Elvis Costello is the most unlikely of pop stars.  While many rock stars in the late 70's had big hair and tight fitting pants, this nerdy looking guy unapologetically wears a cheap suit and black thick-rimmed Buddy Holly glasses.  Saddled with the unwieldily and terribly unsexy name Declan Patrick MacManus at birth, he had the hutzpa to appropriate Elvis Presly's first name (along with his mother's maiden name) to create his stage persona.  Yet this odd looking performer created some classic albums by mixing Punk's anger with pop sensibilities.  His fast songs spoke directly to teen angst while also giving the youths something to dance to.  Rhino has released Costello's early records in restored 2-disc CDs, and now they have come out with the perfect companion to these albums; a collection of the music videos that were made to promote his records.  The Right Spectacle:  The Very Best of Elvis Costello - The videos is a fun compilation of videos to many of Elvis' best songs.

The disc starts with the first videos that Costello and his backup band The Attractions recorded.  Filmed in one day, (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea and Pump It Up are followed by Radio, Radio which was recorded about a month later but had the same look as the first pair.  These three are from Costello's second album, This Year's Model.  (Okay, okay.  I know that Radio, Radio was released only as a single in the UK.  But it was included in the US version of the album, though (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea was dropped.  I always suspected that knowing that bit of trivia would come in handy one day.)  These early videos were done on a shoe-string budget basically consist of the guys standing on a white backdrop lip-synching to the songs.

Costello's first five albums were produced by Nick Lowe and these are arguably his strongest work.  These are well represented on the disc, and though they are some of the best songs, the videos are all very simple and honestly, not that good.  Most of them consist of the band and Elvis pretending to sing the songs while in various exotic locations.  They took advantage of their touring schedule by filming many of these early efforts on the beach in Hawaii or in France.  The procedure, according to Elvis, was to fill the band with alcohol and turn a camera on them.  That's pretty much what these early videos look like.  In Elvis' defense, in the pre-MTV days music videos weren't nearly as important nor sophisticated as they are now, they were almost an after thought.

As time progresses, the videos become a little more polished, but they never really add much to the songs.  The single exception is Veronica, where the video really underlines what Elvis was saying in this song about his Grandmother who suffered from Alzheimer's.  They are a lot of fun to watch never the less.  Most of the songs are excellent, and everyone seems to realize that they aren't creating works of art and just has a good time with it.
 
Highlights from the disc include Radio, Radio, Elvis' anthem railing against top 40 playlists, the Nick Lowe penned (What's So Funny `Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding, You Little Fool (a song I've always enjoyed), and Veronica a song Elvis co-wrote with Paul McCartney.  As far as videos go The Only Flame In Town, from Elvis' weakest pop album, 1984's Goodbye Cruel World, was directed by Alan Arkish and was much more polished than most of the other videos.

The videos included on this DVD are:

(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea
Pump It Up
Radio, Radio
(What's So Funny `Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding
Oliver's Army
Accidents Will Happen
I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down
High Fidelity
Love For Tender
Possession
New Amsterdam
Clubland
New Lace Sleeves
Good Year For The Roses
Sweet Dreams
You Little Fool
Everyday I Write The Book
Let Them All Talk
The Only Flame In Town
I Wanna Be Loved
Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood
Veronica
This Town
The Other Side Of Summer
So Like Candy
Sulky Girl
13 Steps To Lead Down

Audio:

I was glad that this disc limited itself to a stereo soundtrack.  A lot of the 5.1 re-mixes of classic songs that I've heard don't actually improve the song and often harm it.  The videos in this collection sound good, but not outstanding.  The early videos sound flat which is due to the technology used to record them, but this gets better as the disc progresses.  There weren't any glaring audio defects, and overall it's an average sounding disc.

Video:

The fullframe image was about average for something of this age.  The production values weren't high to begin with on many of the videos, especially the early ones.  There are some rare spots and video dropouts, and many of the videos are a bit soft, but this is minor.  This disc looks much better than the VHS copy (which didn't include all of the songs included on this disc) I had years ago.

Extras:

There are a couple great extras included on this disc.  Every song has an alternate commentary track where Elvis Costello reminisces about the videos.  His comments are pretty sparse, he doesn't talk over the whole video and there are long gaps of silence, but what he does say is pretty interesting and funny.  With tongue planted firmly in cheek, he talks about all of the money that he and the band spent on dance lessons, and how effective these lessons were.  Elvis also identifies just about every extra in the You Little Fool video as Bruce (Thomas).  Viewers can also select to have Elvis' comments appear as subtitles over the song, which is a nice touch.

There is also a good selection of TV appearances that Elvis Costello and the Attractions made over the years.  All of these have actual performances, they left off his early appearances on Top of the Pops and other such shows where he just lip-synced to the record.  Though some of the preformances are a little rough, I really enjoyed these, most of which I hadn't seen before.  The one exception is the first song from the Revolver clip.  It  features the most obnoxious and irritating presentation style that I've ever seen.  They have five 4:3 images on the screen, with Elvis and the Attractions in the center, and the other four frames being in each corner showing other video.  The upside is that you can hardly see the Absolutely stupid.

I really wished that they had included Elvis' appearance on SNL where they change songs in mid-stream to mess up the producer who had pissed them off.  I assume they couldn't get the rights.  This clip is available on the Saturday Night Live - 25 Years of Music boxed set.

There is no "play all" feature to this section.

The TV Archive Section includes these TV appearances:

So It Goes [UK] (1977): Alison [Excerpt], No Dancing, Lip Service
Revolver [UK] (1978): This Year's Girl, Radio Radio
Countdown [Netherlands] (1979): Oliver's Army, Accidents Will Happen, Watching The Detectives, You Belong To Me
Pink Pop Festival [Netherlands] (1979): Lipstick Vogue, Watching The Detectives
What's In [UK] (1981): Shot With His Own Gun
The Tube [UK] (1983): Shipbuilding, Everyday I Write The Book, Clowntime Is Over, TKO (Boxing Day)
Mandagsboren [Sweden] (1983): Big Sister's Clothes, Peace In Our Time

Final Thoughts:

I really enjoyed these videos, but then again I'm an Elvis Costello fan from way back.  It's great to have all of these videos on DVD at last.  If you aren't a fan of Elvis, this disc probably won't change your mind.  Many of the videos were made in the pre-MTV days with a low budget and there just wasn't a lot of thought or care put into them.  Still a lot of fun for fans, this set gets a high Recommendation.