Imperial Bedroom

With his seventh album, IMPERIAL BEDROOM, Elvis Costello was hailed as being more than just a New Wave rocker. With intricate, Beatlesque arrangements and unusual, sophisticated song structures, Costello emerged as full-blown master craftsman. Some of the more excitable critics of the day declared him a modern Cole Porter. Indeed, it's possible to imagine some 1940s torch singer crooning the slinky "The Long Honeymoon" or the mournful "Kid About It," but the free-associative, polyrhythmic likes of "Beyond Belief" and "Shabby Doll" had never been heard anywhere in pop music before.
Undeniably one of Costello's finest hours as a tunesmith, IMPERIAL BEDROOM shows several sides of his musical personality. He's roots-conscious enough to pen a perfect jazz ballad ("Almost Blue," later covered by Chet Baker), but adventurous enough to push the lyrical and harmonic envelope even farther than on his rococo masterpiece, ARMED FORCES.