When King of America became Rhino's penultimate Elvis Costello reissue in 2005, a hype sticker cheekily hailed it as "the album that fans, critics and Elvis Costello all agree on." Perhaps that's why it'll be the next of his classic albums to receive a deluxe box set this fall.

King of America and Other Realms, available November 1, follows the super deluxe, vinyl-and-digital-only The Complete Armed Forces box; however, this one's primarily available on CD - six of 'em, in total. The remastered 1986 album is paired with a disc of demos and outtakes (six of them previously unreleased), a previously unissued show recorded in 1987 at Royal Albert Hall in London, and three discs of potpourri showcasing the effect of King of America on subsequent material, including various dabblings in American styles, in American studios, with American musicians. The 12" x 11.5" package, produced by Costello and Steve Berkowitz, includes 57 pages of liner notes, including a lengthy essay by Costello on the making of the album plus rare and unseen photos. (A 2CD cut-down will be issued as well. For LP fans, the remastered original album will be pressed on 140-gram black vinyl, with a "gold nugget" variant exclusive to Costello's official web store, uDiscover Music and The Sound of Vinyl.

Costello's 10th studio album was a marked departure from his last two records: Punch the Clock (1983) and Goodbye Cruel World (1984) were slick pop affairs overseen by producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley. While Punch yielded Costello's first U.S. Top 40 hit in "Every Day I Write the Book," Costello himself later opened his liner notes to the mid-'90s reissue of Goodbye with the exhortation "Congratulations! You've just purchased our worst album." Undaunted, the singer/songwriter embarked on a tour with American musician T-Bone Burnett under the moniker "The Coward Brothers," releasing a single, "The People's Limousine," in 1985. (Both sides of the single bookend the box's second disc, "Le Roi Sans Sabots - Demos, Outtakes & Other Realms.")

The new songs he began to write in the wake of The Coward Brothers' tour were much more personal than previous albums, and duly inspired by American genres and styles. ("I  started thinking more about the songs and much less about the records," he'd later tell Melody Maker. "It became clear to me that I had to write very, very simple songs.") Though Costello was no stranger to genre exploration, experimenting with soul on Get Happy!! (1980) and country on Almost Blue (1981), the eventual sessions for King of America took the idea a step further, working in Los Angeles with Burnett as producer and a rotating cast of players billed on the final album as "The Confederates." This collective included Elvis Presley's longtime touring band (guitarist James Burton, bassist Jerry Scheff and drummer Ronnie Tutt), plus keyboardist Mitchell Froom, drummers Mickey Curry and Jim Keltner, multi-instrumentalist T-Bone Wolk, jazz bassist Ray Brown. (The Attractions - keyboardist Steve Nieve, bassist Bruce Thomas and drummer Pete Thomas - appeared on the album's penultimate track, "Suit of Lights"; sessions with the band were by all accounts tense, compared to the harmonious Confederates material.)

Despite the acclaim from critics and fans (the album came in second on the Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics' poll for the year, behind Paul Simon's Graceland), King of America became Costello's first album since debut My Aim is True to miss the U.K. Top 10. The album's sole worldwide single, a cover of Nina Simone's "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," was a minor U.K. Top 40 hit, though album cuts "Brilliant Mistake" and "Indoor Fireworks" remain among the most-beloved (and most-played) selections from the album. Costello and The Attractions quickly recorded a new album, Blood & Chocolate, for release later that year; he would soon split with them, retaining Nieve as a sideman for years before a brief mid-'90s reunion. (Costello has since split with bassist Thomas, who was replaced by Davey Faragher for Costello's ongoing backing band The Imposters.)

While Rhino's double-disc reissue of King of America included a spate of solo demos for the album, live material from an EP included with the album's CD reissue in the mid-'90s and The Coward Brothers' material, King of America and Other Realms does not replicate all that material. The bonus disc of demos and outtakes includes that Coward Brothers single, two original B-side recordings, seven tracks from the Rhino reissue, and six unheard outtakes including early versions of "Brilliant Mistake," "Blue Chair" and "Next Time Round," the latter two of which appeared on Blood & Chocolate.

The set's third disc is a never-before-released 1987 show, newly mixed from multi-track tapes and recorded at Royal Albert Hall, part of a six-night run to promote the album. This fifth date in the stand was performed with a unique faction of The Confederates: Burton on guitar, Scheff on bass, Keltner on drums, Benmont Tench of Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers on keyboards, and Wolk on accordion and mandolin. Beyond King of America-era originals, Costello again turns to favorite American songwriters for the set, from Waylon Jennings ("Only Daddy That'll Walk the Line") and Buddy Holly ("True Love Ways") to Ray Charles ("What Would I Do Without You").

Finally, the box's last three discs traces the long tail of King of America on Costello's future American genre exercises, offering more tracks recorded in studios from Hollywood to Nashville and beyond. Albums sampled here include The Delivery Man (2004), the Allen Toussaint collaboration The River in Reverse (2006) and the country excursions Secret, Profane & Sugarcane (2009) and National Ransom (2010). This trio of discs isn't solely album cuts, however, sprinkling in B-sides and uncompiled cuts as well as a dozen unreleased or new-to-CD tracks, from live excursions (selections from a 2004 date in Memphis with The Imposters and Costello's Montreal Jazz Festival set with Toussaint in 2006) to soundtrack rarities ("The Greatest Love," a Toussaint cover heard in the HBO series Treme and released here for the first time) and even a handful of new recordings, including new arrangements of "Indoor Fireworks" and "Brilliant Mistake."

King of America and Other Realms, in all its formats, is available November 1 from UMe. Pre-order links are below; as Amazon affiliates, we earn from qualifying purchases.

King of America and Other Realms (UMe, 2024)

6CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
140-gram Black LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
140-gram Gold Nugget LP: Official Store / uDiscover Music / The Sound of Vinyl

* previously unreleased
** previously unreleased on CD
# included on 2CD edition

Disc 1: Original album (2024 remaster) (released as F-Beat ZL 70496 (U.K.)/Columbia FC 40173 (U.S.), 1986)

1. Brilliant Mistake
2. Lovable
3. Our Little Angel
4. Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood
5. Glitter Gulch
6. Indoor Fireworks
7. Little Palaces
8. I'll Wear It Proudly
9. American Without Tears
10. Eisenhower Blues
11. Poisoned Rose
12. The Big Light
13. Jack of All Parades
14. Suit of Lights
15. Sleep of the Just

Disc 2: Le Roi Sans Sabots - Demos, Outtakes & Other Realms

1. The People's Limousine - The Coward Brothers #
2. Next Time Round *
3. Deportee *
4. Brilliant Mistake (First Draft) *
5. Suffering Face #
6. Poisoned Rose
7. Jack of All Parades
8. Sleep of the Just *
9. Blue Chair *
10. I Hope You're Happy Now
11. I'll Wear It Proudly
12. Indoor Fireworks
13. Having It All
14. Shoes Without Heels *
15. King of Confidence
16. They'll Never Take Her Love From Me - The Coward Brothers
17. American Without Tears No. 2 (Twilight Version)

Tracks 1 and 16 released as Imp Records U.K. single IMP 006, 1985
Track 5 and 15 released on Blood and Chocolate expanded edition - Demon DPAM 11 (U.K.)/Rykodisc RCD 20281 (U.S.), 1995
Track 6-7 and 11-13 released on Blood and Chocolate deluxe edition - Edsel MANUS 111 (U.K.)/Rhino R2 74642 (U.S.), 2005
Track 10 released on "I Want You" U.K. single - Imp Records IMP 008, 1986
Track 17 released on "Blue Chair" U.K. single - Demon D 1047, 1987

Disc 3: Kings of America - Elvis Costello & The Confederates Live at The Royal Albert Hall, London, England - 1/27/1987 *

1. The Big Light
2. Only Daddy That'll Walk the Line #
3. Our Little Angel
4. It Tears Me Up
5. I'll Wear It Proudly
6. Lovable
7. Riverboat #
8. Sally Sue Brown/36-22-36
9. American Without Tears #
10. Brilliant Mistake
11. What Would I Do Without You
12. Your Mind is on Vacation/Your Funeral, My Trial
13. Pouring Water on a Drowning Man
14. Payday
15. That's How You Got Killed Before
16. Sleep of the Just
17. True Love Ways

Disc 4: Il Principe di New Orleans e Le Marchese del Mississippi

1. There's a Story in Your Voice (with Lucinda Williams) #
2. Country Darkness #
3. The Delivery Man
4. Nothing Clings Like Ivy
5. Heart Shaped Bruise (Live at The Hi-Tone, Memphis, TN - 9/17/2004) - Elvis Costello & The Imposters with Emmylou Harris **
6. Bedlam (Live at Montreal Jazz Festival - 7/23/2006) - Elvis Costello & Allan Toussaint **
7. Either Side of the Same Town
8. Wonder Woman - Elvis Costello & Allan Toussaint #
9. In Another Room #
10. The Monkey (Rehearsal with Dave Bartholomew & The Dirty Dozen Brass Band) *
11. Monkey to Man
12. Deep Dark Truthful Mirror
13. Clown Strike (Live at Montreal Jazz Festival - 7/23/2006) - Elvis Costello & Allan Toussaint **
14. Who's Gonna Help Brother Get Further? - Elvis Costello & Allan Toussaint
15. The River in Reverse - Elvis Costello & Allan Toussaint
16. The Greatest Love (from Treme) *
17. Ascension Day - Elvis Costello & Allan Toussaint

Tracks 1-4, 7 and 11 released on The Delivery Man - Lost Highway B0002593-02, 2004
Track 5 released on Club Date: Live in Memphis DVD - Eagle Vision EV 30112-9, 2005
Tracks 6 and 13 released on Hot As a Pistol Keen As a Blade DVD - Hip-O B0008022-09, 2008
Tracks 8, 14-15 and 17 released on The River in Reverse - Verve Forecast B000666-02, 2006
Track 9 released on Delta-Verité (The Clarksdale Sessions) - Lost Highway B0003905-01, 2005
Track 12 released on Spike - Warner Bros. 25848, 1989

Disc 5: El Príncipe del Purgatorio

1. Stations of the Cross
2. Quick Like a Flash *
3. Sulphur to Sugarcane #
4. Red Cotton
5. Lost on the River #12 - The New Basement Tapes
6. A Slow Drag with Josephine
7. I Felt the Chill
8. Complicated Shadows (Cashbox Version) - Elvis Costello & The Attractions
9. She's Pulling Out the Pin
10. Condemned Man (Demo) *
11. Hidden Shame
12. Red Wicked Wine (with Dr. Ralph Stanley)
13. The Scarlet Tide - with Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings (Live at the Grand Ole Opry) *
14. One Bell Ringing
15. Bullets for the New Born King
16. All These Strangers
17. For More Tears (Demo) *
18. You Hung the Moon

Tracks 1, 6, 14-16 and 18 released on National Ransom - Hear Music HRM-32142-02, 2010
Tracks 3-4, 7 and 11 released on Secret, Profane & Sugarcane - Hear Music HRM-31280-02, 2009
Track 5 released on Lost on the River - Harvest 2547143815, 2014
Track 8 released on "The Other End of the Telescope" U.K. CD single - Warner Bros. WO365CD, 1996
Track 9 released on The Delivery Man deluxe edition - Lost Highway B0004001-12, 2004
Track 12 released on Man of Constant Sorrow - Red River Entertainment RRE-CD161, 2015

Disc 6: Der Herzog des Rampenlight

1. Stella Hurt - Elvis Costello & The Imposters
2. Mr. Feathers - Elvis Costello & The Imposters
3. Under Lime - Elvis Costello & The Imposters
4. Jimmie Standing in the Rain #
5. Down Among the Wines and Spirits
6. Dr. Watson, I Presume
7. Church Underground (Demo) *
8. A Voice in the Dark
9. April 5th (with Rosanne Cash & Kris Kristofferson) #
10. Indoor Fireworks (Memphis Magnetic Version) *
11. That's Not The Part of Him You're Leaving (with Larkin Poe) *
12. Brilliant Mistake/Boulevard of Broken Dreams (Cape Fear Version) *
13. That Day is Done (with The Fairfield Four)

Tracks 1-2 released on Momofuku - Lost Highway B0011109-02, 2008
Track 3 released on Look Now - Concord CRE00750, 2018
Tracks 4, 6 and 8 released on National Ransom - Hear Music HRM-32142-02, 2010
Track 5 released on Secret, Profane & Sugarcane - Hear Music HRM-31280-02, 2009
Track 9 released on Unfaithful Music & Soundtrack Album - UMe B0023881-02, 2015
Track 13 released on I Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray - Warner Bros. 46698, 1997