User:Zmbro/Blood & Chocolate

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Blood & Chocolate
Studio album by
Elvis Costello and the Attractions
Released15 September 1986 (1986-09-15)
RecordedMarch–May 1986
StudioOlympic (London)
Genre
Length47:48
Label
ProducerNick Lowe
Elvis Costello and the Attractions chronology
King of America
(1986) 		Blood & Chocolate
(1986) 		Out of Our Idiot
(1987)
Singles from Blood & Chocolate
  1. "Tokyo Storm Warning"
    Released: August 1986
  2. "I Want You"
    Released: October 1986

Blood & Chocolate is the eleventh studio album by the English singer-songwriter Elvis Costello, and his ninth album with the Attractions—keyboardist Steve Nieve, bassist Bruce Thomas and drummer Pete Thomas (no relation). It was released on 15 September 1986, only seven months after his previous album King of America.

with producer T-Bone Burnett and different musicians, this album reunited him with producer Nick Lowe and his usual backing group the Attractions. It peaked at No. 16 on the UK Albums Chart, and No. 84 on the Billboard 200.

The recording of Blood & Chocolate was troubled, as the relationship between Costello and the Attractions had deteriorated during sessions for King of America.

95 liner notes

02 liner notes

Background and recording[edit]

Elvis Costello recorded his tenth studio album King of America in Los Angeles between July and September 1985.[1] A roots rock and Americana album,[2][3] it was recorded in collaboration with T Bone Burnett and various American session musicians dubbed "the Confederates".[4][5] Costello had intended for his regular backing band, the Attractions, to appear on half of the album, but by the time they arrived half of the album was already completed.[6] The Attractions were upset at their sidelining,[7] leading to tense sessions; they ultimately appeared on only one track, "Suit of Lights".[4] Released in February 1986,[5] King of America sold poorly and was Costello's first album since My Aim Is True (1977) to miss the UK top 10.[8][9] The album's poor commercial performance led Costello to write songs more akin to his early work with the Attractions, namely This Year's Model (1978) and Armed Forces (1979).[8]

An older man with glasses and gray hair
Blood & Chocolate was produced by musician Nick Lowe (pictured in 2017), who had not produced a Costello album since 1981's Trust.

Only six months after the Los Angeles sessions for King of America, Costello entered Olympic Studios in London with the Attractions—keyboardist Steve Nieve, bassist Bruce Thomas and drummer Pete Thomas (no relation)—to record an album. Musician Nick Lowe acted as producer for the first time in five years, while Colin Fairley was engineer.[10][11] Lowe was reportedly brought back due to his history with the band—he had produced Costello's first four albums with the Attractions—and his ability to capture the raw sound Costello desired for the project.[12] Costello wrote new songs using both guitar and simply beating his hands on a table to find rhythms; "Blue Chair", "I Hope You're Happy Now" and "Next Time Round" were held over from the King of America sessions.[13][14] The songs fit the simplistic style of his working relationship with the Attractions, often only featuring two or three chords. A one-off session at London's Eden Studios with Jimmy Cliff yielded a track called "Seven Day Weekend" for the film Club Paradise (1986).[13]

The recording sessions lasted from March to May 1986.[13][12] With tensions still high between Costello and the Attractions,[10] the goal was to record the tracks as quickly as possible before the animosity between Costello and the band became so severe they would have to scrap the entire project.[13] The band set up in the studio similar to a rehearsal space, reportedly up to 25 feet between the bass and drums,[14] and used monitor speakers rather than headphones, meaning there was little separation between the instruments.[11][13] Costello remembered: "This made for a booming, murky sound that made subtly impossible."[11] Author Graeme Thomson argued: "It was a unique approach, essentially like recording a live concert in a cavernous studio with a few microphones dotted around the room."[13] The album was recorded at concert-level volume in a way Costello felt suited the material.[10] The band recorded most of the songs live in first takes, taking no more than three;[13] overdubs were limited to lead or harmony vocal retakes.[11] Costello stated in 1995: "We set up and played as loud as we did on stage. It didn't really sound like This Year's Model, but the component parts were just the four of us, and we did very few overdubs. We played as much a combo sound as possible."[15]

The experience did little to ease the tensions in the band.[13] Lowe remembered it was "a much more uptight situation ... There wasn't such a gang feeling."[14] Nevertheless, Lowe admitted to encouraging the tensions, believing they "added to" the recording environment.[13] Lowe also provided acoustic guitar on several numbers. Costello used his Telecaster guitar, which he felt gave his parts "a very harsh edge".[11] He also restricted Nieve's parts to organ and piano, with zero solos.[14] Costello's then-girlfriend Cait O'Riordan, the bassist for the Pogues, was present during recording, providing backing vocals on "Poor Napoleon" and "Crimes of Paris", and co-wrote "Tokyo Storm Warning" with Costello. The band also recorded a cover of Little Willie John's "Leave My Kitten Alone" (1959), which was left off the final album.[13]

Music and lyrics[edit]

Thomson argues the album title, Blood & Chocolate, "perfectly summed up the texture of the music".[13] Departing from the roots rock of King of America,[16] Blood & Chocolate is a rock 'n' roll[12][17][18] and hard rock record,[19] with a back-to-basics[20] organ and guitar-led sound reminiscent of This Year's Model.[21][22] In his book The Words and Music of Elvis Costello, author James E. Perone describes the album as "noisy, messy, loose and at times under-rehearsed sounding".[19] The album has also been classified as new wave[23] and identified by later reviewers as featuring an early grunge sound.[24][25][26] Other writers for Stereogum said the record offers a "terrific pub-rocking gut punch".[2] Joe Pelone of punknews.org summarised: "Blood & Chocolate is a lot of things. On some tracks, it's a return to early Costello's hard charged literate punk. Sometimes it combines that with the pop sensibilities Costello cultivated over the years."[27]

Lyrically, Blood & Chocolate represents a return to the more revenge and guilt-driven lyrics of Costello's earlier releases.[19] In Blender magazine, Douglas Wolk detailed "blistering songs about sexual despair and disgust".[28][29] Several songs contain imagery drawn from nightmarish worlds, offering "surreal snatches of stories detailing the dark agonies wreaked on a tortured soul by a Love Gone Mad."[30] Thomson splits the record in two: "the repetitive, mono-rhythmic nightmares" of tracks like "Uncomplicated" and "Honey, Are You Straight or Are You Blind?"; and "the brighter pop" of tracks like "Blue Chair" and "Next Time Round".[31] On the record's original release, Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times said that "one of the album's central themes is man's capacity to endure. There are people and situations in Blood & Chocolate as dark, despairing and hopeless as those in [Bruce] Springsteen's Nebraska (1982). Still, life goes on."[32]

Side one[edit]

Album opener "Uncomplicated" utilises a "lumbering" and "brutal" beat that conveys a "feeling of monotony and claustrophobia".[33] Its lyrics, offering themes of love, disgust, revenge and passion,[33] were interpreted by Perone as detailing a relationship with a controlling man.[19] "I Hope You're Happy Now" was compared by author David Gouldstone to This Year's Model's "No Action", wherein the narrator condemns his ex-lover and her new partner.[33] Author Brian Hinton stated it is a "song of jealousy" that is "lovingly sung".[34] Perone says the instrumental performance, "a Wall of Sound-like block of rock band texture", highlights the anger of the lyrics.[19] The over six-minute "Tokyo Storm Warning" lacks a narrative, instead presenting various snapshots[11] of an apocalyptic and frightening world on the brink of collapse where people live for the moment and fail to consider consequences for their actions.[33] Hilburn interprets the track as wanting the listener to "find order and balance among the confusion and chaos".[32] The track also contains imagery detailing less-appealing aspects of 1980s society,[33] as well as images of KKK-infested Montgomery and the Malvinas.[30] Costello described the song as a "protest song".[11] Gouldstone compares the music to Chuck Berry's "Memphis" (1959).[35]

"Home Is Anywhere You Hang Your Head" features similar themes as Costello's early albums, following a man abandoned by his lover, who has rejected him.[33] Perone describes it as a conventional pop song compared to the previous track, and "less hard-hitting", drawing comparisons to "the aesthetics" of Imperial Bedroom (1982).[19] Variously described as a "slow walk"[34] and "an extended psychosexual drama",[36] "I Want You" follows the narrator's "stalker-like obsession" with his departed lover.[19] It begins quietly before growing in intensity as the narrator harbours feelings of resentment, jealousy, lust and anger towards her,[34][33] further revealing darker and more obsessive qualities over its six-minute runtime. By the end, the character's declarations of "I want you" turn into weeps,[19] closing with Costello's voice alone.[33] The track's instrumental builds to match the narrator's anger.[19] Several commentators have compared the song's setting and style to the Beatles' "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" (1969).[19][36][22]

Side two[edit]

"Honey, Are You Straight or Are You Blind?" is a rock and roll[19] and blues song[27] that is more livelier and cheerful compared to "I Want You". In it, the narrator's lover is jealous of a perceived affair between him and another woman.[34][33][19] "Blue Chair" is a power pop[27] track that Costello said took musical inspiration from Prince for its arrangement.[11] Taking place in a pub, a man informs the narrator that his lover has begun an affair with the man; the narrator is supportive rather than resentful.[33] Hinton interprets the "blue chair" as possibly "therapy, or drink, or drugged oblivion".[34] The track possesses irony, as its "light pop music setting" contrasts with the "self-pity" of the narrator. Additionally, different vocal tones between the choruses and verses offer contrasting moods.[19] "Battered Old Bird" is a personal song[34] that observes the beaten-down occupants of a run-down boarding house.[33] Costello said that it was partially based on real people from his childhood.[11] Its music features changes in volume and intensity, using various studio effects through tape manipulation.[19]

"Crimes of Paris" is a cryptic song that, as analysed by Gouldstone, dissects themes of troubled relationships with a sing-along chorus.[33] Perone likens its musical setting to UK pub rock, with its largely acoustic backing and harmony vocals between Costello and O'Riordan suggesting a live band in a pub.[19] Continuing the theme of sexual jealousy is "Poor Napoleon",[33] which follows "a proud and vain character" who finds his love "fatally compromised".[34] Hinton says O'Riordan appears as "the voice of pity".[34] it features an unconventional song structure, with the number of syllables in each line varying from verse to verse.[19] "Next Time Round", with themes of regret, anger and resentfulness,[19] is about a narrator who overhears his lover having an affair and wishes he could still have her.[34][33] A British Invasion-style rock song, Perone likens the production to the works of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band in the latter half of the 1970s.[19]

Title and packaging[edit]

The album's title, the first lyric of "Uncomplicated",[19][37][38] came from an incident that occurred on the 1977 Live Stiffs Tour when tour manager Les Brown was assaulted by some of the musicians.[39] Hilburn argued that the title "underscores the way things are often far different from their appearances: In some settings, blood and chocolate look the same."[32] Similar to King of America, Costello uses three different names to credit himself on Blood & Chocolate: his given name of Declan MacManus; his stage name of Elvis Costello; and the nickname Napoleon Dynamite, his alter ego as master of ceremonies for the Attractions' spinning songbook tour.[40] While King of America had been credited to "the Costello Show",[41] Blood & Chocolate reverts back to the former credit of Elvis Costello and the Attractions.[31] Hilburn believed the reversion to Costello's stage name was for "greater consumer recognition".[32]

The album's cover artwork is a painting by Costello himself.[31] Titled "Napoleon Dynamite",[21] it is credited to an alter ego named Eamnon Singer.[31] Author Brian Hinton says the sleeve is of Napoleon Dynamite, with the back containing photos of the band by Keith Morris, in which they are lit from the right.[39] The album uses Esperanto to list musician credits and LP sides,[19][21][39] to which Costello said in the 1995 liner notes "for reasons I can no longer remember".[11]

Release[edit]

Blood & Chocolate was released on 15 September 1986,[31] only seven months after King of America.[42] It arrived on LP, CD and cassette formats,[41] the last of which was packaged as a red and gold pastiche of a Cadbury's Bourneville bar.[39][30] Demon Records (XFIEND 80) handled its distribution in the United Kingdom (Demon IMP for its CD release), while Columbia Records (Columbia 40518) handled distribution in the United States.[41][43] It became Costello's lowest-charting album up to that point in both countries,[12] reaching number 16 in the UK and number 84 in the US.[44][45] It also reached the top 20 in the Netherlands and Sweden.[46][47] According to Costello, Columbia "hated it and subsequently just fucking buried it".[31] Blood & Chocolate would be Costello's final album with Columbia.[48]

"Tokyo Storm Warning" and "I Want You" were released as singles in August and October 1986, respectively, both through Costello's own IMP label.[a][49] The former reached number 73 in the UK,[31] his worst performing single up to that point.[50] Costello later said: "I was always surprised it wasn't a hit. But maybe releasing this and 'I Want You' – six-minute singles, back to back – wasn't the way to do it!"[51] "I Want You" later became a live favourite.[12] A new recording of "Blue Chair" was later released as a single in January 1987,[49] backed by "American Without Tears No. 2 (Twilight Version)",[52] a sequel to the King of America track.[40]

  • Costello planned an ambitious tour with both the Attractions and the Confederates—the group of American session musicians that played on King of America—in the US and Europe, intended to juxtapose the different styles on both King of America and Blood & Chocolate[31]

Except for a compilation released in the UK, Out of Our Idiot, this album would be the final release on his Demon/Columbia contract, Costello signing with Warner Brothers for his next LP, Spike.

Critical reception[edit]

Professional ratings
Initial reviews
Review scores
SourceRating
Q[53]
Record Mirror[54]
Smash Hits7/10[55]
Sounds[56]
The Village VoiceA−[57]

Blood & Chocolate received mixed-to-positive reviews on release.[12][31][58] It was acknowledged as Costello's most musically straightforward album in many years;[22][57][31] several compared its back-to-basics approach to Talking Heads' recently released Little Creatures (1985).[57][59]



Critics compared the music to Costello's early works, This Year's Model


Stuart Bailie of Record Mirror was mixed, describing it as a "predictable" record that, stands as "decent" when compared to other artists, "but we all know that this man can do a lot better."[54]

Ron Tannenbaum, Rolling Stone[59]

  • "The return isn't merely nominal: Blood & Chocolate recalls the venom of This Year's Model and the artiness of Imperial Bedroom, but the result is as tentative as Trust."
  • "For all the signature wit and wordplay of Costello's lyrics, the songs are too frequently glib or sketchy."
  • "I Want You" is "the record's one pure invention, and as good a performance as Costello has ever recorded"

Iman Lababedi, Creem[17]

  • disappointing
  • "Infinitely superior to Punch The Clock and the dreadful Goodbye Cruel World, I'd be calling B&C a return to grace if King Of America hadn't fallen in the middle. With its Grievious Angel inspired narrative, King was Costello's risky modern-folk/rock/pop masterpiece — and it woke him out of a slumber. Blood And Chocolate feels like a holding action."
  • "Soundwise, B&C is an under-produced Imperial Bedroom, mixed with the sort of brawny rock 'n' roll the Attractions haven't managed to pull off since This Year's Model."

David Browne, High Fidelity[29]

  • "Bashing out the 11 selections on Blood & Chocolate with his long-standing band, the Attractions (yet another reunion), the once and future Declan MacManus recaptures and then updates the skewed wall-of-sound pop of his 1978-79 heyday"
  • similar themes as old records: "Yet "I Hope You're Happy Now" and the entire second side (save for the drab "Poor Napoleon") reach out and grab your lapels unlike anything he has done since 1981's Trust."
  • "Throughout Blood & Chocolate, the instruments blend into one another to create a rushed, underrehearsed jumble of guitars, drums, and organs; as a result, the Attractions often sound muffled"
  • "But how many other ten-year music-biz veterans can release two albums within a year and make them both count?"


Robert Hilburn, Los Angeles Times[32]

  • "If you were a fan of Elvis Costello's late-'70s albums, from My Aim Is True through Armed Forces, the new Blood & Chocolate is the LP you've been waiting seven years for him to deliver."
  • Following years of experimentation, "[B&C] steps forward with the same consistency, passion, intensity and unbridled arrogance as Armed Forces."
  • "the album revives Costello's artistic glow so commandingly that I checked with his record company to make sure these weren't leftover tracks from the Armed Forces days"
  • "The Blood & Chocolate album title may not tell us much about Costello's attitude these days, but there is plenty of exposition in the songs themselves. In fact, Costello's artistic pulse is so alive again that the appropriate subtitle may be "Welcome Back.""

Mark Cooper, Q[53]

  • "The resulting shindig is Costello's noisiest record since Get Happy!, replete with the usual paranoiac wordplay and love stories that quickly turn to murder mysteries."
  • "for all the turbulence of the playing and the dexterity of the arrangements, Blood & Chocolate lacks both the variety and sense of surprise one looks for in a Costello LP."
  • "he is yet to replace the driven anger of his first records with either a new persona or a style of songwriting that doesn't depend on his own idiosyncratic delivery."
  • "the wordplay is too clever for many of the songs' emotional good"
  • "There are no poor numbers here but it's becoming increasingly difficult to tell a good Costello song from those that are merely run-of-the-mill."
  • "As Costello has matured, he's replaced emotion with skill. That transition is almost complete and has left his records with intermittent flashes of genius illuminating wastes of skillful shadowplay, full of sound and fury and signifying either nothing or too much. Blood & Chocolate is a good Elvis Costello record. For me that's no longer quite enough."

Smash Hits[55]

  • "The music's quite confusing too — these new songs are much more punchy, direct and angry than he's been for years, rather like the stuff he used to do back in the late '70s. Some of it is still disappointingly ordinary but in places — like the seething ballad "I Want You" — it's rather excellent."

Billboard[60] "With a mood and tempo suggestive of mid -'60s Beatles albums, rock's première troubadour has fashioned an album that is almost a pop retrospective. Yet the ambiance fails to invigorate what proves to be a lackluster batch of tunes, suggesting this album will have difficulty finding an audience beyond the faithful"

Jon Young, Musician[61]

  • "Just as King Of America signaled a return to form, the new Blood & Chocolate "celebrates" the fully recharged Elvis, brimming with vitriol. It's overwrought and choked with desperate emotions, the way you want his records to be."
  • "Costello's gift for capturing the heat of the moment has sometimes been undercut by a weakness for too many clever words, compounded by stylistic dabbling. Not on Blood & Chocolate, a horror show devoted to the coarser manifestations of romance. Lyrics are often startlingly, effectively blunt, and even literary outbursts get the point across. There's no synthetic country music, no fake soul, plenty of primal power."
  • "Costello has created his equivalent of Blonde On Blonde, crafting a series of tragicomic vignettes that bleed lyrics and melodies into one gripping whole."
  • "Nick Lowe's sonic textures prove the perfect garnish,"
  • "With his nagging, obsessive voice, he remains the compelling bigmouth who sees too much for his own good and can't keep quiet."
  • "To paraphrase a sage, he never does anything nice and easy — he always does it nice and rough. Blood & Chocolate is essential Elvis Costello."

Adrian Thrills, NME[30]

  • "Blood & Chocolate [...] is Costello's most bruisingly direct musical statement in years. Its red-raw intensity contrasts starkly with the sweeter, more humane King Of America; whether it emerges as a superior body of work will take longer than an overnight assessment to determine."
  • "Even the ballads have a dense uncompromising core, the guitar and keyboards frequently cutting discordantly across the rhythm to make Blood & Chocolate the most un-easy listening LP in the entire Costello canon. And, for all Nick Lowe's faithful adherence to the "basher" principle of recording Elvis, there is no shortage of sonic shading and syncopation."
  • "If Blood & Chocolate represents a return of sorts to the grit and bile that marked Costello's early albums, it is a welcome resurrection of a tough streak that has been underplayed since the turn of the decade. Stripped, too, of the excess musical baggage — the glossy productions and occasionally forced Americanisms — that at times leadened LPs like Punch The Clock, Goodbye Cruel World and even King Of America, this is the most stark, honest record that Costello has made since the magnificent Trust."
  • likely not earn him new fans: "for those who number themselves already among the converts, Blood & Chocolate is another fascinating LP and yet another departure."

Peter Carbonara, Spin[36]

  • "Elvis Costello is just too goddamned smart for his own good. The boy's ear for startling turns of phrase and ironic twists on banal expressions has led him to write some of the most sublimely meaningless lyrics in human history."
  • "After the relative mellow of his last record, King of America, this disc clatters and clangs along with the garage-band verve that has made Elvis and his backup band, the Attractions, the toast of skinny guys with glasses the world over. This is snide music that will no doubt provide a new generation of hapless wimps with withering comeback lines guaranteed to render all bullies speechless, if not nonviolent. In a world of bitter compromises, we ran hope for little more."
  • "The production is more stark and the Attractions less inclined to fly off on baroque tangents than usual, but Blood & Chocolate is at least a partial return to form for Elvis."


Jon Pareles, The New York Times[22]

  • "arguably Mr. Costello's best vocal performance"
  • "Mr. Costello's fans have kept predicting a pop breakthrough for him, assuming that a songwriter so intelligent, prolific and dedicated to popular music should also have hit singles. He prettied up his backup on Punch the Clock and Goodbye Cruel World, but retained his free-associating lyrics, with only moderate commercial results. Now, he has tried the opposite tack, matching aggressive music to lyrics whose message is unmistakable. It may not be a message the larger pop audience wants to hear — but it makes for a first-rate album."

Richard Cook, Sounds[56]

  • "Like rock, Costello can find no new surprises in his head, so he re-visits the haunts of old records and themes with the made energy of a creative mind in thrall to its medium. Blood & Chocolate is yet another endless, exhausting record from rock's outlaw bookworm."
  • "Nick Lowe has produced The Attractions as a polished, slumming garage band. The dominant sounds are a wrenched electric guitar and the saucepan crash of Pete Thomas. You hardly notice Steve Nieve. What can't be escaped is Costello's voice. Not quite the huge, bullying sound that it was in Imperial Bedroom, but Lowe's dry mix seems to force that grimacing, infamous sneer right into your face."
  • "For this writer, Costello's constant tumble of punchlines, brilliant talk and rapier stabs have together become a bulk that can't be broken up."

J.D. Considine, The Washington Post[20]

  • highlights anger
  • "What we have here is straight Elvis, unvarnished and unpretentious."
  • "Here, Costello seems obscure to a degree that's positively Dylanesque. Granted, the best phrases here have an impressive resonance, but it's almost impossible to puzzle out their points of reference"
  • "What makes this record work, though, is not the wordplay but the voice behind it, and that's a strength Costello exploits to the fullest."

Robert Christgau[57]

  • "To pigeonhole this as just another Elvis C. (and the Attractions) record is to ignore the plain fact that he (they) hasn't (haven't) sounded so tough- or single-minded since This Year's Model. Like Little Creatures, it's a return to basics with a decade of growth in it, and until midway through side two, when the songs start portending more than they can deliver, it's so straightforward you think he must be putting you on. But he's just voicing his pain and the world's, in that order, as usual. When the two strongest songs on a pop record run over six minutes apiece, we're talking sustained vision."


In The Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop critics poll for the year's best albums, Blood & Chocolate finished at number 9.[62] The album also placed at number three in Melody Maker's album of the year list.[b][63] NME placed it at number 13 in their end-of-year list.[64]

Legacy[edit]

In a retrospective write-up, Ultimate Classic Rock's Courtney E. Smith described Blood & Chocolate as an "end-of-an-era record".[42] Costello reported the relationship between him and the Attractions as having "soured", and after the album's supporting tour, Costello did not work with the band again for another eight years, until 1994's Brutal Youth,[10][12][40] and they were not credited on another LP cover until 1996's All This Useless Beauty.[42] Blood & Chocolate also marked Costello's final collaboration with Nick Lowe.[42]

  • After leaving Columbia, he signed a new record deal with Warner Bros., whom he released his next six albums with[12]

Perone argued that Costello's sudden departure from the roots rock of King of America to the hard rock Blood & Chocolate foreshadowed the artist's later abrupt excursions between rock, country, jazz and classical music later in his career.[19]

  • "the result is bombastic and a raw record of the band pounding away at simplistic riffs like "Uncomplicated", unwittingly predicting the sound of '90s rock production at the height of the glossy '80s."

Retrospective reviews[edit]

Professional ratings
Retrospective reviews
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[16]
Blender[28]
Chicago Tribune[65]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music[66]
Entertainment WeeklyA−[67]
Mojo[68]
punknews.org[27]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[69]

ranked as one of Costello's finest records [2][18][70]

AllMusic review, Stephen Thomas Erlewine lauded Blood & Chocolate as "lively" and "frequently compelling."[16]

  • " Elvis Costello returned to the Attractions as quickly as he abandoned them, hiring the band and old producer Nick Lowe to record Blood & Chocolate, his second record in the span of one year. Where King of America was a stripped-down roots rock affair, Blood & Chocolate is a return to the harder rock of This Year's Model. Occasionally, there are hints of country and folk, but the majority of the album is straight-ahead rock & roll: the opener, "Uncomplicated," only has two chords. The main difference between the reunion and the Attractions' earlier work is the tone – This Year's Model was tense and out of control, whereas Blood & Chocolate is controlled viciousness. "Tokyo Storm Warning," "I Hope You're Happy Now," and "I Want You" are the nastiest songs he has ever recorded, both lyrically and musically – Costello snarls the lyrics and the Attractions bash out the chords. Blood & Chocolate doesn't retain that high level of energy throughout the record, however, and loses momentum toward the end of the album. Still, it's a lively and frequently compelling reunion, even if it is a rather mean-spirited one"

Armond White of Entertainment Weekly praised it as a "blistering" and "wildly infectious" effort.[67]

Joe Pelone, punknews.org[27]

  • superior to King of America
  • "Blood & Chocolate has a warm, rustic feel to it, owing to its interest in acoustic instruments and live recording. For an '80s record, it sounds remarkably unproduced."
  • "But for all the hate and despair in lyrics, and the songs in general, Blood & Chocolate remains an infectious record, full of pop ditties and clever lines. For those reasons and more, it's a shining achievement in Costello's vast discography."


Goldmine[71]

  • "Parts of the album, notably "Uncomplicated," "I Hope You're Happy Now," and "Tokyo Storm Warning," find the band inhabiting the same musical milieu as This Year's Model for the first and last time, and all are among Costello's finest tracks. Overall, the album was/is genuinely excellent, too."
  • "A very worthy if not essential reissue."

Thomson

  • "as an extended mood piece it worked brilliantly, but Blood & Chocolate required an element of faith from the listener"[31]
  • "easily the starkest record Elvis had made"[31]

Q 1995[72]

  • "the record has a weight and energy that was sorely lacking from much of the post-Attractions work that followed and is testament to the controlled power of their garage band sound."

Mojo 1995[73]

  • "The seven extra tracks on Blood & Chocolate do little but distract from the long dark night of what's gone before, the cruellest, most cheerless of this hard nut's hard-luck storybooks."

Mojo 2002[74]

  • "The voice is huskier, the sound more claustrophobic, the songs longer. This was a session designed, perhaps, to alert fans who'd wandered off during his flirtations with synth-pop, Americana and crap, that EC could still nail a squirming aphorism to a big stick and wave it about purposefully."
  • "Awesome in places, the band's diminished enthusiasm is often audible, the claustrophobia's genuinely uncomfortable, and this time much of the hatred is directed inward."
  • "The album's fame rests on its two six-minute-plus singles the ranting "Tokyo Storm Warning" and the panting "I Want You"."

Gouldstone disappointed: lack of innovation/progression from previous works[21]

  • calls it Costello's worst alongside Goodbye Cruel World, stating they "both suffer from being the product of an overworked and temporarily threadbare inspiration"[75]

Perone calls the first side notably superior to the second; believes the instrumental work stylistically fits the material; album does not live up to its full potential with an inferior second side[19]

Stereogum: "The resultant tour-de-force is one of the artist's best and surliest rock albums,"[2]

The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[76] In 2000 it was voted number 475 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's book All Time Top 1000 Albums.[77] In 2013, NME placed the album at number 483 in their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[78]

Reissues[edit]

Professional ratings
2002 reissue
Review scores
SourceRating
Q[79]
Uncut[80]

with a reissue, courtesy of Rykodisc Records in the US and Demon Records in the UK, arriving nine years later with six bonus tracks, including the 1987 single version of "Blue Chair" recorded during the King of America sessions. A 10,000-copy limited-edition version of this release came with a bonus disc entitled An Overview Disc, consisting of a 78-minute interview with Peter Doggett, conducted on 21 July 1995, in which Costello and Doggett discuss his career and releases up to 1986. Five of the six Rykodisc bonus tracks, minus "A Town Called Big Nothing", along with ten others, appeared as the second disc to the double-disc Rhino Records reissue in 2002.[81]

Erlewine; reissue[81]

  • lamented the removal of two bonus tracks from the Rykodisc reissue
  • praised it as the having a very strong bonus disc: "That said, this is probably the best bonus disc of all of the second set of Rhino reissues, with a wide range of strong B-sides (such as the terrific Jimmy Cliff duet, "Seven Day Weekend"), good unreleased songs, covers (a good version of "Pouring Water on a Drowning Man," another raving version of "Leave My Kitten Alone") and, best of all, alternate versions of songs that actually offer a different interpretation instead of a tentative first foot forward. Plus, there's enough different, new, and excellent here to make it worth a purchase for those who already have the Ryko (even the notes are different)"

Blood & Chocolate was reissued again on CD, with no bonus tracks, in June 2007 by Hip-O Records and Universal Music Group.[82] An LP reissue by UMe followed in November 2015, again with no bonus tracks.[83]

Track listing[edit]

All tracks written by Declan MacManus (Elvis Costello) except as noted;[43] track timings taken from Rhino 2002 reissue.[40]

Side one: Flanko Uno

  1. "Uncomplicated" – 3:28
  2. "I Hope You're Happy Now" – 3:07
  3. "Tokyo Storm Warning" (MacManus, Cait O'Riordan) – 6:25
  4. "Home Is Anywhere You Hang Your Head" – 5:07
  5. "I Want You" – 6:45

Side two: Flanko Du

  1. "Honey, Are You Straight or Are You Blind?" – 2:09
  2. "Blue Chair" – 3:42
  3. "Battered Old Bird" – 5:51
  4. "Crimes of Paris" – 4:20
  5. "Poor Napoleon" – 3:23
  6. "Next Time Round" – 3:28

Personnel[edit]

According to the liner notes,[84] except where noted:

Additional personnel

Technical

  • Nick Lowe – producer
  • Colin Fairley – engineer
  • Eamonn Singer (Elvis Costello) – cover painting
  • Keith Morris – photography
  • Michael Krage – design

Charts[edit]

Chart performance for Blood & Chocolate
Chart (1986) Peak
Position
Dutch Albums (MegaCharts)[46] 19
Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan)[47] 12
UK Albums Chart[85] 16
US Billboard Top Pop Albums[86] 84

Certifications[edit]

Sales certifications for Blood & Chocolate
Region Certification Certified units/sales
United Kingdom (BPI)[87] Gold 100,000^

^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ The 7" singles featured both tracks split into two parts across the A-side and B-side. For the 12" formats, the outtake "Black Sails in the Sunset" was the B-side for "Tokyo Storm Warning", while "I Hope You're Happy Now" was the B-side for "I Want You".[49]
  2. ^ Costello's second 1986 album, King of America, placed at number five.

References[edit]

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  2. ^ a b c d Nelson, Elizabeth; Bracy, Timothy (24 March 2021). "Elvis Costello Albums From Worst To Best". Stereogum. Archived from the original on 22 January 2022. Retrieved 1 March 2022.
  3. ^ Lundy, Zeth (2 June 2005). "Elvis Costello: King of America". PopMatters. Archived from the original on 29 May 2023. Retrieved 29 July 2023.
  4. ^ a b Thomson 2004, pp. 222–227.
  5. ^ a b Gottlieb, Jed (21 February 2021). "How Elvis Costello Reinvented Himself on 'King of America'". Ultimate Classic Rock. Archived from the original on 24 February 2023. Retrieved 29 July 2023.
  6. ^ Costello, Elvis (1995). King of America (reissue) (CD liner notes). Elvis Costello. US: Rykodisc. RCD 20281.
  7. ^ Thomson 2004, p. 220.
  8. ^ a b Thomson 2004, pp. 232–235.
  9. ^ Staunton, Terry (June 2005). "King of America: The Costello Show". Record Collector. No. 311.
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Sources[edit]

External links[edit]

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