Elvis Costello album The Juliet Letters (Warner Bros.)

From the Archive: The album reminds me of being a kid and spending boring afternoons visiting overly intellectual friends of my parents when I'd rather have been doing anything else.

I've listened to the new Elvis Costello album The Juliet Letters (Warner Bros.) which he recorded with the Brodsky Quartet a lot. First I listened to it while I was trying to load my new Godfather game onto my computer and it drowned out the game's music and gun-fire sound effects, and then I listened to it while I was opening mail, writing checks and creating a flyer for my band.

In some ways the album is another attempt to merge rock and classical music though the only thing "rock" about the album is Costello's voice. Previous attempts at combining rock and classical range from ridiculous -- the Toy's "Lover's Concerto" -- to the Beatles, whose use of classical passages with the able assistance of genius producer and arranger George Martin were often brilliant to similar explorations by the Rolling Stones, the Left Banke, and the forgettable -- ELO and ELP. Protest singer-songwriter Phil Ochs also attempted this on Pleasures of the Harbor and songs on subsequent albums, ruining …