Revamped Elvis Costello Site Launches

Pics, music and more...

By Fred Mills

Folks who dropped by Elviscostello.com recently got a few surprises, as the site has been overhauled to include tons of goodies, including a nice cache of live recordings, beyond the usual news, tour dates and images.

(Speaking of images, the one above, culled from the "Smudges" part of the site, is pretty priceless. Somewhere, Johnny Cash is smiling.)

One interesting section to feature Costello's music is "The Wheel," where you can stream samples from any one of hundreds of his songs. Much like EC's in-concert deployment of the physical Wheel, you spin the digital version and it lands on a tune that then starts streaming. Or you can simply pull up an alphabetical queue and make individual selections. (Note these are all roughly 1-minute snippets and not the entire songs.)

Another section, "Look & Listen," includes the aforementioned "Smudges" photo gallery, plus "Recordings" (a selection of live tracks - currently featured are several tracks recorded in April of 2008 in Memphis for the Beale Street Caravan radio show, although these, curiously, are also snippets); and "Flicks" (live and promo video clips).

Admittedly, the fact that EC is only offering to let you hear bits of tunes makes the site somewhat compromised; some fine tuning is in order before it's genuinely fan friendly and not merely another means of steering folks towards a purchase or two. Perhaps some full-concert free downloads would be a good start?

[Photo Credit: Keith Morris]