ABSTRACT

This chapter examines Costello's work during the 1980s, attending especially to the dimensions familiar to sociologists, of race, class and gender, as well as to the particularities of the music industry of the time. Both of these readings of Costello will be explored below, but we can first note that the term 'postmodernism' is contested or 'polyvalent'; and so we outline three relevant connotations. Costello had no such identity constrictions in his family of origin. The other identity adopted was for some of the artwork Costello produced himself for his record sleeves. Costello was struggling with what all ambitious artists, since the 1920s, had attempted: he was simply selling his image in the market place. Probably the most tempting empirical indication that Costello was a post modern artist is the character of his work. Consciously or not Costello also points up the fragility of structures.