Goodbye Cruel World (1984)

Goodbye Cruel World (1984)

Elvis is a notoriously astute critic of his own music, and those who have bought the Ryko (and later Rhino) reissues of his work might have found themselves greeted in the liner notes with the following quote from the artist himself: “Congratulations, you have just purchased our worst album!” It’s an honest assessment and perhaps a true one, but belies the few moments of exceptional brilliance on an otherwise moribund release: the hard-won menace of “The Deportees Club” and the even more hard-won humanity of “Peace In Our Time.” Still this is Costello at his must incongruent in terms of sound and vision. Following a brilliant run, a radical rethink was in order.