Declan Patrick MacManus, better known by his stage name, Elvis Costello, is a popular British musician, singer, and songwriter of Irish ancestry. Costello was an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s, and later became associated with the punk rock and new wave musical genres, before establishing himself as a unique and original voice in the 1980s. His output has been diverse: One critic has written that 'Costello, the pop encyclopedia, can reinvent the past in his own image'.