Elbow "Dead In The Boot"

 

I have three of the previous five albums by Elbow but knew something was awry when this one crossed my path.  The others were spaced apart by 2+ years apiece, so when "Dead In The Boot" arrived not eighteen months after "Build A Rocket, Boys!," I was suspicious.  And I was right.  DITB is a collection of B-sides which span the band's career.

"B-side" generally evokes a runner-up mentality but I never viewed it in that manner.  When I bought a 45 as a kid, I got two songs, not just the hit.  The Beatles singles started it but they were always considered double A-sides.  It was "Goodbye" on the flip of Elton's "Levon", Chicago's "Colour My World" and "I'm A Man" were B's.  The most outstanding in my mind was a few years later when my friend, John Pattie (where are you?), and I flipped "Another Park, Another Sunday" and declared the B-side the true hit.  Sure enough, a few months later, "Black Water" became the Doobies first #1. 

I'm not going to rehash my history with Elbow here (you can click the link in paragraph one for that), but there was a 30-month gap between the end of my retail music career and returning to WPRK in which I blanked on any new music.  That empty period was the window in which Elbow's "Leaders Of The Free World" was released and I missed it.  Many consider it the band's best album ("Seldom Seen Kid" is my fave) and now I think maybe they were right because the only keepers on DITB are from that period.  One track could have been a Masters Of Reality tune and another could be mistaken for David Byrne.  I'm torn on going back to find out, though.  Maybe "Leaders..." was just so damn fine that they couldn't put everything on it, but it could also be a "Sam's Town" by The Killers, which was patently awful.  The discarded sessions from that record ("Sawdust") turned out to be far superior to the original. 

The remaining B's of DITB are cast-offs for a reason.  As a whole, DITB is too restrained, too downbeat, too monotone, too cerebral for a complete uninterrupted listen.  This album smells of a contractual obligation.  I am fearful the band is on the verge of phoning it in and there are allusions to that possibility.  After the grand display of this summer's Olympic Games which featured plenty of Elbow's compositions (I kept yelling at Bob Costas to shut the fuck up so I could hear them), I hope that's not the case.

Since these are all old tunes, there really isn't any quality video easily available to link for you.  I stumbled, however, onto this hour-long set from 2011 at Glastonbury.  It is well worth your time...