Brutal Youth

Brutal Youth is an album by Elvis Costello, released in 1994.[12][13] This album contains the first recordings Costello made with his band the Attractions since Blood and Chocolate (1986). About half the album features a band consisting of Costello (guitar), Steve Nieve (keyboards) and Pete Thomas (drums) with Nick Lowe (not a member of the Attractions) on bass. Costello himself plays bass on two tracks (2 and 8), and the complete Attractions line-up (Nieve, Pete Thomas and Bruce Thomas on bass) appears with Costello on tracks 3, 4, 6, 9 and 10.

For the 2014 novel, see Anthony Breznican.

Brutal Youth
Studio album by
Elvis Costello
Released8 March 1994
Recorded7 December 1992 – 7 February 1994
StudioOlympic Studios, London, England
Genre
Length56:55
LabelWarner Bros.
ProducerMitchell Froom and Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello chronology
Live at the El Mocambo
(1993)		 Brutal Youth
(1994)		 The Very Best of Elvis Costello and The Attractions 1977-86
(1994)
Singles from Brutal Youth
  1. "Sulky Girl"
    Released: February 1994
  2. "13 Steps Lead Down"
    Released: April 1994
  3. "You Tripped at Every Step"
    Released: July 1994
  4. "London's Brilliant Parade"
    Released: November 1994
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[1]
Blender[2]
Chicago Tribune[3]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music[4]
Entertainment WeeklyB−[5]
Los Angeles Times[6]
NME9/10[7]
Q[8]
Rolling Stone[9]
Uncut[10]
Vox8/10[11]

Brutal Youth was the third, and most recent of Costello's albums, to peak at number two in the UK Albums Chart, following on from Armed Forces (1979) and Get Happy!! (1980).[14]

Content

Costello began writing the material for Brutal Youth after writing a set of pop punk songs for Wendy James' 1993 album Now Ain't the Time for Your Tears. Under the working title Idiophone (named for an instrument "made of naturally sonorous material"),[15] Costello began recording these songs at Pathway Studios with former Attractions drummer Pete Thomas; he explained in a 1994 interview, "To be honest with you, I have to admit that I had decided to do this record all by myself. But then I had to face this reality: I'll never be a drummer. So I called Pete."[16] Ultimately, Costello found the minimalist sound at Pathway, where he recorded My Aim Is True, to be limiting, moving recording to Olympic Studios.

Upon arriving at Olympic, Costello recruited another ex-Attraction, keyboardist Steve Nieve, as well as former producer Nick Lowe on bass guitar. Though this arrangement, informally nicknamed "the Distractions",[17] performed on a significant portion of the album, Lowe bowed out on tracks that he felt required a more melodic and complex style of playing than he could provide.[15] At the urging of producer Mitchell Froom, who had been a fan of the Attractions, Costello recruited the final missing Attraction, Bruce Thomas, who had worked on other records with Froom at the time. Thomas and Costello had the most fraught relationship of all the former bandmates, making Costello initially hesitant to make the call:

The extension of using Mitchell was that he'd been working with Bruce Thomas, and it smoothed the process of getting back with him. I probably wouldn't have made that call if it had been down to me. But once we met up at a party at Pete Thomas's, we got along fine, and it seemed a natural thing to use him.

Nick has this great pretence that he can't play anything with more than five chords in it. I wouldn't say he's lazy about things, it's just that he prefers songs where he can get a groove figure that goes through all the chord changes. Bruce loves the challenge of trying to thread the same sort of line through a more complex set of changes. That's the difference in their approach. Some songs suited Nick, some Bruce, and in between I ended up playing bass on "Kinder Murder," and the bridge of "Just About Glad," just because the amateur approach seemed to be appropriate.[18]

Although only five songs on the album feature the full Attractions line-up, Brutal Youth was marketed as an Attractions reunion album, Costello sought to dispel notions that the album was a retro pastiche and that the reunion was a bid for commercial relevance. He commented, "It was a lazy way out — I think everybody at the company recognises that now. We were going through the beginnings of the recent upheaval, the corporate insanity at Warners, which affected everything at the company. It gave the troops of the company much less leeway to be creative. Therefore they grabbed hold of the one thing they saw as a saleable feature, which was, hey, the band is back, and they're rockin'! It's a bit of a simplification."[18]

Critical reception

Trouser Press wrote: "Throughout, deft instrumental touches, superb singing and the easy confidence of a still-competitive athlete returning to the scene of his greatest triumph make this another effortless win."[19] In The Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop critics poll for the year's best albums, Brutal Youth finished at #31.[20]

It was among the six Costello albums featured in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Track listing

All songs by Declan MacManus unless otherwise indicated.

  1. "Pony St." – 3:25
  2. "Kinder Murder" – 3:25
  3. "13 Steps Lead Down" – 3:16
  4. "This Is Hell" – 4:27
  5. "Clown Strike" – 4:05
  6. "You Tripped at Every Step" – 4:12
  7. "Still Too Soon to Know" – 2:19
  8. "20% Amnesia" – 3:26
  9. "Sulky Girl" – 5:07
  10. "London's Brilliant Parade" – 4:23
  11. "My Science Fiction Twin" – 4:10
  12. "Rocking Horse Road" – 4:03
  13. "Just About Glad" – 3:14
  14. "All the Rage" – 3:52
  15. "Favourite Hour" – 3:31

Bonus disc (2002 Rhino)
  1. "Life Shrinks" – 3:37
  2. "Favourite Hour" (Church Studios Version) – 3:32
  3. "This Is Hell" (Church Studios Version) – 4:10
  4. "Idiophone" – 1:58
  5. "Abandon Words" – 2:55
  6. "Poisoned Letter" – 3:48
  7. "A Drunken Man's Praise of Sobriety" (MacManus, William Butler Yeats) – 1:08
  8. "Pony St." (Bonaparte Rooms Version) – 3:36
  9. "Just About Glad" (Bonaparte Rooms Version) – 3:41
  10. "Clown Strike" (Bonaparte Rooms Version) – 4:19
  11. "Rocking Horse Road" (Demo) – 3:18
  12. "13 Steps Lead Down" (Demo) – 2:07
  13. "All the Rage" (Demo) – 3:38
  14. "Sulky Girl" (Demo) – 4:31
  15. "You Tripped at Every Step" (Church Studios Version) – 3:25

B-sides (available on the 13 Steps Lead Down EP)
  1. "Puppet Girl"
  2. "Basement Kiss"
  3. "We Despise You"

"London's Brilliant Parade (EP)"
  • "London's Brilliant Parade"
  • "Sweet Dreams"
  • "The Loved Ones"
  • "From Head to Toe"[14]

Personnel
The Attractions

with:

Charts

Album

Year Chart Position
1994 Billboard 200 34
1994 UK Albums Chart 2

Singles and EP

Year Song Chart Position
1994 "13 Steps Lead Down" Billboard Modern Rock Tracks 6
1994 "13 Steps Lead Down" UK Singles Chart[14] 59
1994 "Sulky Girl" UK Singles Chart[14] 22
1994 "London's Brilliant Parade (EP)" UK Singles Chart[14] 48

Cultural depictions

Elvis Costello appeared on "People's Choice", a 1994 episode of The Larry Sanders Show, playing himself and promoting Brutal Youth; he and the Attractions play a live version of "13 Steps Lead Down."[21][22]

References
  1. Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Brutal Youth – Elvis Costello". AllMusic. Archived from the original on 8 May 2014. Retrieved 9 May 2014.
  2. Wolk, Douglas (March 2005). "Elvis Costello: Brutal Youth". Blender. Archived from the original on 4 February 2005. Retrieved 18 March 2017.
  3. Kot, Greg (6 March 1994). "Three Discs Worth Waiting For". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on 9 July 2017. Retrieved 18 March 2017.
  4. Larkin, Colin (2011). "Costello, Elvis". The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th concise ed.). London: Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0-85712-595-8.
  5. Browne, David (18 March 1994). "Brutal Youth". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on 19 March 2017. Retrieved 18 March 2017.
  6. Willman, Chris (6 March 1994). "Elvis Costello 'Brutal Youth' Warner Bros". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 14 December 2020. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  7. Quantick, David (5 March 1994). "Long Play: Brutal Recall". NME. p. 52.
  8. Maconie, Stuart (April 1994). "Reassuring". Q. No. 91. p. 104.
  9. O'Connor, Rob (24 March 1994). "Brutal Youth". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 19 March 2017. Retrieved 18 March 2017.
  10. Roberts, Chris (April 2002). "Sweet Nerd of Youth". Uncut. No. 59.
  11. Humphries, Patrick (March 1994). "Elvis Costello: Brutal Youth". Vox. No. 42.
  12. Tucker, Ken (13 March 1994). "RECORDINGS VIEW; Elvis Costello, a Shrewd Pop Pro Pushing 40". Archived from the original on 14 December 2020. Retrieved 19 June 2020 – via NYTimes.com.
  13. "DeLorean: Elvis Costello - Brutal Youth (1994)". Tiny Mix Tapes. Archived from the original on 21 June 2020. Retrieved 19 June 2020.
  14. Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19th ed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. pp. 122–3. ISBN 1-904994-10-5.
  15. Brutal Youth (Liner notes). Elvis Costello. 2002.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  16. Zermati, Marc; Manoeuvre, Phillippe (April 1994). "Elvis and virtue". Rock & Folk (320).
  17. Ratliff, Connor. "Nick Lowe then joined EC & Pete & Steve, playing bass on 7 of the album's 15 tracks This line-up was dubbed "The Distractions" and they opened the album with "Pony St." (a song with EC overtly playing characters, much as he had on The Juliet Letters):". Twitter. Retrieved 24 February 2023.
  18. Doggett, Peter (October 1995). "Elvis Costello: The Record Collector Interview, Part 2". Record Collector. 194.
  19. "Elvis Costello". Archived from the original on 19 June 2020. Retrieved 19 June 2020.
  20. "The 1994 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll". The Village Voice. 28 February 1995. Archived from the original on 10 August 2020. Retrieved 12 November 2020.
  21. Ryan, Kyle. "The Larry Sanders Show: "People's Choice"/"Hank's Night In The Sun"". TV Club. Archived from the original on 15 August 2019. Retrieved 15 August 2019.
  22. Pollock, Bruce (18 March 2014). Rock Song Index: The 7500 Most Important Songs for the Rock and Roll Era. Routledge. ISBN 9781135462963. Archived from the original on 14 December 2020. Retrieved 2 October 2020 – via Google Books.
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