It’s likely that, as an icon of pop music, Elvis Costello still looks like the cover of This Year’s Model (1978) and, were he run over by a bus, it’s ‘Oliver’s Army’ (1979) that would be played in surprised and sombre tribute. Here to stay, and recognized by Burt Bacharach as ‘a great survivor’, Costello has produced a large and significant body of work. This is the first book on Costello that sets out to avoid chronological presentation, preferring a thematic approach focused on music and words over the nearly thirty years that separate ‘Radio Sweetheart’ and ‘Country Darkness’. In addition to engaging with the songs Costello has performed as a rock musician, the book will include informed discussion of more recent albums such as Painted from Memory, North, and Il Sogno. There is also discussion of essays Costello has written to support CD reissues of his recordings, a substantial body of writing approaching a critical autobiography. The book may contradict expectation, arguing that on all fronts – music, words, voice, instrumental resource – Costello’s work broadens and deepens, as he sets himself the task of expanding the range of expressive material available.

Dai Griffiths

Dai Griffiths joined the Department of Music at Oxford Brookes University in 1990 and left as Head of Department in 2020. Between 2006 and 2011 he was also Chair of the Board of Oxford Contemporary Music. His published works include our book on Elvis Costello and a book on Radiohead with Bloomsbury.