Keep The Faith: Elvis Costello Soundtrack Album

He might be calling his memoir – and attendant “soundtrack album” – Unfaithful Music, but, on the evidence of the 38 tracks collected to highlight aspects of the book, Elvis Costello’s output has been unimpeachably loyal.
And not only to the man himself: from the elegiac pleading of ‘Alison’, from Costello’s 1977 debut, My Aim Is True, to the heightened drama of ‘Wise Up Ghost’, the title track from his 2013 collaboration with The Roots (an album that surprised on paper, but absolutely astounded in practice) every song on the 2-CD collection taps into something elemental for anyone who’s lived through ups and downs, heartbreaks and indignations – and subjected themselves to their own thorough examinations of the self. In short, Unfaithful Music & Soundtrack Album isn’t just a companion piece to Costello’s book, it’s a soundtrack to the emotional landscape of virtually everyone on the planet.
Three “audio book sketches” of pieces that didn’t make it into the finished memoir, read by Elvis Costello himself, further claims for his polymusicality. Covering Paul McCartney, LA’s infamous Whiskey A Go Go, Lou Adler and an audacious, orchestra-enhanced turn at London’s Royal Albert Hall, the closing picture is of a man devoted to the music. Which is, of course, exactly what earned him a faithful following in the first place.

