All This Useless Beauty

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Beauty was the third album Elvis Costello released between 1994 and '96. It's also one of his best collections of the '90s. Something of a hodgepodge, it finds Elvis one moment recalling the anglicized soul of Get Happy!, the next making like Grandpa Grunge. Do you prefer Elvis as Roger McGuinn or Marvin Gaye? He tries out a new songwriting partner in Aimee Mann, who cowrote the lovely waltz tempo opener, "The Other End of the Telescope," but he's also brought back Paul McCartney from his Spike days to cocompose "Shallow Grave." All of which implies Elvis is all over the board. And so what? As the years pass, it's more apparent than ever that Costello has survived because his love--yes, love!--of music. When you think about it, that's an odd notion. Who'd of thought back when Elvis was spewing bile to a new-wave beat, that love, not guilt and revenge, would keep him going. --Steven Stolder --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

All This Useless Beauty (With Bonus Disc)
Average customer rating:

A mixed bag of stones with a few nuggets of gold

The best CD ever. By anyone.

Best

Quite good

I'm as Certain As a Lost Dog Pondering a Sign Post

All This Useless Beauty (With Bonus Disc)
Elvis Costello
Manufacturer: Rhino / Wea
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B00005MLTT
Release Date: 2001-08-21

Tracks:

The Other End Of The Telescope
Little Atoms
All This Useless Beauty
Complicated Shadows
Why Can't A Man Stand Alone?
Distorted Angel
Shallow Grave
Poor Fractured Atlas
Starting To Come To Me
You Bowed Down
It's Time
I Want To Vanish

Tracks:

Almost Ideal Eyes
My Dark Life (with Brian Eno)
That Day Is Done (with The Fairfield Four)
What Do I Do Now?
The Bridge I Burned
It's Time (demo)
Complicated Shadows (demo)
You Bowed Down
Mistress And Maid (demo)
Distorted Angel (demo)
World's Greatest Optimist (demo)
The Only Flame In Town (demo)
The Comedians (demo)
The Days Take Care Of Everything (demo)
Hidden Shame (demo)
Why Can't A Man Stand Alone (demo)
Distorted Angel (Tricky Remix)

Amazon.com

Elvis Costello's final album for Warner Bros. might have been even more widely ignored had he and the Attractions not gone on tour to support it. The result led to a final split, but All This Useless Beauty still ended up doing little business. This reissue, part of Rhino's first wave of a Costello remaster/refurbishing campaign, provides an opportunity to hear mostly exemplary songwriting and assuredly masterful performances. Darkly observant and even witty, tracks like "The Other End of the Telescope" (a rewrite of a Costello-Aimee Mann collaboration), "Distorted Angel," and "Starting to Come to Me" could take their places on anyone's mix tape. (The snarling "Complicated Shadows," one of the few full-on rockers here, even made it as far as a Sopranos episode.) Costello overreaches on the title track, but its sophisticated tone works just about everywhere else it's tried. The bonus disc of demos and one-offs is necessarily a sonic hodgepodge, but it's a damn fine long-player on its own. Costello's liner notes are, as always, a must. --Rickey Wright

Customer Reviews:

A mixed bag of stones with a few nuggets of gold.......2007-06-22

I'm in the process of listening to EC's catalog beyond his first few familiar recordings and wanted to like ATUB more than I have the first couple of times through.

Much of the first disc simply strikes me as too esoteric. Other than the somewhat enjoyable title cut, disc one drags more than a bit until you hit the last four songs. Things pick up with 'Starting to Come to Me' and improve, song-by-song, through 'You Bowed Down', 'It's Time' and finally the sad, lovely 'I Want to Vanish'.

The bonus disc is inconsistent, but has some interesting tunes. 'Almost Ideal Eyes' sounds like a bizarre, cosmic fusion of Harry Connick Jr. and Santana. 'That Day is Done', with the Fairfield Four, is done in gospel style...an unique turn for Elvis. 'Mistress and Maid', with Paul McCartney, isn't especially tuneful, but delivers a gut-punch. Love the version here of 'The Only Flame in Town'. 'The Comedians', 'The Days Take Care of Everything' and 'Hidden Shame' (once recorded by Johnny Cash) also merit attention.

You can find something to enjoy on just about every Elvis Costello recording.....some more than others. Perhaps ATUB will grow on me.

The best CD ever. By anyone........2006-08-14

Elvis has released a lot of great albums, and a certain amount of mundane tripe. This one is great. Twelve quite distinctive songs that complement each other beautifully and form one cohesive whole. Great variety in arrangement, but each song seems to belong right after the song before it. Elvis is the best lyricist in pop (?!) music, and these are his best lyrics - creative use of and plays on words, alternating with deep pondering of life and the universe. The melodies are superb. There are better artists than Elvis, but there are no better albums than All This Useless Beauty.

Best.......2004-10-23

Best Costello recording of all (except for maybe Armed Forces)...great variety, all the songs are good, no hoaky stuff, serious compositions....a treat for listeners and musicians alike....highly recommended!

Quite good.......2004-08-26

This is an excellent later period Elvis record. Worth buying for the first 2 tracks alone.

I'm as Certain As a Lost Dog Pondering a Sign Post.......2003-11-18

This album is the bridge between Elvis and Burt Bacharach. It's easy to listen the main disc's "I Want To Vanish," "Why Can't A Man Stand Alone" and the title track and imagine them with the kind of lush arrangements that Bacharach would favor for the "Painted From Memory" album. But standing alone, "All This Useless Beauty" contains some of the finest of the Attractions' later day performances. Their live work on "Complicated Shadows" proves that they remained one of the best natural rock machines to ever call themselves a band.

As usual, though, the center of all this remains Elvis' wordplay. "All This Useless Beauty" started with EC's desire to produce a double disc that would encompass several of the songs he had either recorded with or for other people, and, meeting with the usual record company indifference, evolved into something completely different. You do get some of those songs that became well known for others (Til Tuesday for "The Other End Of The Telescope," Roger McGuinn for "You Bowed Down") but also brought to life a matured and wizened lyrical perspective. To wit: "Poor Fractured Atlas" always sounded like Hemmingway with a bout of depression.

The bonus disc is almost as good as the original album. (It helps to keep in mind that "All This Useless Beauty" started life as a two disc concept.) While the version of "That Day Is Done" won't make me forget Paul McCartney's from "Flowers In The Dirt," it will probably hit home with followers of "Oh Brother Where Art Thou." However, the haunting demo of "The Comedians" eventually became the version Roy Orbison chose to record, and it is easy to see why. Johnny Cash chose "Hidden Shame" (and from "King Of America," "The Big Light"). There's an early version of Aimee Mann's "World's Great Optimist" three years before her version appeared.

Like Bacharach, the songs on both the main disc and the bonus demos prove that Elvis could sit down and write a song with a target singer in mind and cast it well. "All This Useless Beauty" may have been underrated on its original 1996 debut, but this recasting of it by the great folks at Rhino make at all the more worth discovering, be it for the first or second time.

Average customer rating:

How can a song stand alone?

It's Elvis' show, Bruce T., and don't you forget it.

Staying Power

A Poet and incredible songwriter

This album is one of the alltime bests!!!!

All This Useless Beauty
Elvis Costello
Manufacturer: Warner Bros / Wea
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
Singer-Songwriters | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
General | Pop | Styles | Music
Singer-Songwriters | Pop | Styles | Music
Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music
Adult Alternative | Pop | Styles | Music
General | Rock | Styles | Music
Similar Items:

Brutal Youth

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Spike

ASIN: B000002N5X
Release Date: 1996-05-14

Tracks:

The Other End Of The Telescope
Little Atoms
All This Usless Beauty
Complicated Shadows
Why Can't A Man Stand Alone?
Distorted Angel
Shallow Grave
Poor Fractured Atlas
Starting To Come To Me
You Bowed Down
It's Time
I Want To Vanish

Amazon.com

Beauty was the third album Elvis Costello released between 1994 and '96. It's also one of his best collections of the '90s. Something of a hodgepodge, it finds Elvis one moment recalling the anglicized soul of Get Happy!, the next making like Grandpa Grunge. Do you prefer Elvis as Roger McGuinn or Marvin Gaye? He tries out a new songwriting partner in Aimee Mann, who cowrote the lovely waltz tempo opener, "The Other End of the Telescope," but he's also brought back Paul McCartney from his Spike days to cocompose "Shallow Grave." All of which implies Elvis is all over the board. And so what? As the years pass, it's more apparent than ever that Costello has survived because his love--yes, love!--of music. When you think about it, that's an odd notion. Who'd of thought back when Elvis was spewing bile to a new-wave beat, that love, not guilt and revenge, would keep him going. --Steven Stolder

Customer Reviews:

How can a song stand alone?.......2004-05-11

All This Useless Beauty is a collection of Elvis Costello songs that did not have a home. Some of them were written for other artists to record but turned down while some were just on the backburner for a number of years. In terms of the overall feeling of the disc, each track seems to shoot for an incredibly lofty goal on its own. And when you put them all together, you're not sure if you're hearing Elvis Costello's best work or not.

This may or may not ditract you. I myself admire the fact that each song here can stand alone without depending on the weight of the others. Although they may not be the strongest songs he has written in his entire career, he does have a nice share of ballads with Poor Fractured Atlas, Why Can't A Man Stand Alone, The Other End of the Telescope, and the title track. His mysterious side bubbles up a little bit with Little Atoms and Distorted Angel. Even the amped up Complicated Shadows and Shallow Grave fit into the picture nicely, as does the extremely dramatic It's Time.

While this is not Costello's best overall album, there are no clunkers contained within.

It's Elvis' show, Bruce T., and don't you forget it........2002-12-05

I agree with previous reviewers that this is a wonderful collection of songs. When I first listened to it, I correctly guessed that Elvis had a hand in the production. Why? Because all the imaginative and insightful bass guitar work contributed by Ma'Man Bruce Thomas constitute the quietest sounds on the CD. As one previous reviewer mentioned, "Elvis' voice is front and center", and that too is no coincidence. It's Elvis' show after all, and if he wants to slightly sabotage its perfection by skewing the production because of his little feud with Bruce, well, he can of course. Our loss is his gain. But try this at home: Carefully adjust your equalizer to bump up the bass just a little bit, and then play a song like 'shallow grave' again. Feel gypped yet? Now you too have been reminded, it's Elvis' show.

Staying Power.......2002-07-04

Unfortunately this is my only Elvis CD, but that is soon to change, especially with all these reissues. I bought it after being captivated by The Other End of the Telescope on the radio. Co-writer Aimee Mann has a similar grip on me. It's a great buy used - I don't understand why this CD was so overlooked and the price is so low now. I was very glad to hear Complicated Shadows on his recent tour - it is awesome live. The title track always stops me in my tracks. I just love his versatility. He can sing a gorgeous ballad and follow it up with a rocker that can hang in there with the Stones or anyone else. And they all spring from his bottomless pit of a catalog. Amazing. If his fan base is considered a cult, they're not getting me back without some serious reprogramming.

A Poet and incredible songwriter.......2002-03-02

The lyrics of Elvis Costello's songs are poetic and beautiful. On this CD, I really ejoyed "Little Atoms", "All this Useless Beauty" and "The Other End of The Telesope".This is a very well-done CD, with well-written songs. A CD I can listen to over and over again.

This album is one of the alltime bests!!!!.......2000-10-17

This one of the best compact discs that I have ever put into my player. Elvis Costello(Declan McManus)is an inspiration to musicians everywhere. This is a must have! "Poor Fractured Atlas" made me cry the first time that I heard it. "All This Useless Beauty" is an artistic, emotional and musical beauty that will leave you utterly breathless. Get it!