Imperial Bedroom


Imperial Bedroom is a 1982 album by Elvis Costello and the Attractions. It was the second Costello album, after Almost Blue, not produced by Nick Lowe. Production duties were handled by Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick. "I wanted to try a few things in the studio that I suspected would quickly exhaust Nick's patience," as Costello put it in the liner notes to the 1994 Rykodisc reissue.
It was voted as the best album of the year in The Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics poll. In 1998 readers of Q magazine named it the 96th greatest album ever. In 1989, it was ranked No. 38 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 100 Greatest Albums of the 80s. In 2003, the album was ranked number 166 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, maintaining the rating in a 2012 revised list. It was voted number 321 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums. In 2012, Slant Magazine listed the album at No. 59 on its list of "Best Albums of the 1980s". The album reached number 6 in the UK charts and number 30 in the USA but the singles were less successful. "You Little Fool" and "Man Out of Time" each briefly appeared in the UK Singles Chart, but neither charted in the USA.

Background

The songwriting and arrangements were done during the twelve-week recording session at AIR Studios. It was recorded at the same time as Paul McCartney's Tug of War, on which Emerick simultaneously served as recording engineer. Other working titles were "Revolution of the Mind", "Music To Stop Clocks" and "PS I Love You".
Unlike the previous two albums, there was no intent to have the songs in any particular arrangement or production style. Instead, they covered a variety of styles and included songs that were written at the end of the Trust sessions, through Costello's production of Squeeze's East Side Story, and during the "Nashville adventure" of Almost Blue.
Imperial Bedroom continued a direction, starting with Trust, where Costello used a piano to compose songs, which was different from the writing approach he used on his first four albums. As initially recorded, the album sounded very much like Trust, but none of these versions survived to the final recording, except the intro and coda of "Man Out of Time". Instead, the band experimented with different instrumental choices, including a 40-piece orchestra for ".....And in Every Home". Costello also attempted to vary his vocal performances, such as the contrasting vocal tracks in "Pidgin English". Many of these studio embellishments had to be stripped when the songs were played live in concert.
Despite some of the lyrical content, Costello had imagined this to be his most optimistic album to date.
The album inspired the title of Bret Easton Ellis' novel Imperial Bedrooms, a sequel to Ellis' earlier novel Less Than Zero, whose title was borrowed from Costello's song "Less Than Zero".

Packaging

The name of the album "Imperial Bedroom" appears on the sleeve as IbMePdErRoIoAmL. The cover painting, titled "Snakecharmer & Reclining Octopus" by Barney Bubbles is a pastiche of "Three Musicians" by Pablo Picasso, and letters on the zipper-like creatures in the upper right spell "PABLO SI".
This was the first Elvis Costello album to include a transcript of the lyrics. They were printed on the inner sleeve in all capitals with no punctuation. The UK release varied this presentation of the lyrics, such that on one side of the inner sleeve there was a circular cut, which made one side of the LP's centre label visible. The lyrics, printed on that side of the inner sleeve, continued straight across that side of the LP's centre label.

Reception

Imperial Bedroom was ranked among the top ten "Albums of the Year" for 1982 by NME, with "Man Out of Time" ranked among the year's top ten tracks. Parker Puterbaugh, in a 1982 review in Rolling Stone, felt that Costello had written "his masterpiece" after spending some years trying out various approaches on previous albums. In his review for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau praised Costello's songwriting and felt that certain songs "are as great as songwriting ever gets", but felt that on the whole the album concentrated too much on technique, and as such the emotion is literate rather than heartfelt – so the finished product is "pretentious".

LP track listing

All songs written by Elvis Costello unless otherwise indicated.
;Bonus tracks
  2. "From Head to Toe" – 2:34 produced by Elvis Costello
  3. "The World of Broken Hearts" – 3:01 produced by Elvis Costello
  4. "Night Time" – 2:52 produced by Elvis Costello
  5. "Really Mystified" – 2:03 produced by Elvis Costello
  6. "I Turn Around" – 2:09 produced by Elvis Costello
  7. "Seconds of Pleasure" – 3:43 produced by Elvis Costello
  8. "The Stamping Ground" – 3:09 produced by Elvis Costello
  9. "Shabby Doll" – 4:18 produced by Elvis Costello
  10. "Imperial Bedroom" – 2:47 produced by Elvis Costello
;Bonus disc
  1. "The Land of Give and Take" – 3:05
  2. "Tears Before Bedtime" – 3:03
  3. "Man Out of Time" – 3:43
  4. "Human Hands" – 2:44
  5. "Kid About It" – 3:18
  6. "Little Savage" – 3:07
  7. "You Little Fool" – 2:59
  8. "Town Cryer" – 2:15
  9. "Little Goody Two Shoes" – 3:10
  10. "The Town Where Time Stood Still" – 2:57
  11. "...And in Every Home" – 3:12
  12. "I Turn Around" – 2:09
  13. "From Head to Toe" – 2:34
  14. "The World of Broken Hearts" – 3:01
  15. "Night Time" – 2:52
  16. "Really Mystified" – 2:03
  17. "The Stamping Ground" – 3:09
  18. "Shabby Doll" – 4:18
  19. "Man Out of Time" – 3:27
  20. "You Little Fool" – 3:11
  21. "Town Cryer" – 3:03
  22. "Seconds of Pleasure" – 3:19
  23. "Imperial Bedroom" – 2:47
Note: The Rykodisc version has the original tracks and bonus tracks on one CD. The Rhino version has two CDs with the original tracks on the first CD.

Personnel

Album
YearChartPosition
1982Billboard Pop Albums30
1982UK Albums Chart6