Saturday, January 27, 2007

Randomiser #27: 27 January 2007

Today's song: Elvis Costello, "Man Out Of Time"

I don't know who produced this record, but by god, they've drowned it in echo... Anyway, this is from his greatest hits album, and I can't be bothered going to the other room to find the sleeve notes and check when it first came out.

Elvis Costello is one of those songwriters who's been around for so long that I tend to take him for granted as a fixture of the landscape. And then, every so often, I actually listen to this album, and remember that at his best, he's incredibly good. It's almost a shame that he chose to put out a double album, because he could have released an absolutely indispensible collection. Instead, his Best Of clocks in at something like 34 tracks, and to be honest, there's a bit of flab in there. "Man Out Of Time" is not the best produced record in the world, but it's a great song.

It doesn't seem to have a video, which is fine by me, because it gives me an excuse to post "Veronica" instead. This is easily my favourite Elvis Costello song, although admittedly the video falls into the trap of spelling it out for the slower members of the class. (And yes, Elvis is indeed singing ALONG with the backing track instead of miming to it. Which is... unusual.)



Also today:

- German man gives away €75,000 to a waiting crowd, after winning it on a radio competition. Apparently the deal was that you had to say what you'd do with the money and then the public would vote. He's keeping the other €25,000 to pay off his mortgage. Somebody, somewhere is already going to be working this into a lecture on the subject of co-operative negotiation.

This seems an excellent excuse to post Roman Coppola's video for Mansun's "Taxloss" - not an especially fantastic record, but a great little film. (Was it Blink 182 or Green Day who did a "throw away the budget on rubbish" video in the USA? Well, this is how you do it right, anyway.)