Declan Patrick MacManus OBE, known professionally as Elvis Costello, is an English singer-songwriter and record producer. He has won multiple awards in his career, including Grammy Awards in 1999 and 2020, and has twice been nominated for the Brit Award for Best British Male Artist. In 2003, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Costello number 80 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Tasmin Archer is a British pop singer from Bradford. Her first album, Great Expectations, spawned the hit "Sleeping Satellite", which reached number one in the United Kingdom and Ireland. She won the Brit Award for British Breakthrough Act in 1993 and has since released three more studio albums.
Mighty Like A Rose is the 13th studio album by the British rock singer and songwriter Elvis Costello, released in 1991 on compact disc as Warner Brothers 26575. The title is presumably a reference to the pop standard "Mighty Lak' a Rose", and although that song does not appear on the album, the words of its first stanza are quoted in the booklet of the 2002 reissue. It peaked at No. 5 on the UK Albums Chart, and at No. 55 on the Billboard 200.
Blood & Chocolate is the eleventh studio album by the British rock singer and songwriter Elvis Costello, released in the United Kingdom as Demon Records XFIEND 80, and in the United States as Columbia 40518. It is his ninth album with his long-standing backing band known as 'The Attractions'. After his previous album King of America with producer T-Bone Burnett and different musicians, this album reunited him with producer Nick Lowe and his usual backing group the Attractions. It peaked at No. 16 on the UK Albums Chart, and No. 84 on the Billboard 200. In The Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop critics poll for the year's best albums, Blood & Chocolate finished at number 9. The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. In 2000 it was voted number 475 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums.
When I Was Cruel is Elvis Costello's 19th album, recorded in 2001 and 2002 and released in the US by Island Records on 23 April 2002.
King of America is the tenth studio album by British rock singer and songwriter Elvis Costello, credited to "The Costello Show featuring the Attractions and Confederates" in the UK and Europe and to "The Costello Show featuring Elvis Costello" in North America. Released on 21 February 1986, it peaked at No. 11 on the UK album chart and No. 39 on the Billboard 200. In The Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop critics poll for the year's best albums, King of America finished at No. 2, and it was also selected as one of Rolling Stone magazine's top twenty albums of the year. In 2000, it was voted No. 540 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums.
Peter Michael Thomas is an English rock drummer best known for his collaboration with singer Elvis Costello, both as a member of his band the Attractions and with Costello as a solo artist. Besides his lengthy career as a studio musician and touring drummer, he has been a member of the band Squeeze during the 1990s and a member of the supergroup Works Progress Administration during the early 2000s.
Bruce Thomas is an English rock bass guitarist, best known as bassist for the Attractions; the band formed in 1977 to back Elvis Costello in concert and on record.
All This Useless Beauty is the seventeenth studio album by the English singer-songwriter Elvis Costello, released in 1996 by Warner Brothers. It peaked at number 28 on the UK album chart, and at No. 53 on the Billboard 200. It is his tenth and final album with his long-standing backing band known as 'The Attractions', and the last album he delivered under his contract to the Warner Brothers label, his contract expiring with a further compilation album, Extreme Honey.
Brutal Youth is an album by Elvis Costello, released in 1994. This album contains the first recordings Costello made with his band the Attractions since Blood and Chocolate (1986). About half the album features a band consisting of Costello (guitar), Steve Nieve (keyboards) and Pete Thomas (drums) with Nick Lowe on bass. Costello himself plays bass on two tracks, and the complete Attractions line-up appears with Costello on tracks 3, 4, 6, 9 and 10.
The Juliet Letters is a studio album by the British rock singer and songwriter Elvis Costello. It was released on compact disc as Warner Brothers 45180. The instrumental backing is provided by the Brodsky Quartet. Costello described the album as "a song sequence for string quartet and voice and it has a title. It's a little bit different. It's not a rock opera. It's a new thing." It peaked at No. 18 on the UK Albums Chart, and at No. 125 on the Billboard 200.
For the Stars is a 2001 album by classically trained Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter and Elvis Costello.
"Sleeping Satellite" is the debut single of British singer-songwriter Tasmin Archer, released as the first single from the album, Great Expectations in September 1992. The song was a number-one hit in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It also became an international hit, reaching the top 20 in 13 other countries and number 32 on the US Billboard Hot 100.
"Shipbuilding" is a song with lyrics by Elvis Costello and music by Clive Langer. Written during the Falklands War of 1982, Costello's lyrics highlight the irony of the war bringing back prosperity to the traditional shipbuilding areas of Clydeside, Merseyside, North East England and Belfast to build new ships to replace those being sunk in the war, whilst also sending off the sons of these areas to fight and, potentially, lose their lives in those same ships. According to Robert Sandall, the best version of the song is the one recorded and released as a single by English singer-songwriter Robert Wyatt in August 1982 a few months after the Falklands War, although it was not a hit until it was re-released eight months later on the first anniversary of the conflict.
Out of Our Idiot is a 1987 compilation album of rare and previously unreleased recordings dating back to 1979 by Elvis Costello, which was released in the UK on Demon Records. It was only available as an import in the USA and other markets. The album was credited to "Various Artists" rather than to Costello because the tracks were recorded and credited under a variety of names, including The Costello Show, Elvis Costello and the Attractions, Elvis Costello and the Confederates, The Coward Brothers, Napoleon Dynamite, The Emotional Toothpaste and The MacManus Gang. The songs featured a variety of collaborators, including Jimmy Cliff, Nick Lowe and T-Bone Burnett.
"Watching the Detectives" is a 1977 single by English singer-songwriter Elvis Costello. Inspired by the Clash and Bernard Herrmann, the song features a reggae beat and cynical lyrics.
"New Amsterdam" is a song written and performed by new wave musician Elvis Costello on his 1980 album, Get Happy!! Written about the New World and New York, the recording of the song that appears on Get Happy!! was a demo that Costello had recorded in Pimlico.
Great Expectations is the debut album by English singer-songwriter Tasmin Archer, released in late 1992 on EMI Records. The first single released from the album, "Sleeping Satellite", went to number one both in the UK and Ireland, while sitting just outside the top 10 in Germany. Three more UK singles were released from the album in the wake of Archer's initial success: "In Your Care", "Lords of the New Church" and "Arienne".
Bloom is the second full-length album by British singer-songwriter Tasmin Archer, released on 25 March 1996.
The Costello Album, also The McCartney/MacManus Collaboration, is a Paul McCartney album that includes work from his 1987–88 songwriting collaboration with Elvis Costello. The album includes demo recordings made by Paul and Elvis in the throes of their collaboration, other demos of some songs by Costello and McCartney individually, live performances by Costello, and two duo live performances taken from a 1995 benefit concert at the Royal College of Music. A planned album credited to both was abandoned, initial work-ups appearing in the 2017 deluxe edition reissue to McCartney's Flowers in the Dirt. These recordings were unknown to the public until 1998 when they surfaced as an unofficial compact disc titled The McCartney/MacManus Collaboration.
