Elton John Revisited

The first major influence on me, as far as music was concerned, was the music of Elton John. Elton is, and always has been, a very messy musician. Most of his albums have at least a couple of great songs. However, even at his artistic and commercial height, these great songs would share space on the same album (even the same side of the album) with awful songs; his records are notoriously uneven. This is the aspect of Elton's music that most respected music critics have always agreed on. What is more interesting, however, is that these same critics cannot agree on which songs are the good songs and which albums are the good albums. This makes Elton John intriguing.


To me, however, the best aspect of Elton John's music is the fact that he would tackle virtually every possible music genre. I credit my diverse musical tastes at this late point in my life with being exposed to the soul-type songs, reggae-type songs, disco-type songs, rock songs and the ballads found in Elton's albums. Starting with Elton John as an obsession led me to The Beatles (especially since Elton dueted live with John Lennon on the B-Side of "Philadelphia Freedom"), and from The Beatles I was able to easily expand to Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones. And once I did that, there was no stopping me. Which is why, even though the following picture should be embarrassing to me, it is not:

For my money, the best Elton John albums (from his classic period) are Honky Château, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and Rock of the Westies.

Honky Château is perhaps the most stylistically consistent of Elton's works. The hard-rocking, blusey piano dominates all of the songs, including the ballads, and there isn't a bad song on the record. In fact many of the "lesser" songs ("Amy", "Salvation" "Suzie" "I Think I'm Going to Kill Myself" and "Hercules") are as good as the two hits from the album, "Rocket Man" and "Honky Cat". Even Robert Christgau liked the record and gave it an "A-" (**** in the Red Rolling Stone Record Guide, *** in the Blue New Rolling Stone Record Guide, **** in the Rolling Stone Album Guide, and ***** in the New Rolling Stone Album Guide).

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is perhaps the most stylistically messy of all of Elton John's records ("B" in Robert Christgau's Consumer Guide, **** in the Red Rolling Stone Record Guide, **** in the Blue New Rolling Stone Record Guide, ***and 1/2 in the Rolling Stone Album Guide, and ***** in the New Rolling Stone Album Guide). And in this case, the messiness is a good thing. While there are those who have argued that this record would have been more effective as a single rather than double record (see the Robert Christgau review), it simple would be hard to condense this album down without destroying its essence. The jumping from one musical genre to another, mixing good songs with great songs, is simply the point; it is a celebration of the diversity of contemporary (1970s) popular music. And even the critics do not agree on what the good songs are; Dave Marsh, for example, would probably have left "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" and "Candle in the Wind" (his wonderful tribute to Marilyn Monroe) off of the record. Finally, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road includes some of Elton's best and biggest hits including the title track, the aforementioned songs and "Bennie and the Jets". All in all, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is perhaps the best Elton John album to purchase first (for the record, the first Elton John album I ever owned was Caribou).

Finally, there is Rock of the Westies, Elton John's hardest rocking album of his classic (1970-1976) period. Including the hits "Island Girl", "Grow Some Funk of Your Own" and "I Feel Like a Bullet (In the Gun of Robert Ford"), Elton John never again had a backing band as goo as the one featured here. And it is doubtful that Bernie Taupin ever wrote a better set of lyrics. Once again, even Robert Christgau liked this record ("A-" in Robert Christgau's Consumer Guide, **** in the Red Rolling Stone Record Guide, *** in the Blue New Rolling Stone Record Guide, *** and 1/2 in the Rolling Stone Album Guide, and **** in the New Rolling Stone Album Guide).


Finally, I must mention Elton's courage in coming out as bisexual (and later as homosexual) at the height of career even knowing that the revelation could have destroyed it. Though not gay myself, it taught me tolerance at an early age, even as I had to suffer the taunts of an obnoxious family friend one this revelation hit the media. For that reason alone, the following picture is not as embarrassing as it probably should be: