Avail Yourself Armed Forces Outlined By Franklin Bruno Displayed As Copy

book actually threatened my enjoyment of Armed Forces, not because of any its "revelations," but out of sheer tedium, I'm glad I finished, so I can go back to listening to the album rather than reading about it, This was okay. Of course Armed Forces is a classic record, This book was plenty informative but didnt hold my attention the whole way through, In any case, it sort of made me want to read more about fascism, Though Im not a fan, its an interesting subject,

This was my first/book, and Ive already bought a second one that Im excited to read one on the Pixies duhclassic Doolittle.
the style of this was annoying set up like an encyclopedia in alphabetical order, which means that things were referenced before it was clear what the hell they were talking about only got to maybe page.
Great by/standards. Bruno uses an AZ dictionarystyle structure, which organizes the material in a clever nonlinear way that injects a surprising amount of drama into the album.
He lost me a little when getting into the details of some of the songs, but gives lots of interesting historical context for the cultural reference points Costello was working with/from.
I felt the book matched the album in a certain way the encyclopedic entries of the book did not create a narrative, but a framework in which to examine the songs one by one.
Bruno leaves it to the reader to draw larger conclusions, just as Elvis did himself, This was written pretty much in an encyclopedia style, with every subject pertaining to the album directly or indirectly running the gamut, While it makes for an almost confusing read the first time around, a second goround would probably be best if one were to start with, say, the entry on the album's first cut and then go through the book randomly from there, since everything is alphabetized neatly enough.
While I eagerly devour every book in the series, this, like many of the ones that try to take advantage of the do whatever you want openness of the series, wasn't one of my favorites.
It's arranged alphabetically by seemingly random topics, including things like song titles, but also entries on political figures and fascism, It was very focused on racism, to some extent because of themes in the songs, but mostly because of a notorious incident that I had never heard of before where a very drunk EC said some very racist things, specifically about James Brown and Ray Charles.
The ugly story was an interesting read for awhile, but by the time we got deep with no transition because of the structure into British postfascist movements, my interest waned somewhat.
The format of this book A to Z, dictionary style was sometimes confusing and the musical notations went way over my head, but I forgive it all that for all of the new stuff I learned about EC a favorite of mine and this album another favorite and I thought I knew pretty much beforehand.
Bruno immersed me in the EC persona of the time of AF, and I loved being there, Much like Elvis Costello himself, his songs, his body of work, even his actual career trajectory is meandering, this album is muddled with a pinch of unique genius that will generally confuse the average listener of music.
In my opinion, his best album is “Armed Forces” which was originally titled “Emotional Fascism”, And, this is why Im starting this review of this book here, because you need to know a bit about the history of Fascism in Europe as well a great many things to get into the subtext the author is trying to reveal.
Ironically, the author of the book refuses to even try to define what he thinks is meant by “Emotional Fascism, ” But both words and their implications about and notabout each other seem to be fluid throughout the album, So much so, that many references didnt make sense until I read this,

Much like many fans, this is my favorite album Elvis Costello ever made, Many come close, but there is something lurking on this record that both haunts and rocks this listener, It will be handy for the reader to have the album at hand to listen for some of the musical critiques and comments, I often think it funny when people “complain” that “Whats so Funny About Peace Love and Understanding” was tacked on to the end of an album that starts with a song called “Accidents will Happen” this “accident” actually pulls off a wicked trick in making a cohesive piece of music out of what could have been random songs with thematic issues.
To think this was Elvis Costellos big stab at getting into the uppertears of rock stardom and that songs are influenced with pop radio sensibilities ABBA on AWH, for example.


As for the overall message, it seems that the Columbus Incident was a distillation of a man from England, steeped in its culture but also steeped in the music from everywhere being brought home daily for his musician father to learn see British musicians union rules that mess.
The Columbus Incident seems to be born out of the frustration of the young, overly intelligent man, suddenly famous and imploding from the inside out.
What he ended up saying was probably the nastiest thing he could think of, though it definitely did not make his point, Over all these years, Elvis still plays these songs even though he views the firstalbums as his “pop star” period and its probably the guilt or “Emotional Fascism” that came from the destruction of that young, arrogant person into an established artist.
Where ever he went after this album, it was always away from it,

The author wants to be Greil Marcus a little too much, but still, the book told me a lot I didn't know, which is rare.
Another of the continuum/series, I got this for a plane ride and it was an excellent choice,

I've been a big fan of EC since way back and i've listened to Armed Forces a billion times, Also, over the years, i've played and performed some of the songs on it, However, i haven't thought much about it in ages and I though Bruno did a great job of making me reconsider this old favorite again.


I've always found this album to be somewhat slippery, It is chock full of wonderful phrases, at the same time, it's not always clear what Elvis is getting at, The personal and political are intertwined in ways that are difficult to disentangle, The perspective often seems unreliable Accidents Will Happenas a sort of pop ballad, no less! and he uses political and economic jargon throughout to describe emotional states.
"Emotional fascism" is so evocative, but what is it getting at, precisely

Bruno is perceptive and has an excellent ear, He puts the album in contextin terms of the lates politics in england, in terms of the columbus incident, in terms of EC's other work.
Bruno provides lots of ineresting info, He addresses the ambiguities and uncertainties head on, . . but does not attempt to resolve them, The organization is somewhat goofyit is organized alphabetically, but it is a serendipitous alphabet, with only the surface appearance of order, However, it does provide a mechanism which he uses to follow whatever threads he wants in thinking about the album,

The technical musical information cuts both wayssometimes it is important to a point he is making, sometimes it just seems like gratuitious info not really germane to anything else.
It didn't bother me, but i can also see how it might be irritating, This book is lessstraightforward than the other book i read in this series kinks, village green preservation society, but I thought it was an excellent, slippery take on an excellent slippery album.




The author, sitelinkFranklin Bruno, sets himself up for failure in the introductory section of the book,

He tells us that he's going to abbreviate the musician's names so that now do you not only have to recognize that Bruce Thomas is the bassist while Pete Thomas drums not difficult, you have to spend time decoding who BT and PT are more difficult, which takes the entire subject out of the context it's in it's now in the "Where's Waldo" context".
Worse, I think the author did this out of laziness, There's no question that it makes more a far more difficult read and belies a serious lack of editing,

Second, Bruno points out that he's no musical expert, then fills the books with statements like, "Section W runs over standard folkrock changes DADG, twice, complicated by melodic subtleties.
The second half moves a scale position higher that the first for just two notes, . . " this is a tame example there are many extended ramblings like this, Nothing wrong with this kind of expositionin fact, I admire it, But don't stage the book to be one thing and deliver another, Plus,.of people won't understand it, Put this on your blog, not a massmarket book, Again, editing would have enabled this to be simplified down to where it added something to the conversation, not distracted from it,

Armed Forces is one of my favorite albums although, and I suspect this is true of many of its fans, I don't know exactly why.
It's a powerful band fronted by an incredibly talented writer and distinctive singer, The songs are catchy and the wordplay a riot throughout, But it's sometimes unfocused with spots of muddy production and it's

not at all clear what Costello is talking about most of the time.
But still, there's no denying its genius,

Bruno tells me that it's an Abbaderived discussion of political and emotional fascism all tied up in Costello's responses to his infamous racist comments that he made in, presented by a band at the top of their game.
While that may be true, this book does little to advance that case,

But it did get me to get it out, blow the dust off that virtual MPdust and go through it a few times to reacquaint myself with something I've been away from for too long.
So it's got that going for it, This book had a lot of information, some of which was really interesting, but none of which really pertained to the album itself, It wasn't organized well either, and really didn't enlighten anyone on the Elvis or the album, at least not me as a reader, This may be one of my favorite books ever, and certainly one of the most subtle takes on race, pop music and whiteness I've read in a while.
And it doesn't hurt that the crux of the Armed Forces's drama occurs in Columbus, OH, crossroads of many contemporary American contradictions,

Having said that, I would recommend this book to almost no one, To get through it imagine you need to have:a deep deep preexisting love for Elvis Costello, generally, and Armed Forces, specificallyat least an advanced undergraduate familiarity with classic cultural studies, particularly of the English Marxist varietya desire to find more subtle language to talk about racism and injustice

If you don't have the first, you will put down the book early into his fourth extended analysis of how a particular bass line and chord structure on a particular take of a particular track reference two other songs not explicitly refenced in the lyrics themselves of which one is an obscure Merseyside cover of a no longer existing Stax single.


If you don't have the second, you'll probably be confused by the Armed Forces's structure, get glossy eyed at discussions of Adorno and Barthes, and, most likely, unconvinced by many of the connections Bruno and Costello are making between capitalism, authoritarianism, and contemporary racialsexual politics.


If you don't have the third, you'll most likely put the book down in disgust at its apologetics for a narcissistic racist aggressor which is not to say you shouldn't.


Having said all this, again, and probably offering telling details about myself it's one of my favorite reads ever This book struck on a really interesting way to write about music.
It's an abecedary of the album's song titles, motifs, themes, important figures inth century fascism, etc, with only passing regard to the singersongwriter's private life beyond those things that illuminate or problematize items listed above, By organizing the book alphabetically by key terms, Bruno can deal with the album's themes of militarism and imperialism in both the political and personal arenas in a way that connects by inference and foregrounding and callback.
The album itself isn't Costello's best, and may not even make it into my All Time Favorite Desert Island Costello list, but it's probably the most worth examination and consideration in exactly the way F.
Bruno goes about it. I hope more of these/books approach their subjects in this way, rather than in a "How They Made It" or "What the Lyrics Mean" sort of way.
Armed Forces by Franklin Bruno, was the first book in the/series that Ive read that is a critical study of the album chosen.
Elvis Costello has long been one of my favorite artists because his music is usually rife with metaphors, challenging lyrics, and catchy choruses and guitar hooks.
s Armed Forces is one of his masterpieces and luckily Rykodisk has been rereleasing his albums with added tracks that were recorded in the sessions but didnt make it onto the album or were kept off the original album.
It also includes the excellent live versions of “Accidents Will Happen” and “Allison” recorded at Hollywood High that was originally a special edition single that came with the firstpressings of the American release of the album.
Bruno has Ph. D. and writes about this album with the technical and critical precision of a musician/historian as he examines the music, lyrics, and themes of the album that was going to be called emotional Fascism.
The structure is a bit haphazard as he jumps around from point to point, He discusses the musical references that inspired the music, everything from RampB classics to Abba, and Cheap Trick, He also examines the record in context to his career, and the social and political climate from which it was born, He also discusses quite thoroughly the fascist references and imagery used in the album “Youll never make a lampshade out of me, ”/”just another white nigger”/”Two Little Hitlers”/", . . is this the final solution", He also spends a lot of time discussing the infamous “Columbus” incident where Elvis Costello got into an argument with Stephen Stills' band and insulted James Brown and Ray Charles to upset his American antagonists.
He lists references from such diverse sources as Adorno, Barthes, Sontag, and Arendt, Throughout the book he boldfaces words that act as a sort of AZ of the album, It is a fascinating and thorough look at one of the best albums of the lastyears, .