Is Elvis Costello rock?

I'll tell you something about Elvis Costello that's slightly embarrassing to me. (Not sure why exactly.) When I was around 12 or 13 I remember hearing "Armed Forces" advertised on the radio, and having a real sense that this was new music, my generation's music, etc. (In retrospect, I think my sense of its newness was exagerrated, though it was relatively different from what I had been hearing.) Also, the punk cover band which introduced me to the genre used to play "I'm Not Angry" and that was a big favorite of mine in 7th grade (though I didn't hear the original until much later). This has nothing to do with making an argument that he is rock, but I definitely thought of his music at that time as new rock, but not something other than rock. I haven't followed his career much at all since, oh, the late 80's, so I don't know what I'd say about more recent material.

he WAS pop..catchy, life affirming, angry,sense of humour etc . then lost all of above and was delivered, sweating greasily, into the jaws of rock!!

So, to sum up--no. He occasionally "rocks" but is not "rock." He is of it but not in it. I think he's a roving minstrel, actually.

This Year's Model does indeed rock: that is not however germane. The answer to Ben W's question is NEW WAVE: that is however an evasion.

mark s, I would consider most New Wave to be a sub-category of rock, along with punk. (I hope that's not controversial, but it probably is.)

Some deviations of it were called just "rock".

This deviations, along with other popular music acts generated a series of countercultural values that we can call "rock culture".

Punk, post punk, new wave, new pop, indie pop, and even certain kinds of electronica are different subgenres of(different points in the historical process of) ROCK CULTURE, which doesn't mean that they were ROCK MUSIC.

OK, It's just a theory and I'm not its author, actually. What do you think about?

The problem comes when all this, a startling depth of gift and talent and intelligence, is shifted into the auteur territory of the "rock" songwriter, who must (by convention) deliver his own work.
i. EC is NEVER in a position where he has to reach for clumsiness or stupidity or ill-formed crap to get himself out of an artistic impasse: he always has, courtesy his voluminous fakebook grab-bag of devices, a technical get-out-of-jail- free card. He never risks utter childish idiocy = he is not rock. (I take it as read that this is a weakness...)
ii. A lineage he only very occasionally discusses — his major anxiety of influence, says I — is GLAM. During the Get Happy!! tour, the Attractions were playing Low and Heroes on the tourbus (OK I read this once somewhere, and may have misremembered and/or elaborated: bear with me, the point's aestehtically true even if I've bugged around with the anecdotal details....)... A set evolved from Stax and Motown styles was being delivered in the context of Mr Cracked Actor in his artiest Berlin-Iggy-Eno avant-garde phase. I'll go further: I think the unspoken hero of Declan McManus's all-styles omnivore pose is BRYAN FERRY, c."These Foolish Things" => where the breadth of pop genres deployed is a direct critical attack on the rockist canon (not sweeping it away, but radically broadening it, to include exactly the things it had once defined itself against, from manufactured girl group pop to 40s crooner classics). The b-side to Oliver's Army is My Foolish Things, by Rogers and Hart. HOWEVER, even though as a band The Attractions are primarily a troupe of actors, I believe the risks (and therefore the potentials) of this have been consciously downplayed, into a virtuoso display of craft... Costello the persona is recessive in a way Bowie the persona never was (one reason: Bowie is a rubbish actor, and it has always been his vulnerabilities and incompetencies which have been his appeal and outreach; Costello is a brilliant actor, and has paid the price, attracting self-appointed connoisseurs more than self-selcted losers and outsiders....) (hence: ROCKISM...)
iii. Even at times when I've loathed him, I'd be happy to hold him up as someone who exploded and demolishes the word "post-modern" =-> as in, everything you think you're saying when you use this word becomes untrue and/or uninteresting insofar as it attaches to EC.

*No, not every kind: no latin, no metal, no prog. But the range is extraordinary. But yeah, he should have embraced prog: it weakens him that he nevah did.

Or: what Pinefox just said.

Plus: Costello had one of the worst beards in the history of music -> he is not pop.

is being Against Parents rockist? I say yes. Not being one.

(sidestep BID FOR BLAB: punk = NOT OEDIPAL cuz it's yr OLDER BROTHER you are killing)

A periodic need for the pub-rock comfort blanket? It's a great question btw. I can't decide. I mean his craftsmanship, tricks, lyrics and hookiness surely = pop. His grooming in big band/show songs with dad Ross counts too. On t'other side Attractions/N.Lowe = rock, as does trying to self-consciously push into other areas like fiddlng about with chamber quartets and opera singers. (cf. Deep Purple 'n that).

On balance - 1970's he was rock than pop. Thereafter more pop than rock. How's that?

Actually, I could care less. I do think that one could use the standards applied to disqualify Elvis Costello from being rock--he's a solo artist, he's dabbled in different genres, did I miss anything?--to disqualify just about anyone else outside of maybe, oh, the Rolling Stones.

anyway, are the rolling stones rock?

Who is the bass player for "Elvis Costello"? If Elvis Costello is rock so is Randy Newman

This was a key question in this dusty old thread. The answer is Bruce Thomas, who at his best, on This Years Model and Armed Forces, was like the second coming of James Jamerson. He was an Attraction but is not an Imposter, Elvis having publicly dissed him as playing up the neck too much up too often, as well as other offenses against the musical designs of the Great One.

I mean, I am sure the guy is a musical genius, but I just really can't be bothered to follow his various projects over the years. He is a walking talking example of the Rockist idea that musicians should not be given library cards. If I want to listen to classical music I'll force myself to listen to actual classical music- instead of Anna what's her name who collaborated with EC, I'll listen to Andre Previn's wife Anne-Sophe-Mutter (which I guess technically makes her Woody Allen's Mutter-in-Law), the same way if I want to listen to jazz I'm going to listen to, well, jazz, instead of Sting.

But This Year's Model and Armed Forces are great albums as are Get Happy and even the compilation Taking Liberties.

Now please write in and tell me that actually his new ballet thing is pretty good. Or his other new Death of A Salesman thing. Or that I should google the thread where you already said that. Attention must be paid!

-- J.D. (aubade8...), November 12th, 2004.

I looked like Elvis Costello when I was 14, if that counts.

Particularly the brass is extremely annoying on "Punch..."