Pitchfork

Back in the midst of the Thatcher era, it must have been startling to see Elvis Costello staring back from the 12-inch-by-12-inch black-and-white LP cover of King of America, looking much older than the young rabble-rouser on the cover of 1983's Punch the Clock. Instead of the enormous Buddy Holly specs that had been his trademark for years, he continues to sport a pair of understated wire-rimmed spectacles that-- along with that facial hair-- lend his visage a grave, almost academic air. Bedecked with an ornate crown and an embroidered jacket, he hides his recognizable features behind a bushy beard, and his weary eyes manage a wary look.

More surprises awaited eager listeners: On the spine, the artist was listed not as Elvis Costello and the Attractions, but, more puzzlingly, as the Costello Show. Similarly, the songs were credited to Declan Patrick Aloysius MacManus, the acoustic guitar parts to The Little Hands of Concrete. In fact, the name Elvis Costello was barely mentioned in the packaging at all, as if MacManus needed a vacation from his alter ego.

These oddities heralded an even more dramatic change within the vinyl grooves. King of America was MacManus's first album without the Attractions since his debut (they appear on only one track, "Suit of Lights"). Instead, through co-producer T-Bone Burnett, he had corralled a strong roster of impressively pedigreed studio musicians (he calls them "my jazz and R&B heroes" in the new liner notes) that includes Jim Keltner, Mitchell Froom, and Tom "T-Bone" Wolk, as well as Ron Tutt, Jerry Scheff, and James Burton from Elvis Presley's T.C.B. band. They lent the songs a professional albeit occasionally slick feel and helped MacManus realize his country and R&B ambitions.

What wasn't different, however, was the barbed wit and acid humor that infuse songs like "Glitter Gulch", "Jack of All Parades", and "Brilliant Mistake". Costello's career to this date is often idealized as perfectly angry-- Costello the scourge-- but it contains a very human number of mistakes and miscalculations committed, on his own admission, by a very confident artist and a very confused man. The 31-year-old singer's anger and outrage had been diluted with disappointment and experience: the band was in turmoil and on the verge of breaking up (and would after one more album); MacManus's marriage had recently ended; he had been playing innumerable live shows to counter legal woes; his previous album, GoodBye Cruel World, had been a flop (he refers to it as his worst).

The result of all this angst is a complex and conflicted album that, despite all the spit and polish, sounds lively and raucous. Intense romantic embitterment informs the wordplay of "Lovable", the willful caution in "Poisoned Rose", and the extended metaphor of "Indoor Fireworks", which is all the more devastating for MacManus's straight-faced delivery. Likewise, the idea of America-- his adopted homeland, if only temporarily-- simultaneously repulses and attracts him. On the powerful "American Without Tears", he compares his own loneliness and alienation with that of two World War II G.I. brides, as Jo-El Sonnier's accordion plays over the chorus.

Not knowing exactly what to do with such a bristly, ruminative album, Columbia Records unenthusiastically released the cover of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" as the first single, then promptly forgot about King of America, as did most listeners. A proper (and final) Elvis Costello and the Attractions album, Blood & Chocolate, was released before the year was out (on which Costello credited himself as Napoleon Dynamite). Rykodisc unearthed King of America almost a decade later, and Rhino is reviving it two decades later as the final installment in its ambitious and generous reissue project. While many of the 21 bonus tracks-- including the A- and B-sides of "The People's Limousine" / "They'll Never Take Her Love from Me" by the Coward Brothers, Costello's side project with T-Bone Burnett-- were included on the Rykodisc version, the real finds on this edition are the seven live tracks from one of MacManus's few shows with the King of America band. They fare respectably on the album track "The Big Light", but the band, especially guitarist Burton, blaze through covers by Waylon Jennings, Mose Allison, and Buddy Holly.

King of America may not have sounded like anything else Costello had done before, but it bears a striking, even disheartening, semblance to almost everything he's done since. In the ensuing years he has worked hard to excerpt himself from the British punk movement and to indulge his obsession with prepunk styles like classical (The Juliet Letters, Il Sogno), cocktail-lounge jazz (North), country (The Delivery Man), and Brill Building pop (Painted From Memory). This musical restlessness-- along with almost everything the middle-aged Costello has been criticized for, such as his practiced delivery, his overly calculated songwriting, and his obsession with backing musicians and collaborators-- has roots in King of America, his first and finest assertion that he has a life apart from the Attractions. For many who were initially baffled by that cover image of MacManus, this album is the beginning of a long downfall; for others, it's merely Act II in a very long, very prolific career that is unusual for having so much buried treasure.