SFJ recently wrote some kind words about Elvis Costello's "Trust". At least I think they were kind words; with SFJ it's not always easy to tell. The funny thing is, around the same time I found myself listening to it as well, something I haven't done for a number of years (it's easy, but wrong, to allow the bad memory of later Elvis's frequently misguided projects to obscure the fact that with "Get Happy!!", "Trust", "Almost Blue" and "Imperial Bedroom" he was responsible for possibly the strongest four-album run we've ever seen; and the three albums he put out before those were no slouches either).
Coincidence? Or something else? What drew me back to "Trust" was a solid stint of listening to "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga" [do you know how hard that is to type?], the new album by Spoon, which clearly, although exactly why I'm not sure, puts me in mind of Elvis's golden era. SFJ in his New Yorker column recently wrote about that album. Was he hearing what I was hearing? I guess we will never know.
But what I do know is that even though it's still September (and yes I know there's a new Manu Chao [put away for Adrienne's birthday] and shortly a new Jens Lekman) I am prepared to say that I do not expect to hear a better album this year than "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga". And I also know that a year that produces "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga", and Wilco's "Sky Blue Sky", cannot be a Bad Year For Music.
