Blood and Chocolate

Submitted by Sally Middleton on 14 February 2013 - 10:51pm

Cover:

Artist:

Elvis Costello and The Attractions

album-ID:

a_26

Nationality:

Year:

1 986

Release-year:

0000

Num-of-tracks:

Track-listing:

Uncomplicated*I Hope You're Happy Now*Tokyo Storm Warning*Home Is Anywhere You Hang Your Head*I Want You*Honey, Are You Straight or Are You Blind?*Blue Chair*Battered Old Bird*Crimes of Paris*Poor Napoleon*Next Time Round

Length-in-mins:

Nominator:

Bean

meeting-ID:

m_11

Now-num:

Spotify-URL:

35V5TZ6drqYeYOoXY1Mp0i

Grooveshark-URL:

Blood+And+Chocolate/1645053

Short-title:

bloodAndChoc

nominator-ID:

u_16

Meeting-date:

Tuesday, 13 May 2008

MusicBrainz-URL:

cbcc8fdf-180f-36b9-8c0a-e653d78fea2e

Wikipedia-URL:

Blood_and_Chocolate

Spotify-link-type:

album

Discogs-URL:

Elvis-Costello-And-The-Attractions-Blood-Chocolate/master/42938

Allmusic-URL:

blood-amp-chocolate-mw0000468630

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guest-list data

108

109

117

reviewers-IDs data

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-14-

-13-

61

reviewed by

Glyn Lewis

1 or 2 great songs aren't really enough

3-5

9-11

A songwriter's reputation shouldn't just be determined by their better songs but by their middling and lesser ones too and Mr Costello's songs that fall into the latter 2 categories, for my money, wouldn't earn him near the esteemed status that he seems to have. This album is very much a case in point. While I Want You is an extraordinary and pretty much unparalleled triumph in expressing raw emotion in failed love, vivid to the point of being almost unbearable, there are other songs on the album that really seem to offer very little beyond bitterness and Elvis' hoarse sounding cries. It's an album that sounds like it was put out in a hurry, Elvis keen to find a home for his seemingly endless flow of words before any particularly worthwhile musical accompaniment had been developed for them. Not to say he isn't capable of brilliance but there isn't enough of it on this one.
42

reviewed by

Richard Norbury
30

reviewed by

Neil Hornsey

Wooahhh wooaahh woooahhhh yeuch.

This was enjoyable for one listen, but after subsequent attempts Elvis' strained vocals started to grate. He pours so much emotion into the songs that after a while it just sounds daft and rather than thinking about the lyrics or feeling sorry for him my instinct is simply to turn it off. It's a shame because there's some decent enough songs hiding in there, if only they were sung by someone else.