Right now, commenting on Costello or the Clash, you're not talking about just another artist, you're confronting rock'n'roll as a whole form as it stands now. They're both state-of-the-art, the living embodiments of more than a score of years and the linchpins of most probable futures. Who else is there?….

[The] Clash are real easy to write about. All that dynamite copy but genuine (if sometimes slightly forced) rude boy chic. Piece of cake.

But Costello, he's so, so tricky….

[Like] most others, I can't help but be drawn like a voyeuristic moth to the panache of the Costello Blut und Eisen [That's "blood and iron," folks—Ed.] assault on the consciousness of the Western world. And the problem is that it's often difficult to pinpoint the precise reason for the success of that campaign—leaving aside, that is, the sheer hard work that's gone into it.

For...