The Pantagraph from Bloomington, Illinois • Page 52

Music v. ft, ti Lv rest of the world assumes Los Angeles is loaded with. Her expensive car completed the image. Was the that the real Kim Carnes? "Oh, of course not," she said, hands on hips in mock indignation. "The real me is the jeans-and-old-sweatshlrt type." The Mercedes, she explained, is one of the few luxuries she has allowed herself.

Carnes has not even bought a mansion. She, her 7-year-old son and her husband, Dave Ellingson, who composes with her and plays in her band, still live in the same old house in suburban Sherman Oaks. "I'm not like one of those glittery stars," she said in the hotel cocktail lounge shortly after ordering the only drink she ever orders a wine spritzer. Then she added rapturously, "I do love that car! And I don't feel guilty about having it." However, Carnes vowed that she would never succumb to the evils of stardom. "I could never fall into that star trap," she said.

"When you have a slump and everybody does and you start going down, what do you have then? a big ol' ego and no real outlet for it. I keep my life simple. I have a Mercedes and that's all." CARNES LOOKS at the car as a reward for all the years she was singing and composing and getting little attention. Her big break came in 1978 when Kenny Rogers, who worked with her and her husband in the New Christy Minstrels, assigned the couple to write what turned out to be his "Gideon" album. Her duet single with Rogers, "Don't Fall in Love With a Dreamer," from that album was her first hit.

The promising singer became a genuine star last year with "Bette Davis Eyes," the marvelously arranged, atmospheric single from her million-selling "Mistaken Identity" album. That single won most of the major awards including the Grammy for best single of the year. While making her new album, "Voyeur," which has just been released, Carnes claimed she did not feel any pressure to come up with another monster hit like "Bette Davis Eyes." "Having a single that big is something that doesn't even happen to superstars very often," she explained. "I consider myself lucky that I had one that big. The odds are against it happening again.

I just want regular hit singles. None of them has to be the biggest single of the year. The only pressure I felt on this album was to make a good album. That's all." Kim Carries wants to keep her life simple By DENNIS HUNT The Los Angeles Times HOLLYWOOD At 2 a.m. In a recording studio near here about a month ago, singer-songwriter Kim Carries, looking remarkably fresh after a hard night's work, was trying to decide the sequence of songs on her new album.

The single had already been chosen a sophisticated rocker called "Voyeur" and so had the album title, also "Voyeur." The songs were all recorded too. All that remained was to put them in some smooth-flowing order. There were no windows in the studio lounge or the control room, so you could not tell it was the middle of the night. It felt like midday. The musicians and technicians, obviously all night people, were all in a merry mood, eating pizza and drinking wine while waiting for Carries to play the songs in a sequence she had chosen.

Carnes claimed her nerves were frayed after working so long that day, but you certainly could not tell by looking at her. She is one of those perpetually cheery people who does not often show jitters or tension. In jeans and sweatshirt, with her long blonde hair in slight disarray, the petite singer looked totally relaxed. WHEN THE TAPE was ready everyone adjourned to the control room. Though everyone else seemed chipper, producer Val Garay, who, with Carnes, makes the final decision on sequencing, was valiantly trying to stay awake.

As the songs rolled by, Carnes grew more and more ecstatic. It was hard not to respond positively to this collection of songs, which are as thunderous as you can get in the pop-rock genre without crossing the line into hard rock. Nearly all the songs, including "Looker," "Merc Man" and "Thrill of the Grill," are lusty rockers, their earthiness enhanced by Carnes' gravely, Rod Stewartlike vocals. The lone ballad, the stark "Breaking Away Kim Carnes From Sanity," is one of the best tunes she has ever recorded. It is a very good album and you could tell by her glee during the playback that Carnes is quite proud of it.

But no decisions about sequencing were made that night. Garay did not hear enough of the tape. Early in Side Two, he fell asleep at the control board. LATE ONE recent afternoon, Carnes pulled up in front of the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles in her Mercedes convertible. This was a different Kim Carnes, the public Kim Carnes.

This, she said, was a day she felt like looking elegant. Tanned and trim, wearing big sunglasses and a chic outfit, she looked like one of those glamorous blondes the Melodic album marks a new Elvis Costello the most enigmatic and volatile figures in rock. Alarmed by seeing the pop machinery strip the creativity from many of his own favorite artists, the Englishman challenged pop conventions at every turn avoiding interviews, refusing to court radio stations and frequently showing little regard for his audience. It wasn't uncommon for him to walk off stage after only 40 minutes during his early tours. The most dramatic of the Costello explosions occurred in 1979 when the singer got into a drunken dispute with Bonnie Bramlett and other rock musicians in a Columbus, Ohio, bar.

Trying to offend their sensibilities so they'd leave the bar, Costello later said, he made a racial slur against Ray Charles. After the other musicians reported the incident to the press, the tale was widely distributed, causing many rock fans to brand Costello a racist. Costello was so shaken by the reaction that he broke his press silence to meet with reporters in New York to give his side of the story and apologize for the misunderstanding. He then resumed the media blackout. Asked why he is doing interviews again, he said: "I think it's just time.

I've been making records for five years now, and certain things probably need some explanation. In the past, I was never very keen to explain things as we went along because I felt it would diminish the impact if we constantly amended what was on the records. Plus, we were working at such a furious pace a lot of the time that I didn't think my opinions might be all that considered." Despite the compassion and humor in his early albums, the combination of musical fury, brusque manner and bitting themes about romantic betrayal and false allegiance caused Costello to be mistakenly lumped with rock's punk contingent. Costello made a musical break from the early starkness with the "Get Happy" album in 1980, substituting a lighter, Memphis feel. He made additional steps away from the aggressive tone of the early LPs with 1981's "Trust" and, especially, the all-country "Almost Blue." In his live shows, too, Costello has become far less combative on stage, frequently thanking the audience and even (gulp) smiling.

Costello's latest musical move comes in the new "Imperial Bedroom." Rather than emphasize the big beat, Costello and producer Geoff -Emerick (a former Beatles studio aide) focus on vocal- nuances and stylish production touches that are reminiscent in places of the Beatles' "White Album." Without sacrificing the tension of most Costello recordings, the music this time centers on many of the sophisticated elements of pre-rock pop. And the lyrics contain enough classy and inventive rhymes to suggest that Declan McManus (Costello's real name) might have adopted the stage name "Cole" (as in Porter) Jf, he had, lived in an earlier pop era. PREVIEW 25 ROBERT HILBURN The Los Angeles Times SANTA CRUZ, Calif. Elvis Costello, arguably the most arresting and gifted rock songwriter of recent years, wants to discard his angry-young-man image. That's one reason he's doing interviews for the first time in four years and why he has adopted a softer, more melodic tone in his new, pop-flavored "Imperial Bedroom" album.

Sitting in a hotel room here last week on the eve of a U.S. tour, Costello acknowledged that the controversial image initially helped him attract attention, but he feels it eventually threatened to smother him, emotionally and creatively. "I think I was definitely beginning to lose control of things," Costello, 27, said. "It's too personal to go into all of it, but I will say I made several wrong turns in succession around the time of the 'Armed Forces' album. I found myself getting farther and farther from what I started out to be and moving toward all the things I hated." Saturday, Aug.

21, 1982 sJ i I I Elvis Costello In the five years since the release of his first album, Costello has established himself as one of.