02.18.2021
ELVIS COSTELLO’S COMPLETE ARMED FORCES SUPER DELUXE VINYL-ONLY BOXED SET (PART II)
Audiophile Review: Mark Smotroff: February 9th 2021
In Part I of this review of Elvis Costello’s super deluxe vinyl-only boxed set The Complete Armed Forces celebrating his 1979 masterpiece, Armed Forces, we explored the new original album remaster included in this collection. In case you missed that essential introduction, please click here to jump back to it.One of my favorite things in this set is the wealth of live recordings officially released pretty much for the first time. On vinyl, Elvis really only put out one live album in 1978 to radio stations: Live At The El Mocambo. This was almost instantly pirated (extensively) but eventually saw legitimate release in the 1993 CD boxed set 2 & 1/2 Years.
The three-song seven-inch extended play (“EP”) included in Armed Forces called Live at Hollywood High, was initially expanded in the two CD edition of the album issued by Rhino Records. The single LP version in this collection mirrors the running order on that CD which is interesting since eventually the entire concert was released as its own stand alone CD in 2010. Having recently re-listened to that concert (which is great), I can see why they kept to this running order which presents the strongest and most unique performances from that concert.