Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Anthony Fisher. Anthony is the politics editor for Insider and Business Insider and a producer/co-conspirator for The Fifth Column. You can find him on Twitter at @anthonyLfisher.

This week the gang covers the latter-day adventures of Declan Patrick (Aloysius) MacManus, better known to the world as Elvis Costello. This is the era, starting with 1986’s King Of America, where Costello conspicuously lost the ability to edit himself, putting out not only a series of extremely lengthy albums but a panoply of side-projects and ambitious cross-genre collaborations taking in everything from string-quartet chamber music to jazz to hip-hop. But for all the ostentatious self-indulgence of logorrhea of EC’s later career it’s impossible to argue with the results given that many of these records represent his finest work, particularly King Of America, Blood And Chocolate, Brutal Youth, All This Useless Beauty, and The Delivery Man. Have you ever been looking for a Virgil to guide you through the dense morass of Elvis’ later career? You’ll find three of them here on this episode! Ever wondered why you should bother with albums like the neo-classical The Juliet Letters or (the ridiculously titled) Momofuku? All is explained. Curious as to the best music from Costello’s mature period? You will be absolutely stunned by how much fantastic music he put out from 1986 onwards, and still is to the present day. Come join us at the other end of the telescope as we finish our tribute to one of the finest songwriters of the past 50 years.

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