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Working class struggle of Thatcherite Britain embodied within a sneering young man. Unconventional lyricist composing with an honest pen — unconfined.

$Time for another round of Watching the Wednesdays with Elvis Costello..and this week we’ve reached an album that sounds like everybody involved walked into the studio already like REALLY pissed off. 😂 Blood & Chocolate is messy, loud, bitter and uncomfortable in ways Elvis USUALLY had enough control to disguise. Here he practically lets the seams show..and the timing makes it even more fascinating. Elvis had released King of America only seven months earlier..largely working without the Attractions and exploring American roots music with T Bone Burnett. Then he reunited with Steve Nieve, Bruce Thomas and Pete Thomas..brought original producer Nick Lowe back..and went charging in the opposite direction. The recording sessions for the album were deliberately primitive. The band played together in a huge room at nearly concert volume..using monitors instead of headphones and allowing the instruments to bleed everywhere. With tensions between Elvis and Bruce Thomas already getting ugly..there was an urgency to capturing performances quickly..and you can HEAR that friction alllll over this record. Uncomplicated starts the whole thing with basically two chords and pure force. I Hope You’re Happy Now turns romantic bitterness into something almost gleefully nasty..while I Want You is downright unsettling. Six-plus minutes of obsession, jealousy and emotional collapse turned into one of the legit CREEPIEST love songs ever committed to tape. Commercially Blood & Chocolate struggled..and the Attractions essentially fractured afterward. Elvis wouldn’t make another full album with them until the ’90s..but that’s KINDA what makes this one even more compelling now. They were just falling apart..and somehow all that tension ended up permanently embedded in the music. In the end Blood & Chocolate sounds like four people pushing against each other so hard that sparks started flying..and it’s quite something to hear. #ElvisCostello #WatchingTheWednesdays #BloodAndChocolate #VinylCollector #Vinyl$

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