Imperial Bedroom is the seventh studio album by the English singer-songwriter Elvis Costello, and his sixth with the Attractions—keyboardist Steve Nieve, bassist Bruce Thomas and drummer Pete Thomas (no relation). It was released on 2July 1982 through F-Beat Records in the United Kingdom and Columbia Records in the United States. Recording took place at AIR Studios in London from late 1981 to early 1982 with production handled by Geoff Emerick. Placing an emphasis on studio experimentation, the album saw the group use unusual instruments, including harpsichord, accordion and strings arranged by Nieve. Songs were rewritten constantly while Costello tinkered with the recordings, adding numerous overdubs.
Employing a variety of pop styles that embody new wave, baroque pop and art rock, Imperial Bedroom contains an ornately lush production that several commentators compared to the Beatles and Phil Spector's wall of sound. The lyrics primarily concern love and relationships, with insight into the emotional problems of individuals. Squeeze's Chris Difford co-wrote the lyrics for "Boy With a Problem". The cover artwork, a painting by Barney Bubbles, is a pastiche of Pablo Picasso's Three Musicians.
Promoted under the tagline "Masterpiece?", Imperial Bedroom reached number 6 in the UK and number 30 in the US. Its singles, "You Little Fool" and "Man Out of Time", failed to break the top 50 in the UK. Its commercial performance led Costello to take a new direction with 1983's Punch the Clock. It was greeted with massive acclaim from music critics and continues to be regarded as one of Costello's best works. Reviewers praised the songwriting, production, instrumentation and performances, although its complexity was divisive. Imperial Bedroom has appeared on several best-of lists and has been reissued multiple times with bonus tracks.
Background By 1981, Elvis Costello had released six studio albums in four years. Following the release of his country covers album Almost Blue (1981), the artist was facing diminishing popularity, particularly in America, where Trust (1981) and the Taking Liberties (1980) collection of non-album tracks had only reached the top 30; Armed Forces (1979) and Get Happy!! (1980) had both reached the top 15. He had experimented musically with Get Happy!!, Trust and Almost Blue, and began to write more introspective lyrics than the angry material of his first three albums. However, the weaker commercial performances of these projects caused him to re-evaluate himself as an artist, leading him to take a new direction for his next album.
Costello's initial vision for his seventh studio project was to record most of it live with minimal overdubs. He and his backing band the Attractions—keyboardist Steve Nieve, bassist Bruce Thomas and drummer Pete Thomas (no relation)—spent two weeks rehearsing the material at a remote college in Devon using this method, yielding an eight-track album. Costello eventually settled on using heavy studio experimentation when he found the material sounded too similar to Trust.
Recording and production
The band regrouped at London's AIR Studios in November 1981, where Costello had booked 12 weeks to record the album. He chose former Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick to produce the album, who the artist primarily used to "make his scattershot ideas a reality"; Emerick would be listed on the album sleeve as producing "from an original idea by Elvis Costello, assisted by Jon Jacobs". It was Costello's first album of original material not produced by Nick Lowe, as Costello believed his complex ideas for the record would be too much for the producer; engineer Roger Béchirian did not return either. Lowe later returned to produce 1986's Blood & Chocolate.
Emerick's primary role was to let the musicians take charge of themselves, as a way to "draw things out of the artist". Costello commented in 1995: "He was used to being thrown an incomprehensible garble of sounds and musical directions and making some sense of it. After working with the Beatles at the height of their psychedelic era, he was used to innovation." According to the author Tony Clayton-Lea, Emerick transformed the record from a "decent" eight-track demo album into an "aural tour de force". The album was recorded at the same time as Paul McCartney's Tug of War, on which Emerick simultaneously served as engineer while George Martin produced; Emerick departed for small periods to work on Tug of War—with Jacobs taking over—before resuming work with Costello. The artist later explained that he and McCartney were initially set to have non-conflicting recording schedules but the latter's was moved up, forcing Emerick to work between the two.
The new record was Costello's first where the songs were not performed live before properly recording. Costello instead drew upon brand new songs, but took some tracks from prior ventures: "Boy With a Problem" originated during the sessions for Trust, "Kid About It" from the artist's time producing Squeeze's East Side Story (1981) and "Tears Before Bedtime" during the sessions for Almost Blue. Tracks he wrote at home on the piano included "Almost Blue", "...And in Every Home" and "The Long Honeymoon". Costello asked Sammy Cahn for input in writing what would become "The Long Honeymoon" but the writer declined, which gave him the motivation to finish writing it himself, while Squeeze's Chris Difford co-wrote lyrics for "Boy With a Problem".
With an emphasis on studio experimentation, songs were constantly being rewritten in the studio; Costello took full control of the environment and concentrated the most on the sound of the recordings. Unlike previous albums, where there was a general production idea, Costello stated that the band treated each song individually. Emerick concurred, stating: "My co-production consisted of abandoning the arrangements that we had carefully worked out." Bruce Thomas recalled:
The group utilised unusual instruments, including mellotron, harpsichord, accordion, twelve-string guitar, marimba, strings and trumpets. Once Costello was satisfied with where a track was at, Emerick used his experience to shape them. However, the "idiosyncratic, piecemeal approach" led to each track being led by a specific instrument rather than displaying the Attractions as a creative unit: "Shabby Doll" showcased piano and bass, while "Beyond Belief" showcased drums, which Pete Thomas performed in one take after a heavy night of drinking; Costello stated that Pete's performance led him to rewrite the number using the backing track as a guide. A contemporary review from NMEs Richard Cook noted that the guitars were demoted to "mere colouration", with the keyboards drawing "the predominant melodic shape". Nieve also played the distorted guitar during the fade of "Tears Before Bedtime" as "a joke".
The Attractions recorded some tracks without Costello present, such as "Pidgin English" and "Boy With a Problem". Nieve arranged the majority of the string sections, including three Wagnerian French horns for "The Long Honeymoon", brass and woodwinds for "Pidgin English", "Philly-style violin" for "Town Cryer" and a full 40-piece orchestra for "...And in Every Home". Nieve conducted the orchestra himself, while Martin supervised the arrangement as it contained several allusions to his work with the Beatles; Ringo Starr visited the studio during the session.
The album's original working title was Music to Stop Clocks before being changed to This Is a Revolution of the Mind, a line from James Brown's "King Heroin" (1972). Clayton-Lea found this title "would blatantly publicize the health-conscious change of attitude". It was changed again to P.S. I Love You—a line from "The Loved Ones" and "Pidgin English"—before settling on Imperial Bedroom, the name of a track Costello wrote and recorded after the sessions wrapped. He later remarked that the chosen title had "just the right combination of splendour and sleaze to fit all the tracks on the album".
Later work After completing the basic tracks in November 1981, Costello and the Attractions debuted several Imperial Bedroom tracks live during shows throughout late-December. Reviewing the newer numbers during the New Year's Eve show, Robert Palmer of The New York Times commented: "Some of them have the harmonic and melodic sophistication of pop standards from the 1930s and 1940s." On 7January 1982, the band performed with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall in London, mostly playing older hits and songs from Almost Blue and Imperial Bedroom.
Costello continued tinkering with the Imperial Bedroom recordings alone throughout early 1982, including experimenting with vocal inflections on "Kid About It", "Human Hands" and "Pidgin English". He also overdubbed "vocal groups" onto "Tears Before Bedtime", "The Loved Ones" and "Town Cryer" as a way to contrast with the more straightforward approaches in "Almost Blue", "Man Out of Time" and "The Long Honeymoon". The biographer Graeme Thomson states that he wanted to move away from "having one feel throughout", a trait that had permeated Almost Blue. He also commented that he believed the vocal and instrumental additions set Imperial Bedroom apart from his prior works. The album was completed by March.
Music and lyrics
A departure from the artist's previous albums, Imperial Bedroom employs a variety of musical styles, characterised by commentators as new wave, baroque pop, and art rock. Reviewers also found it Beatlesque, and drew comparisons to Tin Pan Alley. AllMusic's senior editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine regarded the songs as an extension of the jazz and pop infatuations explored on Trust. In The New York Times, Palmer summarised, "the music is a sumptuous mélange of pop styles, from Beatles-baroque to Phil Spector Wall-of-Sound to torch-song intimacy." Rolling Stones Parke Puterbaugh wrote that the album contains a "potent, articulate musical kick" that relates to the Who's Tommy (1969), the Pretty Things' S.F. Sorrow (1968) and the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). The biographer David Gouldstone says the production makes the songs sound "spontaneous and immediate", while the author James E. Perone remarks that Costello's voice is higher in the mix, presenting a "clearer presentation" of his voice than any of Lowe's productions.