''The Boy Named If'' is the 32nd

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...

by English singer-songwriter

Elvis Costello Declan Patrick MacManus (born 25 August 1954), known professionally as Elvis Costello, is an English singer, songwriter, record producer, author and television host. According to ''Rolling Stone'', Costello "reinvigorated the literate, lyrical ...

and The Imposters. The album was released on 14 January 2022 by

EMI Records EMI Records (formerly EMI Records Ltd.) is a British multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was originally founded as a British flagship label by the music company EMI in 1972, and launched in January 1973 as the succes ...

and

Capitol Records Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007), and simply known as Capitol, is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-base ...

. ''The Boy Named If'' received critical acclaim and was nominated for

Best Rock Album The Grammy Award for Best Rock Album is an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for quality albums in the rock music genre. Honors in sever ...

at the

65th Annual Grammy Awards The 65th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony was held at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on February 5, 2023. It recognized the best recordings, compositions, and artists of the eligibility year – October 1, 2021 to September 30, 2022 – as de ...

Content

The album's first single, "Magnificent Hurt" was released on October 27, 2021.

Stereogum ''Stereogum'' is a daily Internet publication that focuses on music news, reviews, interviews, and commentary. The site was created in January 2002 by Scott Lapatine. ''Stereogum'' was one of the first MP3 blogs and has received several awar ...

's Tom Breihan described the track as a "a straight-up rocker" and compared it to his late 70s work.

Critical reception

''The Boy Named If'' received positive reviews from critics. At

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from critics, the album received an average score of 83, which indicates "universal acclaim", based on 14 reviews.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine Stephen Thomas Erlewine (; born June 18, 1973) is an American music critic and former senior editor for the online music database AllMusic. He is the author of multiple artist biographies and record reviews for AllMusic, as well as a freelance ...

wrote that ''The Boy Named If'' was Costello's "purest doses of

rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock-n-roll, and rock 'n' roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from African ...

since maybe ''

Blood & Chocolate ''Blood & Chocolate'' is the eleventh studio album by the English singer-songwriter Elvis Costello, and his ninth album with the Attractions—keyboardist Steve Nieve, bassist Bruce Thomas and drummer Pete Thomas (no relation). It was release ...

'' (1986)".

Track listing

Personnel

Musicians *

– vocals, guitar (all tracks); piano (6) *

Davey Faragher David Allen "Davey" Faragher (born August 18, 1957) is an American bass guitarist from Redlands, California. Faragher's career took off and received critical notice as a founding member of the nineties band Cracker, and his subsequent work wit ...

– additional vocals, bass (all tracks);

upright bass The double bass (), also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched string instrument, chordophone in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding rare additions ...

(12) * Pete Thomas – drums, percussion *

Steve Nieve Steve Nieve ( "naïve"; born Stephen John Nason, 21 February 1958) is an English musician and composer. In a career spanning more than 40 years, Nieve has been a member of Elvis Costello's backing bands the Attractions and the Imposters, as w ...

– keyboards, piano *

Sebastian Krys Sebastian Krys (born November 11, 1970) is an Argentine-born American audio engineer, record producer and radio personality. A six-time Grammy and 13-time Latin Grammy winner, Krys has worked with many Spanish language pop and rock artists such as ...

– background vocals (3, 4) * Nicole Atkins – vocals (8) Technical * Elvis Costello –

production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stat ...

* Sebastian Krys – production, mixing,

engineering Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to Problem solving#Engineering, solve problems within technology, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve Systems engineering, s ...

* Brian Lucey – mastering * Daniel Galindo – engineering * Ron Taylor – engineering * Dex Green – recording (8)

Charts

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Boy Named If, The 2022 albums Elvis Costello albums EMI Records albums Capitol Records albums