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Elvis Costello and the Imposters: The Boy Named If review – the glory days recaptured

(EMI) With the punch and pace of yore and the depth and richness of maturity, the singer-songwriter is back at his best

F our-and-a-half decades into a constantly evolving career, Elvis Costello seems to have come full circle. After the lavish reissue of 1979’s Armed Forces in 2020, and last summer’s reappraisal of This Year’s Model with Spanish-language guest singers , The Boy Named If also locates itself very firmly in Costello’s late-70s/early-80s purple patch.

There’s a real punch to most of the 13 songs here, the Imposters rocking hard and rolling back the years to infuse the taut arrangements with real urgency. Winning melodies abound, particularly on Mistook Me for a Friend and the title track, about an imaginary friend who can be blamed for all of one’s misdeeds. As ever with Costello, there is a richness to the lyrics, and as on 2018’s Look Now , his protagonists are on occasion female: the pretty tune of The Difference conceals a kernel of darkness, with an abused daughter committing patricide.

Equally thought-provoking is Paint the Red Rose Blue, which details the death of a relationship (this time from a male perspective). Even when the tempo drops, the quality doesn’t, the rich imagery of Trick Out the Truth being a case in point. Effortlessly classy.

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15 February, 2022 Print

Elvis Costello & The Imposters Celebrate the Release of their Widely Acclaimed New Album, ‘The Boy Named If’, with Summer Tour

Elvis Costello & The Imposters celebrate the release of their widely acclaimed new album, ‘The Boy Named If’, with summer tour titled "The Boy Named If & Other Favourites.” The first announced date is in Huber Heights, OH on August 6th and the tour closes in Las Vegas, NV on September 3rd. Costello will also return to Massey Hall, Toronto, visiting New York City, Wolf Trap, Denver, Anaheim and many other cities near you with more dates to be announced. Select cities will also include an opening set by Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets, the first time since 1989 that the pair have toured together.

Costello and his band, The Imposters - Steve Nieve, Pete Thomas and Davey Faragher - will once again be joined on stage by Texas guitarist, Charlie Sexton, who also played the twenty-two date, "Hello Again" tour in October 2021, when six of the then unreleased songs, now heard on ‘The Boy Named If’, were performed for the very first time to incredible audience reactions. In the OC Register, Peter Larsen wrote that "over the course of 26 songs and nearly two-and-a-half hours, Elvis Costello and the Imposters delivered a terrific night that time-traveled across Costello’s songbook, past, present, and future.”

The Imposters have been Costello's bandmates for the last twenty years or as Costello put it recently, "Pete Thomas, Steve Nieve and I have been spinning around like your favorite 45rpm for forty-five years and let's be clear, Davey Faragher isn't anyone's deputy. The Attractions could have no more made ‘The Boy Named If’ than we have any desire to time travel back to the 1970s. This is happening right now in 2022, we are coming at you, big as life and twice as ugly."

Select cities will include an opening set by Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets.

Costello first met Nick Lowe in a pub opposite The Cavern in Liverpool in 1972 at a time when the then "D.P. MacManus" and his partner Allan Mayes - as the duo "Rusty" - were performing many of the songs Lowe had written for the band Brinsley Schwarz.

By 1976, Nick Lowe was house producer and recording artist at Stiff Records - a small independent label in London. The newly named "Elvis Costello" was their first signing.

Lowe went on to produce Elvis’ debut album, ‘My Aim Is True’, ‘This Year's Model’, ‘Armed Forces’, ‘Get Happy’ and ‘Trust’ in just four years, during which Rockpile (with both Lowe and Dave Edmunds) were part of a U.S. package tour playing between Mink Deville and Elvis Costello and the Attractions.

Lowe returned to the studio for E.C. and the Attractions last album of the 80s, ‘Blood & Chocolate’ before playing bass on “Hurry Down Doomsday (The Bugs Are Taking Over)” in 1990 and then on five tracks of the 1993 album, ‘Brutal Youth.’

Nick Lowe's songs have been recorded by Johnny Cash, Tommy McLain, Sir Rod Stewart, Engelbert Humperdinck and Solomon Burke. His song “(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace Love & Understanding”, first recorded by the Brinsleys in 1974, covered by Costello in 1978 and sung by Curtis Stigers on one of biggest selling movie soundtrack albums of all-time, ‘The Bodyguard.’

Aside from his work as producer of The Damned, Graham Parker and The Rumour and John Hiatt, Nick Lowe's albums range from 1978's, ‘Jesus Of Cool’, ‘Labour Of Lust’ and ‘Rose Of England’ through his work with Rockpile and Little Village to his extraordinary trio of ballad albums: ‘The Impossible Bird’, ‘Dig My Mood’ and ‘The Convincer’. Recent years have seen Nick Lowe work in the studio and on the stage with the rocking Los Straitjackets, as well as a solo balladeer..

Following her popular guest vocalist appearance with Costello on “My Most Beautiful Mistake”, Nicole Atkins will open the shows in Huber Heights and Buffalo. Nicole’s latest release is “Memphis Ice” on Single Lock Records.

‘The Boy Named If’ was released by EMI - in the U.K. (and The Rest Of The World) and Capitol Records - in the U.S and Canada, on January 14th to rave reviews in publications right across the globe and in the U.S. from the New York Times to Pitchfork. The Sunday Times in London made the album "The Record Of The Week", declaring the record, "Worthy Of Bowie.”

Listen to the album here:  https://elviscostello.lnk.to/TBNIPR

"Songs that kick hard and deep. It’s anything but quiet ... the Imposters sound gleefully, brutally unified.” -  The New York Times  (Jon Pareles Critic’s Pick)

“Electrifying...A deeply thoughtful blast of rock 'n' roll”-  People  (Jordan Runtaugh)

Tickets go on sale Friday, February 18th at 10am local time. Go to  elviscostello.com

TOUR DATES - (More dates to be announced)

August 6 – Huber Heights, OH @ Rose Music Center at The Heights^

August 8 – Toronto, ON @ Massey Hall*

August 9 – Buffalo, NY @ Artpark Amphitheater^

August 11 – New York, NY @ The Rooftop at Pier 17*

August 12 – Bensalem, PA @ Xcite Center at Parx Casino

August 13 – Ledyard, CT @ Foxwoods Resort Casino

August 15 – Boston, MA @ Leader Bank Pavilion*

August 16 – Northampton, MA @ The Pines Theater*

August 18 – Vienna, VA @ Wolf Trap*

August 23 – Denver, CO @ Levitt Pavilion*

August 25 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Sandy Amphitheater*

August 28 – Thousand Oaks, CA @ Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza*

August 30 – Anaheim, CA @ City National Grove of Anaheim*

September 2 – Paso Robles, CA @ Vina Robles Amphitheatre*

September 3 – Las Vegas, NV @ The Theater at Virgin Hotels*

^ = Nicole Atkins opening

* = Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets opening

ELVIS COSTELLO

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• August 5, 2022

Elvis Costello Kicks Off ‘The Boy Named If & Other Favorites’ Summer Tour In Grand Rapids

• By Ryan Dillon
• No Comments

The fact Elvis Costello is still putting out music after neatly six decades removed from his debut is impressive enough. For the London-breed singer/songwriter to then embark on a tour in support of that record cements Costello as one of the hardest working musicians today. Costello is bringing his band The Imposters across the country on their The Boy Named If & Other Favorites tour, in support of their 2022 album of the same name. They kicked the tour off last night (August 4) in Grand Rapids, Michigan at the Frederik Meijer Gardens Amphitheater. 

Costello started his career as the poster child of the newly formed Stiff Records back in the 70s. His debut album from 1977, My Aim Is True , had success in his home country of England and was one of the few Stiff Records releases that translated over to the states. He has released countless records, starting with his band The Attractions shortly after his solo debut, and in 1994 he switched his backing band up and started releasing albums as Elvis Costello & The Imposters. 

Costello and The Imposters ran through a 21-song setlist that spanned Costello’s storied discography. They plucked songs from his solo material along with songs from the frontman’s time with The Attractions, performing hits like “Alison” and “Accidents Will Happen”. The band really seemed to lean into the “& Other Favorites” part of the tour, only performing seven songs from The Imposters’ discography. 

About halfway through the night, Costello was joined by New Jersey rockstar Nicole Atkins for a string of four songs. Atkins first joined the band during their performance of “My Most Beautiful Mistake” and assisted The Imposters during “Still Too Soon To Know”, “I’ll Wear It Proudly”, and “You Belong To Me”. 

Costello and The Imposters are hitting most of North America on this tour. Their next stop will be in Illinois before heading north for spots in Ohio, Canada, and New York. 

Check out the full setlist, tour dates, and footage from last night’s show below: 

Dates: https://tour.elviscostello.com  

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The Boy Named If

By Alfred Soto

Capitol / EMI

January 19, 2022

Consider Elvis Costello as the musical equivalent of the Aleph , Jorge Luis Borges’ term for “one of the points in space that contain all other points.” George Jones , Allen Toussaint , Stax, and classical music, sure; also, ABBA and Dusty Springfield . Costello’s monstrous appetite for genre has occasionally led him to believe he has mastered every genre. But his own instincts can get in the way: A punnery as dense as zircon has often interfered with the simple pleasure of a band as tight as the Imposters (aka the Attractions, with bassist Davey Faragher replacing Bruce Thomas in 2001), especially when Steve Nieve’s array of keyboards wheezed and squealed, mocking Costello’s objects of derision.

Costello fans will find many delights in The Boy Named If. For one, his 32nd studio album sounds smashing . Sebastian Krys’ mix stresses the textures of acoustic instruments without walloping listeners; Costello’s guitar, as restless as a child at a symphony even on solid albums like When I Was Cruel and Secret, Profane & Sugarcane , burrows right between Faragher’s bass and Nieve’s keyboards, enunciating hook after hook. A book written and illustrated by Costello himself accompanies the deluxe edition, but one needn’t own it to understand how the album unfolds as a series of scabrous vignettes recorded during the pandemic. The mood is splenetic, but not maliciously so, like an old codger telling decades-old dirty jokes for an imagined audience. Toughening his early gusto with decades of those genre experiments, Elvis-as-Aleph treats the trad rock quartet as the ideal medium for delicacy, concision, wit, and the occasional harangue.

An artist recording since the dawn of punk must regard new material as a set of points containing all other points. “The Death of Magic Thinking” sports the deathless Bo Diddley rhythm with which he experimented on 1981’s “ Lover’s Walk .” Echoes of Spike ’s song-length conceit “ God’s Comic ” reverberate on “Trick Out the Truth,” as approximate to the garrulous Costello of yore as the album gets. Listeners might even hear bits of 1991’s Paul McCartney co-write “ So Like Candy ” in the aggressive ballad “My Most Beautiful Mistake,” not to mention “ Brilliant Mistake ,” the 1986 quasi-country chestnut where Costello revealed his attempts at ridicule as a species of self-ridicule.

Costello has tinkered for decades with a paradox: He’s most delightful when disillusionment is the subject of his formal obsessions; he’s happiest playing a cynic who needs talking off a ledge (he names one new song “Magnificent Hurt,” of course). The superbly titled “The Death of Magic Thinking,” given added resonance by arriving mere weeks after Joan Didion’s death, wastes not a second: Pete Thomas kicks up a churn on percussion that’s almost as much a lead instrument as Costello’s stun guitar, while the singer admits how his muse—a “machine that can turn ink stains into words”—requires the “spark” of frustration, sexual and otherwise. Sometimes, anyway. “The Man You Love to Hate,” one of The Boy Named If ’s more plodding moments, has Costello huffing and puffing like Laurence Olivier’s fourth-rate vaudevillian in The Entertainer .

The Boy Named If has at least two classics: “The Death of Magic Thinking,” certainly, and a ballad called “Paint the Red Rose Blue,” its strong melody sung with impressive plaintiveness. Perhaps “The Difference,” a rocker based on Paweł Pawlikowski’s Cold War , with a repeated “do ya know?” hook hounded by Nieve’s embellishments. That’s three more than on near-misses like the Roots collaboration Wise Up Ghost . Competing with a back catalog as mighty as Costello’s repertoire must suck—“ history repeats the old conceits ,” he acknowledged long ago. But to don “Elvis Costello” drag and record work as vital The Boy Named If after four decades shouldn’t impress this deeply. Convincing audiences that role playing is an expression of self has been Costello’s subtle lesson all along.

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Critic’s Pick

Elvis Costello & the Imposters Are Still Blasting Away

With his longtime bandmates, the English songwriter noisily demolishes illusions on “The Boy Named If.”

By Jon Pareles

During the pandemic, plenty of musicians have unveiled their quieter, scaled-down, more reflective sides. Elvis Costello, typically, had other ideas.

His 2020 album, “Hey Clockface,” was a high-contrast miscellany: urbanely retro acoustic pop , bruising rockers, otherworldly electronics. For “Spanish Model” in 2021, he gathered Spanish-speaking rockers to translate lyrics and replace his own vocals on the tracks from “This Year’s Model,” his fierce, punky 1978 album with the Attractions. Apparently revisiting the Attractions at their most aggressive sparked something. On “The Boy Named If,” Costello is rejoined by his perennial band the Imposters — the original Attractions with a replacement bassist — for songs that kick hard and deep. It’s anything but quiet.

“The Boy Named If” has an elaborate superstructure. Its deluxe version adds an 88-page book written and illustrated by Costello: “The Boy Named If and Other Children’s Tales.”

It’s not made for children, though. Each song gets a prose vignette — sometimes fleshing out the lyrics, sometimes sketching alternate scenarios — alongside bright, blocky, big-eyed drawings. The vignettes, like the songs, are full of Costello’s jumpy wordplay, and they involve lust, infidelity, violence, predation, betrayal, deception, self-deception and other grown-up pastimes.

The situations and wordplay are knotty; often, they crash youthful illusions into adult disillusion. The album’s stomping title track posits a lucky, seductive, elusive imaginary friend, “the boy named If,” who always escapes consequences. In “What if I Can’t Give You Anything But Love?,” over a swaggering beat, a cheating husband struggles to figure out where he actually stands with his paramour: “Don’t fix me with that deadly gaze/It’s a little close to pity,” he chokes out. And in “My Most Beautiful Mistake,” a duet with Nicole Atkins , a screenwriter in a diner tells the waitress about envisioning her in movie scenes; she’s skeptical. “I’ve seen your kind before,” she observes, “in courtroom sketches.”

While the lyrics are convoluted, the music simply charges ahead. Like so many pandemic albums, “The Boy Named If” was pieced together remotely. Costello, on guitar, worked together with the drummer Pete Thomas; then he and the co-producer Sebastian Krys layered on parts by Davey Faragher on bass and Steve Nieve on keyboards.

Yet the Imposters sound gleefully, brutally unified, every bit as bristling as the Attractions on “This Year’s Model” or the Imposters on “When I Was Cruel” in 2002. “Farewell, OK” opens the album with Costello shouting through a distorted rockabilly boogie. “Death of Magic Thinking” meshes a pummeling march with a Bo Diddley beat and multiple jabbing, scrabbling guitars, steamrollering through a skewed chord progression and a tale of adolescent bewilderment.

“The Difference” — based, Costello has revealed, on the bleak love story in Pawel Pawlikowski’s 2018 film “Cold War” — has Costello’s guitars and Nieve’s organ tossing bits of dissonance back and forth in the verses, then veers into a poppy major-key chorus that asks, “Do you by chance know wrong from right?”

Over more than 30 studio albums, Costello has regularly tested himself against new genres and new collaborators: classical, country, R&B, hip-hop, jazz. But some of his strongest albums, like this one, have been his reunions with the Attractions/Imposters. Inevitably, there are echoes of Costello’s past on the new album.

“Magnificent Hurt” harks back to the pounding garage-rock and nagging organ of old Costello songs like “Pump It Up.” But the guitar solos are untamed, and there’s a smart Costello twist in the chorus, using just a pause: “It’s the way you make me feel magnificent/Hurt.” With Costello and the Imposters, familiarity breeds audacity, not routine. Some youthful pleasures weren’t illusions at all.

Elvis Costello & the Imposters “The Boy Named If” (Capitol)

Jon Pareles has been The Times’s chief pop music critic since 1988. A musician, he has played in rock bands, jazz groups and classical ensembles. He majored in music at Yale University. More about Jon Pareles

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‘Kimono My House’: The Story Behind Sparks’ Daring Breakthrough Album

‘fly like an eagle’: when steve miller band took flight, best protest songs in history: 20 timeless political anthems, ‘le parc’: tangerine dream at their most soulful and evocative, ‘(is this the way to) amarillo’: comic relief takes tony christie back to texas, ‘tangram’: tangerine dream’s multi-movement opus, little walter: the true king of blues harp, ghost’s feature film ‘rite here rite now’ will premiere this june, stephen sanchez announces global world tour, tyler hubbard preps his ‘strong’ world tour, all seasons of ‘reba’ set to debut on netflix, billie eilish announces ‘hit me hard and soft’ world tour, blink-182 returns to north america for final leg of stadium and arena tour, terri clark reimagines ‘now that i found you’ as duet with ben rector, elvis costello announces digital album, ‘the boy named if – alive at memphis magnetic’.

Trailed by a Chelmico remix of ‘Magnificent Hurt’, the new record is a live-in-the-studio companion to the Grammy-nominated ‘The Boy Named If’.

Published on

Elvis Costello & The Imposters have announced the upcoming release of The Boy Named If (Alive at Memphis Magnetic) , a companion to January’s widely-acclaimed – and now Grammy nominated – album The Boy Named If .

Recorded during tour rehearsals at Memphis Magnetic Recording in October 2021 and May 2022, the album captures the band playing, as Costello puts it “some of our favourite songs while negotiating with any tricky angles in our new tunes.” The album will be available digitally on November 25.

This new album features live-in-the studio renditions of The Boy Named If songs, a version of Costello’s “Every Day I Write the Book”, songs by The Rolling Stones , Nick Lowe, The Byrds and Paul McCartney and a brand new remix of “Magnificent Hurt” by the Japanese duo, chelmico, which you can check out below.

‘Red Rose Speedway’: Paul McCartney And Wings At Full Throttle

Elvis first heard chelmico performing the theme tune to the anime show ‘Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken’ and from this encounter, he then asked the duo to complete a remix of “Magnificent Hurt.”

Costello says, “Over the last few years we’ve presented some of my songs in other languages on the album Spanish Model and the French language E.P. ‘La Face de Pendule à Coucou’ but this track is something of an entirely different stripe…

“As you will hear, the song is now an entirely different story in both words and music, re-harmonizing my interjections between their verses and it is this new Japanese model of the song that closes the storybook on The Boy Named If (Alive At Memphis Magnetic) .”

Chelmico said, “Can’t believe we did a collaboration with Elvis Costello & The Imposters!! When we were talking on a Zoom call, Elvis said we can do whatever we want, so we did. Please enjoy our interpretation of the world of “Magnificent Hurt.” The beats by Ryo Takahashi are perfection and we’re all HAPPY that Elvis is happy with the track!”

Listen to the best of Elvis Costello on Apple Music and Spotify .

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Elvis Costello Wraps ‘Boy Named If’ Tour With All The Fan Favorites

Elvis Costello Yaamava’ Theater September 3, 2022

By DAN MACINTOSH

HIGHLAND, CA – This casino show was one of Elvis Costello’s California dates without his longtime friend and collaborator, Nick Lowe, as the opener. While having Lowe on the bill is almost too much of a good thing, just Costello and band is by no means any unsatisfying musical menu. His band, the Imposters, include a couple of original Attractions, as well as Charlie Sexton on guitar, and when you factor in all of Elvis’ fantastic songs to choose from, his solo shows are certainly worth the price of admission.

Costello’s voice was strong, and he also looked great in his sparkly suit. This tour is billed as The Boy Name If & Other Favorites , but Costello only played a fraction of songs from the new album. More emphasis was placed on [British spelling] favourites . He opened with “Accidents Will Happen,” and closed with the ballad “Alison,” and gave this audience and enthusiastic sampling of his catalogue in between. This audience, at least in the second level around me, didn’t look and sound much like a typical Costello fanbase. They appeared more like senior citizens killing time with casino concert comps, instead. Nevertheless, there was a loud bunch cheering loudly at the front of the stage.

Show highlights include a rhythmically revised version of “Brilliant Mistake,” on which Costello played acoustic guitar, and the always reliable rockabilly of “Mystery Dance.” Better still, though, was the jazzy torch song, “Almost Blue” that Costello got down on one knee to sing. The latter was also a spotlight for long-serving keyboardist, Steve Nieve, to shine. Costello was chatty and funny (as we’ve come to except) throughout, particularly when he talked about the inspiration for the reggae-rock of “Watching the Detectives.”

It’s always telling to watch artists perform their most popular songs, and Costello sang both “Pump It Up” and “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding” with true gusto. He may not have had his diehard followers in attendance, but he played these (and all the others) as though he still had something left to prove. Yes, he was in a plush new casino theater, but he could just have easily been in a sweaty, smokey British pub.

Elvis Costello is approaching 70, and except for a graying, receding hairline, you might never realize his senior citizen status. His voice is still robust and his guitar playing compliments Sexton’s fills with a slightly jarring, more angular element. Unlike a lot of acts you might catch at a casino, Costello is still writing and performing some of the best music of his career. Also, unlike those slot machine zombies just outside the theater entrance, everyone came out of this show a winner.

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ELVIS COSTELLO & THE IMPOSTERS ANNOUNCE THE BOY NAMED IF & OTHER FAVOURITES 2022 UK TOUR

Including Date at London’s Hammersmith Eventim Apollo on 23rd June

New Album ‘The Boy Named If’ Released January 14th, 2022 on EMI

Following the announcement of the new album ‘The Boy Named If’, Elvis Costello & The Imposters have announced a UK tour, ‘The Boy Named If & Other Favourites’, in June 2022, culminating with a show at London’s Hammersmith Eventim Apollo on 23rd June. ‘The Boy Named If’ is released January 14th on EMI.

Elvis Costello will return to the UK in June 2022 with The Imposters (Steve Nieve – keyboards; Pete Thomas – drums; Davey Faragher – bass & backing vocals) along with Charlie Sexton for an extensive UK run of dates.

Ian Prowse will be opening the show, performing songs from his upcoming album. ‘One Hand on the Starry Plough’ will be released 11th February, 2022.

Tickets will be available Friday, 10th December at 10am from  HERE.

Elvis Costello & The Imposters play the following dates:

Sun 5th Brighton Dome

Tue 7th Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

Wed 8th Newcastle O2 City Hall

Fri 10th Liverpool Philharmonic

Sat 11th Manchester Opera House

Mon 13th Birmingham Symphony Hall

Tue 14th Leicester De Montfort Hall

Thu 16th Oxford New Theatre

Fri 17th Bath The Forum

Sun 19th Portsmouth Guildhall

Mon 20th Swansea Arena

Wed 22nd Ipswich Regent Theatre

Thur 23rd London Eventim Apollo

Wednesday, 8th December sees the release of a Lupe-O-Vision short feature for the album’s first cut ‘Magnificent Hurt’ by marionette maker, Tony Sinnett in collaboration with Eamon Singer and Arlo McFurlow and edited by Elliot Thomas.

Watch this space.

Since his U.K. tour of 2020 was curtailed after a triumphant Hammersmith Apollo appearance in March 2020, Elvis Costello has released the album, ‘Hey Clockface’ and the subsequent French language E.P., ‘La Face de Pendule à Coucou’ – featuring the voices of Iggy Pop and Isabelle Adjani.

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Elvis Costello Announces ‘The Boy Named If’ Companion Album

Elvis Costello is releasing a companion to his latest album. The Boy Named If (Alive at Memphis Magnetic) is set to arrive on Nov. 25.

The project follows Costello's  The Boy Named If , which was released in January of this year and recently earned a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Album.

(Alive at Memphis Magnetic) features updates of songs from Costello's most recent LP that were recorded live in the studio during tour rehearsals. "When the Imposters and I entered Memphis Magnetic studio in October 2021, it was the first time we'd been face-to-face or side-by-side while playing the songs from The Boy Named If ," Costello said in a news release. "Now we were three days from opening on the Soundstage at Graceland but what better way to prepare than playing some of your favorite songs, while negotiating with the trickier angles in our new tunes."

The new album also includes an update of Costello's 1983 song "Every Day I Write the Book," covers of songs by the Rolling Stones ("Out of Time"), the Byrds ("So You Want To Be A Rock & Roll Star"), Paul McCartney and Wings ("Let Me Roll It") and others. There is also a new remix of "Magnificent Hurt" from  The Boy Named If created by the Japanese duo chelmico.

You can view a complete track listing, and listen to the new version of "Magnificent Hurt," down below.

"As you will hear," Costello added, "the song is now an entirely different story in both words and music, re-harmonizing my interjections between their verses, and it is this new Japanese model of the song that closes the storybook on The Boy Named If (Alive At Memphis Magnetic) ."

'The Boy Named If (Alive at Memphis Magnetic)' Track Listing 1."Magnificent Hurt" (Costello) 2. "Truth Drug" (Nick Lowe) 3. "Penelope Halfpenny" (Costello) 4. "So You Want To Be A Rock & Roll Star" (McGuinn/Hillman) 5. "What If I Can't Give You Anything But Love?" (Costello) 6. "The Boy Named If" (Costello) 7. "Let Me Roll It" (Paul McCartney/Linda McCartney) 8. "Every Day I Write The Book" (Costello) 9. "Out of Time" (Jagger/Richards) 10. "Here, There and Everywhere" (McCartney) 11. "Magnificent Hurt" remix (Costello/chelmico)

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Elvis Costello & The Imposters: The Boy Named If [Album Review]

Brian Q. Newcomb | January 19, 2022 January 19, 2022 | Headphone Approved Music , Reviews

Elvis Costello & The Imposters The Boy Named If EMI/Capitol Records [2022]

Forty five years and 37 albums – give or take if we count all his collaborative efforts – into his career as a recording artist, Elvis Costello is a known entity, we have a good idea what to expect from him, which is usually change. While he’s revealed artistic courage and dexterity in his willingness to expand his musical vocabulary – whether it’s working with songwriters like Burt Bacharach, Paul McCartney, or Allen Toussaint, exploring country roots with T Bone Burnett, mixing it up with hip hop virtuosos The Roots , the classical ensemble Brodsky Quartet, or dappling in opera and even writing for a Broadway musical – Costello eventually returns to his early rock roots and his long-time bandmates in The Imposters.

When The Fire Note caught Costello in Cincinnati late in 2019 before the pandemic shut live concerts down, they were reunited on the “Just Trust Tour” , supported be two fine background singers. Their lengthy set managed to touch numerous aspects of the songwriter’s lengthy career, but were never stronger than on the classic rockers, “Clubland,” “Mystery Dance,” Watching the Detectives,” “Radio Radio,” and “Pump It Up.” While I loved everything his played that night, including the lovely classic ballad “Alison” and the Nick Lowe written “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding,” after one of his more frenzied performances I remember telling my wife, “I’ll have more of that.”

At the time of that tour, Costello’s most recent album had been his first album in 8 year, and while 2018’s Look Now marked a return to recording with The Imposters, the songwriting leaned heavily in the direction of his work with Bacharach and included lots of orchestrated string arrangements. On his 2020 album, Hey Clockface , Costello released a couple guitar heavy rockers, but they were electronic experiments recorded in a studio in Helsinki where he played all the instruments, while most of the record was recorded in Paris with Steve Nieve and brass quintet, with two tracks recorded in New York with jazz musician Michael Leonhart and guitarists Bill Frisell and Nels Cline (Wilco).

All of that to explain that here on The Boy Named If , we have the first full on band album from Costello & The Imposters since 2008’s furious “ Momofuku ,” which featured Jenny Lewis on backing vocals on several tracks. On the opening rock & roll throw-back, “Farewell, OK,” which opens with ringing fast guitar chords as if channeling first namesake, the Elvis with the magic pelvis, the song features Nieve’s deliciously cheesy Farfisa organ sound, while the rhythm section of drummer Pete Thomas and bassist Davey Faragher deliver the fun sock hop dance vibe. For the record, Nieve and Thomas were in The Attractions, Costello’s original back-up band formed shortly after the release of his 1977 debut, “ My Aim Is True .” In 2002, Faragher replaced original bassist Bruce Thomas (no relation), after playing in Cracker and with John Hiatt, and the unit became the Imitators.

The album’s title track suggests what Costello has described in interviews as a look back on that period “from the last days of bewildered boyhood to the mortifying moment when you are told to stop acting like a child,” making The Boy Named If, the invisible friend on whom you could blame all of your mistakes until people start really holding you accountable for your actions. Given that context, the potent yearning expressed in the wailing first single “Magnificent Hurt” makes perfect sense, the stomping beat and emergency siren in the strangled guitar solo, and the lyrics describing the loss of one’s first love and “the pain that I felt let me know I was still alive.” It’s excruciating, yet delicious at the same time. All together the song drives with the same urgency that thrilled in “Pump Me Up,” exhibiting the many strengths in The Imposters when they’re cranking on all cylinders.

The amazing thing is that it feels like the band here is playing live together in a tight, intimate groove, but the album was recorded with Costello & Thomas working together in one studio, guitars and voice and the solid beat of the drums, then sending the recordings off for Faragher to add bass and Nieve’s keyboards, which so often interact with Costello’s voice and guitar. It’s a bit of recording studio magic made possible by co-producer Sebastian Krys, who’s worked on Look Now and Spanish Model , a reworking of Costello’s 1978 release This Year’s Model in Spanish with indigenous language singers replacing his vocals.

Other musical highlights include “The Death of Magic Thinking,” set to a storming Bo Diddley beat, “What If I Can’t Give You Anything But Love,” when a adulterous lover final admits he’ll not be leaving his family and tumultuous emotions mess that pours out into the song’s passionate delivery, and the raging reaction to betrayal in “Mistook Me For a Friend,” which finds Costello at is most verbose. There’s lots of examples here of Costello’s notoriously clever plays on words, again his literate storytelling is engaging while taking on the foibles of human struggle when we fail to acknowledge “The Difference” between wrong and right, and turn into our own worst enemy, “The Man You Love to Hate.”

At this point, with all those classic songs already in his catalog, it’s impossible to not hear flashbacks to previous Costello hits here and there. In the ballad like verses of “My Most Beautiful Mistake,” you recognize phrases that recall the emotional moves of “Alison.” At this point, Costello’s take is so ingratiating that these self-referential moments become a feature not a weakness. In all this is the record we’ve been hoping for from Elvis Costello and The Imposters, even if we could not have guessed the exact content and framing of these songs, you just can’t see this band live and not suspect they have another great rock & roll album in them, and at this moment The Boy Named If is that album.

Key Tracks: “Magnificent Hurt” / “Mistook Me For a Friend” / “Farewell, OK”

Artists With Similar Fire: Joe Jackson / The Smithereens / Spoon

Elvis Costello Review History: Hey Clockface (2020) / Look Now (2018) / Wise Up Ghost And Other Songs (2013)

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After dropping 'The Boy Named If' earlier this year, Elvis Costello sets out on tour

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We revisit Peter O'Dowd's conversation back in January with Rock & Roll Hall of Fame musician Elvis Costello about the album. Costello is now out on tour.

In " The Boy Named If " Costello looks at childhood and how it shapes who we become and how we become.

This segment aired on August 22, 2022.

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