or better or worse, we here at Stylus, in all of our autocratic consumer-crit greed, are slaves to timeliness. A record over six months old is often discarded, deemed too old for publication, a relic in the internet age. That's why each week at Stylus, one writer takes a look at an album with the benefit of time. Whether it has been unjustly ignored, unfairly lauded, or misunderstood in some fundamental way, we aim with On Second Thought to provide a fresh look at albums that need it.

It’s strange to be reviewing Mighty Like A Rose ; the album was reviled by critics upon its release. In response, Costello directed his anger towards the rock press. He questioned whether or not critics knew what they were doing: and explained that the album was just misunderstood. Misunderstood or not, the album is dreadful- a sorry, decadent affair created by an old man out of ideas.

“The Other Side of Summer” opens the album; a musical and lyrical satire of the Beach Boys, with parody on par with Cracked magazine at its finest. Costello enlightens the listener that, yes, the summer is not pure. Along the way he shines a light on suburbia, taking aim at hypocrites with his poison blow darts of wit, penning such lines as: “Was it a millionaire who said ‘imagine no possessions’?” “Hurry Down Doomsday (The Bugs Are Taking Over)” brings the album to it’s lowest low. Easily the worst EC ever recorded, “Hurry Down...” is a stain on Costello’s career. Even the tremolo guitar, “the bad guitar player’s best friend” as Elvis describes it, cannot save the clunky, irritating music and offensively stupid apocalyptic lyrics.

After these first two atrocities, the album takes a turn toward the bland. The remaining songs blend together as one boring fifty-minute composition. While on Spike, Costello’s over-arrangement and the over-production marred once-good songs, on Mighty Like A Rose, the production and arrangement attempt to cover-up songs that were never any good. As on its predecessor, the album’s highlights are the two songs co-written by Paul McCartney. Both “So Like Candy” and “Playboy To A Man” are reminiscences of a once-lush life and both garner the most emotive vocal performances on an album filled with monotone delivery.

Mighty Like A Rose haunts the used-CD section of many American record shops (it was received much more favorably in Britain) and few fans speak favorably of the album. Costello himself ranks the album on the shortlist of his greatest works and blames its failure on the inability of fans to cope with his image change. At the time of the album’s release, Elvis sported a pseudo-late 60s, “serious artist” look- long scraggly hair and rather unappealing facial hair. Also, as on many of his late-80s albums, the lyrics were happier, less bitter, marking what NME called the change from “Mr. Horribly Marred to Mr. Happily Married.” Truly, what fans had trouble accepting was the change from brilliant lyricist and melody-writer to self-righteous, pretentious, MOR “composer.” Any Elvis Costello collection is complete without Mighty Like A Rose.