Costello's "When I Was Cruel"

Been playing this a lot lately and - I have a really difficult relationship with this record.

For the most part I'm a "Blood and Chocolate" is his last great record guy.........but for some reason this record sounds aces to me the past week. That has happened to me in the past too for brief stretches. I'll periodically play it to death and then not even think of it for long stretches.

Anybody else love it / hate it - not know what to make of it?

I also love it, and am generally also a "Blood and Chocolate was the last great record" guy.

I love When I Was Cruel and Momofuku. I also love Blood and Chocolate.

His tenure at Warners produced a few good albums, mainly after he reconciled (somewhat) with the Attractions. Brutal Youth, Kojak Variety and All This Useless Beauty all have their moments.

I think about half of When I Was Cruel is as good as anything he's ever done. The other half doesn't do much for me. I'm indifferent to Blood and Chooclate.

I love "45"--one of the best songs ever about seeing one's life through one's love of pop music/record collecting.

I echo Mr. Toland's sentiments on this one. Half of it is sublime; the other half is meh. But that sublime half...

This is probably a bit picky, but I'll state it anyway since I'm such a stickler for detail.

More time has passed since Spike was released in '89 (21 years) than has passed between My Aim is True ('77) and Spike (12 years). So considering EC has had a 33 year career thus far, an album released 12 years after the debut should be considered "mid career" if anything. He's also released about the same number of albums before '89 as he has since. So, calling Spike a "late period" album really is incorrect.

All of that said, I like Momofuku better than anything he's done since Blood and Chocolate. I'm a bit indifferent to When I Was Cruel.

I tried to get into Momofuku, but none of its spins ever left much of an impression.

Was 'North' just an anomaly? Cause I found that to be a deeply depressing album. Here's my history with EC, beginning in 97: 1st album: Armed Forces, latched hard onto the early period, indifferent about 89-96.....Painted From Memory came out, my grandma liked it....WIWC: meh, filed away.....found 'North' at the library a few years ago, repulsed; consequently, refuse to listen to any other 00's Costello. I feel that Graham and Joe have suffered the same fate... one or two highlights, each, at most, in the last 2 decades. Kinda sad.

I quite like Secret, Profane & Sugarcane, and I'm still getting to know The River in Reverse, but my interest in that one has more to do with Allen Toussaint than Costello. Beyond that, the only other '00s album I care about is WIWC. Hell, the only 90s Elvis album I care about is Painted From Memory.

But then I've always cherrypicked his catalog. I found out a long time ago that I just won't like everything he's done, including some of his most acclaimed work. But [pick a deity] bless him for following his muse wherever it leads without regard to what anyone else thinks. If it keeps him from getting bored, more power to him.

I actually think Spike is his best latter-day album. Brutal Youth a close second. I haven't been able to get into anything else he's done since then. About to give When I Was Cruel another try.



Post Edited (05-04-10 03:05)

I feel the same way about Spike, but it's a very unpopular opinion.

I, too, love Spike. I think it's a fine album.

Despite a couple stinkers, I think 'Mighty Like a Rose' is actually pretty good. I'm more likely to listen to that than 'Spike.' When he started to really oversing ("God Give Me Strength" or around there), that's when it went south for me.