The Major and the Minor

Our hero isn't always so glum: In the irresistible "O Maria," he declares that "the fabric of folly is falling apart at the seams" in the full knowledge that the image is more than a little ridiculous. But at the same time, he doesn't exactly knock himself out trying to entertain his loyal followers, which is why the David Geffen Company is promoting the album with all the enthusiasm of Newt Gingrich at a Bob Livingston rally. Nonetheless, there's something cheering about Beck's refusal to get with the program. Throughout Mutations, he dares to be quixotic--and in a scene with plenty of followers but precious few leaders, that's a very good thing.

Elvis Costello, once the brashest of blokes, has become one of the most self-conscious artists in music. He no longer writes songs because he must--because he's got to get them out or perish in the process. Rather, he dabbles in conceptualization in an effort to please forty-plus reviewers who keep their snoots permanently raised (or younger scribes who merely think like them). He struck the mother lode in this regard when he hooked up with Burt Bacharach, an aging tunesmith whose rich but cheesy melodies have recently been rediscovered by journalists too cool to admit liking them the first time around. The partnership profited both parties: It allowed Costello to place himself on the popular pantheon alongside the Broadway/Tin Pan Alley divinity even as it freed Bacharach from the campy trap that he'd stepped into via his cameo in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.

Unfortunately, the promise of "God Give Me Strength," a first-rate song Costello and Bacharach penned for the soundtrack of the semi-flop Grace of My Heart, is not fulfilled by Painted From Memory, an album that's as pretentious as it is disappointing. Bacharach at his best gives pop a patina of seriousness, but here Costello reverses the equation, emphasizing Significance at the expense of hooks. Not one of the tunes is up-tempo, and the medium-speed introductions to "Tears at the Birthday Party" and "Such Unlikely Lovers" slow down considerably before long. Worse, the arrangements mistake lounge instrumentation for suavity, thereby serving as an uncomfortable reminder of Bacharach's "Arthur's Theme" period. And while Costello tries to create lyrics that are less verbose than those for which he's known, the strain is as obvious as when he's puckering his sphincter in an effort to hit notes that are just beyond his natural range. Bacharach's ability to make a hackneyed melody seem tonier than it should hasn't left him yet, but rummaging around for such moments on this disc is far more trouble than it's worth.

The emotionality of Plush's More You Becomes You only accentuates the shortcomings of Painted From Memory. Liam Hayes, the vocalist/pianist/ organist who's the sole member of this one-man band, has a taste for all things Bacharachian, but he knows better than to slather the songs in muted cornets, background warbling or other studio goop. The title cut, "Virginia," "(See it in the) Early Morning" and a two-partner dubbed "The Party" are lo-fi in the extreme, putting no barriers between Hayes's unaffected voice and the people at whom he's directing it. The words he sings may not seem all that profound on the page (e.g., "I feel I'm ignoring/My time in the world," from "Soaring and Boring"), but the relaxed intensity he pours into them doesn't lack for juice. More You Becomes You is an irresistibly morose valentine from an artist driven by a passion that Costello can no longer even simulate.

Marilyn Manson
Mechanical Animals
(Nothing)

Manson has never shied away from appropriating other people's shticks, but this CD is his most audacious act of thievery yet. The cover shot, in which Marilyn appears as a nude, paler-than-pale anthropoid, is such a David Bowie ripoff that I assumed even he wouldn't attempt to match it musically. How wrong I was: Mechanical Animals is so obviously Manson's distillation of Bowie's aliens-and-outer-space years that the former Ziggy Stardust deserves royalty payments. Maybe Marilyn figured that since Bowie isn't using this particular persona anymore, it was available.