Unfaithful music & disappearing ink

674 pages

English language

Published March 15, 2015

ISBN:
978-0-399-16725-6
Copied ISBN!
OCLC Number:
919068291

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Born Declan Patrick MacManus, Elvis Costello was raised in London and Liverpool, grandson of a trumpet player on the White Star Line and son of a jazz musician who became a successful radio dance band vocalist. Costello went into the family business and had taken the popular music world by storm before he was twenty-four. "Unfaithful Music" describes how Costello's career has endured for almost four decades through a combination of dumb luck and animal cunning, even managing the occasional absurd episode of pop stardom. The memoir, written entirely by Costello himself, offers his unique view of his unlikely and sometimes comical rise to international success, with diversions through the previously undocumented emotional foundations of some of his best known songs and the hits of tomorrow. It contains many stories and observations about his renowned co-writers and co-conspirators, although Costello also pauses along the way for considerations on the less …

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Review of 'Unfaithful music & disappearing ink' on 'Goodreads'

Look, I love Elvis Costello more than most people. He's my all-time favorite singer/songwriter. But everyone believes his or her own life story is more fascinating to others than it actually is, which is why memoirists are in particular need of a strong, impartial editor -- and it's clear that Elvis didn't get one. This book is full of charming, star-studded anecdotes that would be brilliant if cherry-picked for the best ones and organized into some sort of narrative arc. Instead, they are heaped onto the reader, one after the other, with no clear overarching narrative, for 674 pages. It's just too much, and the storytelling is too loose. I found myself skimming through the less interesting stories. 3 stars, but only because it's Elvis Costello. Anyone else would've gotten 2.

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Subjects

  • Rock musicians
  • Biography

Places

  • England