made him famous so that he can reach into all the other great music that influ- enced him. This record is fun. _ Ned Brower music and book reviews music and book reviews music and book reviews music and book reviews music and book reviews music and book reviews music and book reviews music and book reviews music and book reviews music and book reviews music and book reviews music and book reviews music and book reviews music and book reviews Book Talk by Anne Van Deusen ‘Dead End Gene Pool’ by Wendy Burden It seems appropriate that since we are in the month that celebrates mothers, I would share with you a memoir I just finished titled “Dead End Gene Pool.” This book is sure to make even the most self-deprecating of mothers feel like June Cleaver. The author of this memoir, Wendy Burden, is the great-great-great granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt, who in the 1800s made his fortune and became one of the great American “tycoons” through the shipping and railroad businesses. When we meet up with the Vanderbilts, however, we become painfully aware that this once wealthy and influential family is in a state of utter and complete decline. After so many generations of inbreeding and habitual overindulgence, the family has reached rock bottom. The money is still there, but things are definitely at a code red. At the center of the book is Burden’s relationship with her mother. Burden’s father committed suicide when she and her two brothers were young, and her mother chose to take advantage of the situation by aban- doning the children and globe trotting around the world getting super-dark tans, looking for husbands and drinking herself silly. This left Wendy and her brothers to be brought up by a series of nannies, servants and her paternal grandpar- ents, who are a story in themselves. What amazed me about Burden’s life with her family is that she kept it all together. From summer houses in Maine to brownstones in New York City, while Popsie and Gaga (the grandparents) and Burden’s mother indulged in cocktails and her brothers started down the path of drug addiction and depression, Burden is like a cockroach after nuclear war. Sure she was miserable. Her grandfather disliked her (mainly because she was a girl), she hated her mother’s husbands, she was shipped all over the world to differ- ent schools and was picked on by her mother because of her weight _ all ingredients for a disastrous situation. Yet Burden rises like a pheonix with a darkly humorous memoir that is informative and entertaining. My favorite scene in the book is the flight she takes on the Concorde with her grand- parents and Jacques Costeau tries to pick her up. So, if you like a good dysfunctional family read and couldn’t put down Augusten Bur- rough’s “Running with Scissors” or “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls, then this is a book for you. There are photographs, too. — Anne Van Deusen Anne Van Deusen is the children’s book buyer at the Green Toad Bookstore in Oneonta. May 12, 2011 O-Town Scene 11