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Elvis Costello / All This Useless Beauty coloured vinyl reissue

1996 album with The Attractions

By Paul Sinclair

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Elvis Costello’s 1996 album All This Useless Beauty is to be reissued as a limited edition coloured vinyl pressing next month.

Originally conceived as a collection of songs for other artists, the record ended up being recorded by Costello and The Attractions. ‘Complicated Shadows’, for example, was intended for Johnny Cash. There are four songs which did get released by other artists: ‘The Other End Of The Telescope’ was co-written with Aimee Mann; ‘You Bowed Down’ was recorded by Roger McGuinn; ‘All This Useless Beauty’ and ‘I Want To Vanish’ was recorded by June Tabor.

The theme was extended even further at the time when a series of limited edition CD singles were issued with bonus tracks that saw bands like Sleeper and Lush covering tracks from All This Useless Beauty.

The album was also notable in that it was the final studio album by either Paul McCartney or Elvis Costello to be released with song from the McCartney/MacManus sessions; ‘Shallow Grave’ starts side two.

All This Useless Beauty is available to pre-order as a limited edition (of 2500) individually numbered copies on gold coloured vinyl. It is released on 14 October 2022 via Music On Vinyl. Pre-order this release via the SDE shop using this link or the buttons below.

Tracklisting

All This Useless Beauty Elvis Costello /

    • Side A
      1. The Other End Of The Telescope
      2. Little Atoms
      3. All This Useless Beauty
      4. Complicated Shadows
      5. Why Can’t A Man Stand Alone?
      6. Distorted Angel
    • Side B
      1. Shallow Grave
      2. Poor Fractured Atlas
      3. Starting To Come To Me
      4. You Bowed Down
      5. It’s Time
      6. I Want To Vanish

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5 Comments

5 thoughts on “Elvis Costello / All This Useless Beauty coloured vinyl reissue”

  1. I’m really interested in this one , especially after looking at the prices on discogs for the original vinyl , can anyone share their thoughts on this series of vinyl reissues, spike , mighty like a rose etc regarding sound and pressing quality . Costello himself has been pretty disparaging about these warners reissues saying if he had been asked by the label for input he would have suggested that were double albums . When you look at the length of this record I’m a bit worried that its pushing it to get it on two sides of vinyl

  2. This is the one I’ve been waiting for.
    Still one of my favourite EC albums ever – but most of his fans probably disagree.
    I remember that reviews were not overly enthusiastic ( – there was a wonderful review by the American film critic Stephanie Zacharek though). A lot of people were still longing for the early Attractions style at that time, I guess.
    Anyway – many gorgeous songs, beautiful, warm production and Elvis in excellent voice throughout.

    I’m not too crazy about the gold, so I might wait for the black version. They released Brutal Youth on black vinyl after the initial red batch, so I assume they will do that with the other albums as well. The gold looked best in combination with the Mighty Like A Rose artwork. Black is actually a great colour for All This Useless Beauty.

    1. MOV already released the black vinyl version of All This Useless Beauty in 2014. https://www.discogs.com/release/6060544-Elvis-Costello-The-Attractions-All-This-Useless-Beauty . They might do it again, but so far none of the other colour-vinyl reissues have been followed up by a black one (except for, like you say, the first one: Brutal Youth). I wouldn’t count on it, because it’s my impression that the sale of these MOV EC LPs is flagging. (copies are on the shelves much longer. Superdeluxe Paul is still offering recent ones for sale, whereas the earliest ones sold out almost immediately). That aside, I agree: All This Uselless Beauty is a splendid album, something quite special that stands apart from his other albums (though I still think Bruce’s abilities were criminally underused on it). And while I’m at it: I also agree that gold is a poor choice! Black would suit it, but if they’d gone for a colour, some tawny brown would have been the obvious (and prefered) option!

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