Unlikely Brilliance or Bizarre Mash-up: Elvis Costello and Questlove Collaborate on "Wise Up Ghost"

 

Over the last few decades, there have been many cross-genre collaborations between musicians that have ranged from genuinely fantastic to downright strange. One of the most anticipated September album releases is also a collaborative effort between rock and roll legend Elvis Costello and hip-hop heavyweight Ahmir ‘Questlove’ Thompson, the drummer and leader of the Roots.

The two performers are incredibly famous within their own musical genres, and neither of them are strangers to collaborations on records. Their own sounds have evolved and developed into deeply meaningful, technically remarkable records over the years, so perhaps their joining forces is simply the stuff of destiny. Costello and Questlove reportedly started collaborating on their album Wise Up Ghost after meeting on the set of Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, where the Roots perform. The record was completed after a year’s worth of experimental sessions, and now we must wait in anticipation for the album’s release on the 17^th. 

What do the critics have to say? Ann Powers for NPR says “the album sounds like the best of Costello's stuff and like nothing he's done before. Working with musicians who've figured out how to apply hip-hop principles to a band dynamic, Costello locates himself within that framework to produce some of the most focused and visionary work of his later career.” The New York Times says that the album “underlines some of Mr. Costello’s bleakest imagery with stark, ominous funk,” and calls both Costello and Questlove “inveterate collaborators and musical encyclopedias.” One thing that critics can certainly agree on is that this album is technically remarkable, and that heavy, sinister themes are carried along by the sensual funk that Questlove employs. 

Costello and Thompson are now among the hordes of other seemingly unlikely musical collaborators like Coldplay and Rihanna, or Lou Reed and Metallica, just to name a few. When two seriously talented musicians join forces, the result has to be phenomenal, right? We’ll soon find out when Wise Up Ghost is released later this month.  

Image: milo43 via Instagram
Image: questlove via Instagram