Cruel Smile

This collection of alternate takes and live tracks is light-hearted and often fun though rarely essential. Many of the live tracks combine
Bacharach-influenced classic pop vocals with dub experiments. Occasionally the results are enjoyable (track 11), but often they are just weird. Other tracks are badly-conceived tape-loop experiments. Many tracks go on WAY TOO LONG. I would seriously recommend checking the length of the tracks before playing.
Highlights: 1,2,5,11,13

1. Classic pop song with vibes, sax, and goofy string orchestration 2. Bittersweet, scathing, reminiscent of Elvis's best 3. Harrowingly
spare with piano accomp 4. Horn-driven with lyrics, bouncy, buried ominous-sounding vocals, reminds me of TYM, too long 5. Catchy with
tape-loop sounding backing, goofy outro 6. creepy dub-flavored remix of "When I was Cruel", kinda annoying 7. Dominated by loops, buried vocals, tuneless 8. Tape-loopy, attempt to be funky, is Costello trying to rap? 9. Spare, acoustic, despairing. 10. Tape-loopy, features guitar with dubby effects, creepy, buried vocal, horns at end 11. WTD: ragged, noisy featuring distorted guitars and very campy organ, great dub-flavored instrumental solos; MFV: reverberant vocals are spare, affectless 12. same song as 10, garagey, dub ending follows wanky bridge, way too long 13. Tape-loopy, garagey, organ-dominated, catchy. More song-like than other experimental tracks 14. same as 1 but with just piano accomp 15. Hidden track: Soul for Hire, vocals and dub backing, particularly incongruous, too long

Eric K.