My birthday this year was seasoned with delight by my receipt of the new Elvis Costello album Secret, Profane, and Sugarcane. This ration of sugared seasoning was enhanced by Mr. Costello's apropos mention of my hometown Poughkeepsie, NY, when in the track "Sulfur to Sugarcane," he spits: "The women in Poughkeepsie take their clothes off when they're tipsy." As a lifelong resident of the area, I feel slighted that I've never witnessed this phenomenon myself, but I assume his observation is accurate.
While listening through the album, enjoying its fine production (provided by legendary producer T-Bone Burnett) and stripped-down, bluesy shuffle, I found it to be one of the easier listens of Costello's recent releases, not that albums like The Delivery Man, North, or Momofuku are especially challenging, but this one plays through straight and smooth with little by the way of surprise, and with a steady hand in instrumentation that is uncharacteristic of the usually varied Costello productions. The songs carry all the charm and sophistication that we've come to expect, bundled up in a tasteful, inoffensive package that marks an alteration of sorts with its mellow sheen and unfailing consistence. Turning into my driveway, listening and mulling through such thoughts, I thought I'd sit and listen to another tune before turning off the power and walking inside. While listening I squinted at the small print at the bottom of the package, in accordance with habit, and found that Starbucks! is responsible for the release of this album.
I boiled over with the typical rage and indignation I feel when I discover art I enjoy is supported by amoral tyrannical corporations, but this subsided quickly, as I recall that I've never heard a note of Costello's music that hasn't been filtered through a major label, aside, perhaps, from the one time I saw him and the Imposters live, although even this is questionable, for the great amount of capital needed to produce a concert on that level needs the support of a fairly large business. Also, Starbucks is a corporation I know little about, though I have seen them put a number of small coffeeshops out of business, but not by undercutting prices, but rather partly because people like it and also because it seems that in the current cultural climate, in which PR reigns supreme in individual decision making, many people favor recognized brands over local or regional allies. But, as I like to say, corporate greed is redundant.
Then it dawned on me. What I was listening to was a soundtrack made precisely for play inside an actual Starbucks, to create the ambiance of a genuine coffeeshop amid the typical machinations of mass production, something Starbucks does remarkably well. And if anything is redeeming about this whole thing, it's that Costello is doing the same thing here that he did when he signed on the dotted line in the mid-70's--he's bringing his impeccable talents to where the most people are. The only regrettable thing here is that everyone crowds into a Starbucks while the locals' brew goes stale, and the songs of someone who I personally idolize has helped bring them there. Hopefully there's a kid, dragged in by his parents, who hears that entirely unique voice, and goes home, does some internet research, and pulls a dusty copy of This Year's Model out of his parents' record bin before it is devoured by fungi.
