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(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy \/ Zoran Veselinovic)<\/p>\n
Sat 27 December 2025 21:15, UK <\/p>\n
It\u2019s a long-forgotten miniature controversy now, but when the cult comedy film\u00a0Napoleon Dynamite\u00a0came out in 2004, its producers were briefly forced to explain whether they\u2019d stolen the name for their titular character from the intellectual property of one Mr\u00a0Elvis Costello<\/a>.<\/p>\n Back in the mid-1980s, Costello, who was already operating under a permanent pseudonym after professionally changing his name from Declan MacManus, adopted another alter-ego, crediting some of his work during the Blood and Chocolate era to \u201cNapoleon Dynamite\u201d. As such, Costello was obviously quite surprised when he heard about the film using that same name almost 20 years later. The filmmakers, in turn, pleaded ignorance, saying they\u2019d based the title on an actual person they\u2019d met in Cicero, Illinois.<\/p>\n Elvis decided to accept the highly coincidental version of the story and kept the whole issue out of the courts. He might have thought twice had he known how much of a surprise box office hit Napoleon Dynamite<\/a> was going to be. Then again, Costello didn\u2019t need more reasons to be bitter about sales numbers. <\/p>\n For much of his career, going all the way back to the days of singles like 1980s \u2018Radio Radio\u2019, Costello was quite open about his disappointment with the state of mainstream popular music and the way the old taste-making channels of the \u201850s, \u201860s, and \u201870s had gradually been co-opted by corporate interests.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt comes right down through the advertising agencies,\u201d Costello told the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1989, \u201cwho get on the record companies, who get on the artists, who get onto the market research people, who get on the program directors, who get on the DJs.\u201d<\/p>\n Elvis was actually enjoying one of his more successful commercial periods in 1989, as the release of the album Spike that year, and its Paul McCartney co-written hit single \u2018Veronica\u2019, had helped end a bit of a radio slump for the 35-year-old. Nonetheless, when he looked at the artists above him on the charts, or the ones getting the high volume of rotations on MTV \u2013 Madonna, Michael Jackson, Paula Abdul, Milli Vanilli, etc \u2013 he saw a sort of pantomime of sellout culture on display.<\/p>\n \u201cMoney talks,\u201d he said. \u201cIn fact, it talks quite loudly; so loudly, you can\u2019t hear anything else. You can only hear Michelob rock, or Pepsi rock, or Pepsi pop. It\u2019s the only kind of music there is these days, to most people.\u201d<\/p>\n The depressing thing to Costello wasn\u2019t that a lot of talentless people were cashing in, but that it was actually some of the most talented artists \u2013 Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson<\/a> among them \u2013 who were willing to play the cola-selling game, despite clearly not needing the extra money.<\/p>\n \u201cThe really ironic thing is, I do firmly believe in 50 years\u2019 time nobody will remember Michael Jackson,\u201d Costello said in 1989, comparing the King of Pop to Rudy Vallee, one of the biggest stars of the 1930s whose fame later faded. \u201cHe\u2019ll be like a forgotten kind of icon because the music won\u2019t last, because it\u2019s been superseded by another image and that image is fizzy sugar water.\u201d<\/p>\n