Alex mentioned the ads for this show in the last post, but if you’ve been on a subway or bus in New York in the past two months you know about Elvis Costello’s new show “Spectacle” (and that Sundance blew all its ad dollars on pushing one show, sorry ‘Iconoclasts’). In the first episode, Costello interviews President Bill Clinton on how music has been important in his life. This is a relatively new stage for both people. We already know that Elvis Costello is a great musician, and still cool after twenty years, but his chops as a TV host are still unknown. We are already aware of Bill Clinton’s silver tongue, and can play a little sax, but that doesn’t guarantee a worthwhile television program.
Costello opens the show with a song, an up-tempo blues tune, and thing get rolling. Clinton walks out, shakes some hands, people cheer. He sits down, the interview begins. As soon as Clinton started talking I was hooked. Elvis asked pretty intelligent and provoking questions, and what the show became wasn’t a show about Elvis Costello at all, but rather a stage upon which Clinton was allowed to talk and talk, about music of all things. Listening to the former president, it seemed as if Clinton had been waiting over sixteen years for someone listen to him speak on the subject. Clinton’s certainly considered a smart man, and as far as public speakers go, I don’t think there are many living orators better. In my eyes, this televised dialogue just heightened the legacy of “Slick Willy.” Meanwhile, Costello faded into the background of his own show; something that only a skilled interviewer can do. He pretty much let Clinton talk for an hour; telling anecdotes and stories from his life. Bill’s extremely thoughtful and concerned, and a big jazz fan, and totally captivating. Did you know he received more musical scholarships than academic ones? And that’s from a Rhodes Scholar.
Enough of the boner Clinton gave me; let’s put this all in context and examine show in context to the scratchitti conversation between Trainwreck, et al., that Alex saw on the subway.
In his first statement Trainwreck implies that by having a TV show, Costello has ’sold out,’ and instructs him to “write back when you are cool again.” So, is Trainwreck’s assumption correct? Well, after seeing the show, we can judge his actions and determine how cool Costello still is. During the show he barely spoke, played some songs, and extracted wonderful information from his guest. I would say, YES, he’s still cool and not a sell-out.
But, we should go back to the beginning of his comments, and therefore back to Costello’s beginnings, back to ‘No Action’ and ‘Radio’ to see if Costello has anything from which to sell out. I don’t think it’s inappropriate to say that those songs are Pop Songs, and that he’s a Pop Artist. Pop, by definition, is synonymous with Sell-out (keep in mind, there are no negative connotations with ’sell-out’ in this context). So, Costello couldn’t have sold out if he was always part of the mainstream anyway. That’s the magic of Elvis Costello. He can be a Pop Star and seem like he’s hip and cool and outside the mainstream, but he does so by being part of it. He gets inside, in order to seem outside. A side note: Elvis Costello became big in the 80’s, a decade of over-the-top and decadence and culture to the extreme, so Trainwreck, your argument falls apart.
Next. Trainwreck writes: “But he’s still a big douche in a subway ad. I don’t care if it’s independent, it’s still TV. Smash your TV! Write, create, produce instead of numbing yourself with mind numbing TV.” Once again, he assumes something is bad (like selling out) when it’s actually neither good nor bad, but neutral. This time, it’s television. Television is a medium, and should be blameless for what goes on it. Sure, there are awful programs; an overflow of reality television and poorly written soaps. But there are still great, original programs that can be considered art, whether Trainwreck likes it or not. And, aside from arguing what shows are good and bad, the fact is that ‘television’ as an entity is void of those judgments. It’s simply a medium, a vehicle. Television is a blank canvass, upon which anything can be painted. There are plenty of mind-numbing books, and terrible art. After watching Spectacle, I think it maintains above average credibility, and Costello preserves a wealth of integrity. TV cannot be escaped, and it’s the best medium to reach people, so if you actually want your art to speak to someone, to make people interested and involved, I think an artist should exploit (I use that term in every way) the most usable and accessible medium possible. Trainwreck chose the medium of paper subway ad, and Costello chose TV. Costello probably wins.
